Boot Camp: Installing Windows 7 Frequently Asked Questions

More details about some of the topics discussed in this article can be found at www.apple.com/support/bootcamp.

What do I need to install Windows 7?

Windows 7 requires OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard or later, and the Boot Camp 3.1 Update. For a list of supported Mac and System Requirements, see Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems.

What types of Windows 7 installations are supported?

Both new installs and upgrade installs are supported.

How do I install Windows 7?

If you are installing Windows 7 using Boot Camp with:

Do all Intel-based Macs support Windows 7?

All Intel-based Macs support Windows 7 using Boot Camp 3.1 except these:

iMac (17-inch, Early 2006)iMac (17-inch, Late 2006)iMac (20-inch, Early 2006)iMac (20-inch, Late 2006)MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2006)MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2006)MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2006)MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2006)Mac Pro (Mid 2006, Intel Xeon Dual-core 2.66GHz or 3GHz)

Where can I get the Windows Support Software (Windows drivers)?

Use the Boot Camp Assistant (see the Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide for more information). Or, you can download them here.

How do I use the Support Software I downloaded from the web page?

The download file is a .zip file. Double click it to uncompress it.Copy the Support Software to the root level of a USB flash or hard drive that is formatted with the FAT file system (see question below for steps on how to format). Attach the hard drive to the USB port of your Mac after Windows 8 is installed.  Double-click the Boot Camp folder, then locate and double click the "setup.exe" file.  Installation of the drivers can take a few minutes. Don't interrupt the installation process. A completion dialog box will appear when everything is installed. Click Finish when the dialog appears.When your system restarts your Windows 8 installation is done.

How do I format USB media to the FAT file system?

You can use Disk Utility to format a disk to use with a Windows computer.

WARNING: Formatting a disk erases all the files on it. Copy any files you want to save to another disk before formatting the disk.

Open Disk Utility.Select the disk you want to format for use with Windows computers.Click Erase, and choose one of the following from the Format pop-up menu:
If the size of the disk is 32 GB or less, choose MS-DOS (FAT).If the size of the disk is over 32 GB, choose ExFAT.Type a name for the disk. The name’s maximum length is 11 characters.Click the Erase button, and then click Erase again.

A "code: 0x80070005" alert appears when upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7.  How do I fix it?

This happens when the Windows 7 installer is attempting to write to a read-only Macintosh volume. See this article.

My iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) or iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010) displays a black screen during installation of Microsoft Windows 7 using the Boot Camp Assistant.  How do I fix it?

The Windows 7 installer does not include required graphics or Bluetooth drivers for this computer.  To obtain the necessary drivers and resolve the issue, see this article.

A blue screen appears when installing Windows 7 on my iMac computer with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 or 7600 GT, or Mac Pro with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or Quadro FX 4500 graphics cards.  How do I fix it?

Update your graphics card firmware. See this article for more information.

Are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 supported?

On most Mac models, yes.  Some Macs support the 32 or 64 bit version only.  See Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems for more information.

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