Install Windows 7 on Mac using Boot Camp

Want to install Windows 7 on your Mac machine using Boot Camp? Here is a detailed guide and walkthrough on how to install Windows 7 on Mac using Boot Camp Assistant. This guide will help you dual boot your Mac with Windows 7 using Boot Camp. Boot Camp Assistant prepares you Mac machine for Windows. It creates a partition for Windows and starts the Windows installer. Having a Windows system in a Mac, offers you the advantage of using the two operating systems. There are some cases that the application you want to use can only be run in Windows. In this case, learning how to install Windows 7 on Mac using Boot Camp will help you solve that problem.

Well sometimes Mac users have a problem that they need to solve in Windows machine. For me, it’s playing a computer game, called Dota 2. I recently got an invite on it and want to try it out. The game only is supported on Windows platform so I need a Windows computer. However my PC which is in Windows 7 is unavailable for me to use this time, so one way to solve this is to use Mac OS X v10.7 Lion, Mac Mini machine. I can also use virtualization sofwares like VMWare Fusion in installing Windows 7 on Mac, however I do not want that. What I want is to install Windows 7 directly on Mac. With this I decided that dual-booting Mac with Windows 7 would help me more. Below are the steps on how to install Window 7 on Mac using Boot Camp.

Requirements:

• Mac OS X v10.7 Lion or Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
• Boot Camp 3.1
• Internet connection for your Mac in downloading support software files

Requirements in installing Windows 7 using installation disc:

- Built-in optical disc drive or external optical drive
- Windows 7 CD/DVD installer (Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate)
- Blank CD or DVD, or external drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT)

Requirements in installing Windows 7 using USB flash drive:

- ISO image of Windows 7 (Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate)
- USB flash drive with 4GB capacity or more

Here is a screenshot of my Mac OS X version.

Before you begin installing Windows 7 on you Mac or just starting to use Boot Camp Assistant, make sure you have backed up important information on your machine. Having backups before making critical changes in your computer is advised.

Step by Step Guide on How to Install Windows 7 on Mac using Boot Camp Assistant:

- Open Boot Camp Assistant located in Applications/Utilities Folder

- Click Continue button in Boot Camp Assistant

- Select “Download the Windows support software for this Mac“, click Continue (Optionally, you can can always download the Windows support sofware and copy a Windows 7 ISO image to a USB drive)

- Wait till Downloading Windows support software is complete (Download may take some time, take a break for a while. ie. watch movies, surf the internet, do Facebook, or try our techie game. )

- Proceed by burning a copy to CD or DVD, or saving the Windows Support Software to an external disk (Since I do not have a CD or DVD, I’ll be doing the external disk method. I’ve formatted by USB drive to MS-DOS (FAT) using the Disk Utility as advised.)

- Let Boot Camp Assistant save the Windows Support Software and copy the files

- Create a partition for Windows, then click Partition button. (Partition size depends on how often you will use Windows. I recommend 40GB or higher in creating a partition for Windows as you do not want having not enough disk space popping up, and since I’ll be using the Windows 7 more, I’ll set it to 80GB)

- Wait for Boot Camp Assistant to finish partitioning the disk

- Insert your Windows installer and start the Windows installation by clicking the Start Installation button (If you are using a Windows 7 bootable USB installer like me, just let the “installer disc could not be found” error appear and proceed below)

- (Skip this step if you are not using a Windows USB installer) Choose any of the steps below:

• From the System Settings, choose the newly created BOOTCAMP partition as a startup disk, and manually restart your Mac
• Restart your Mac and hold down the Option button at boot and select the BOOTCAMP partition
• Insert your Windows USB Bootable USB drive, then restart your Mac, and press “C“. (You’ll be seeing a completely gray screen, just wait until your USB drive loads)

All the steps above are workaround if you have no Windows 7 CD or DVD installer and only have the Windows 7 bootable USB installer.

- Proceed in installing Windows 7.

- From the Windows 7 installation screen, accept the license agreement

- Select Custom (advanced) installation

- Choose the BOOTCAMP partition

- Click on Drive options (advanced), then select Format, click OK

- Proceed with the installation by clicking the Next button

- Windows 7 will continue to install, just wait until the Windows installer finish the necessary steps. Note that your Mac computer may restart several times during the installation.

- After Windows 7 installation is complete, you will have to enter some information like User Name and Computer Name, procced in doing so.

Windows 7 is now running in your Mac. But before the celebration, do the steps above to fully complete the installation.

- Insert your CD/DVD or USB drive that contains the Windows Support Software files

- Install the Windows Support by running the setup.exe found in the WindowsSupport folder. Doing the step above will run the Boot Camp installer.

- Proceed with the install, by clicking Next

- Accept the Boot Camp license agreement, and hit Next

- Select the Apple Software Update for Windows feature, and click Install (This will install the Apple Software Update, which contains the necessary files and drivers for your newly installed Windows in your Mac)

- Once Boot Camp installer is completed, click Finish to quit the installer.

- Restart your system to make the configuration changes made by Boot Camp Services to take effect.

Finished product – screenshot of Windows 7 installed on a Mac

Congratulations! Windows 7 is now completely installed in your Mac machine. You have successfully dual boot Mac and Windows. You may now get to use Windows 7 together with your Mac OS X. Boot Camp Assistant provides us with great help in partitioning the Macintosh HD, adding a Windows partition in the Mac machine. It prepared our Mac for the Windows 7 installation. For now, test your Windows 7 OS and see if you can find bugs or problems. Try installing application and programs in it, or just like me, I will be playing games with it. Having Windows and Mac on the same machine truly rocks, as you can just switch if you needed the other OS to load. Hope you enjoy this guide on how to install Windows 7 on Mac using Boot Camp.

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