Installing windows 7 on mac from an image. Three ways to install Windows on Mac

In the last few years, laptops and Apple computers have become very popular (phones and tablet computers, of course, are no less popular, but we’re not talking about them now). But having bought an Apple computer or laptop, some people are faced with the fact that they absolutely cannot work on the new Mac OS operating system or they simply need Windows in addition to this operating system. And here many people have a question - How to install Windows on a Mac computer/laptop? You will find out the answer to this question if you read the article.

The easiest and most affordable way Windows installations on a Mac, this is to use the Boot Camp program. Boot Camp is a special application from Apple for installing WindowsXP/Windows7 by dividing the hard drive into 2 partitions, one for each system. Switching from one system to another is possible only by restarting the computer.

In order to install Windows on your Mac, you will need:

1 MacBook Rro/ MacBook Air/ IMac with Mac OS installed;

2 USB drive (flash drive (at least 4 Gb) or external hard drive)/ DVD drive (transfer all information from a USB drive (flash drive or external hard drive), since in the future everything on the drive will be deleted after formatting);

3 Disk with the Windows7 operating system or its ISO image;

4 This article and about an hour of free time.

Attention!!! If you are going to install Windows using a USB flash drive on a late 2013 and newer Mac (they use all USB 3.0 ports), you need to use a USB 3.0 flash drive. Otherwise, when installing Windows, you will not have active USB ports and a wireless keyboard.

Turn on your Mac and install latest updates. To do this, click on the apple (left, upper corner) and select "Software update".

After you have installed all the updates, proceed to the next step, launch Boot Camp. To do this, click on search (magnifying glass icon in the right top corner) and enter it there "Boot Camp", among the found ones, click on "Boot Camp Assistant"".

In the window that opens Boot Camp Assistant, read the information and click "Continue".

In the next window, you need to select settings for installing Windows 7, or more precisely, how you will install.

The next step is to indicate the amount of disk space under Windows7; to do this, just move the slider and determine the size of the partition under operating system Windows and press "Install".

After this, the computer/laptop will reboot and the Windows7 installation process will begin upon loading (it is no different from installation on any other computer).

The only thing I would like to add is that when choosing a volume on which the operating system will be installed, be extremely careful not to delete existing partitions. Just format the BOOTCAMP partition and start installing Windows7.

After installing Windows7, go to the USB drive, you will see a folder in it WindowSupport(it contains drivers for Windows7), run the file setup.exe.

In the next window, read the License Agreement, accept it and click "Next".

After this, you will be prompted to additionally install Apple Software Update, you can leave a checkmark and click "Install".

After this, the installation process of all drivers will begin, it does not require your participation, just when it is finished, a window will appear indicating that the installation is complete. Press the button "Finish".

Computers from the well-known company Apple are very multifunctional and have a wide selection of specially designed software. But sometimes it happens that a Mac or iMac user wants to install the Windows operating system that is already so familiar to them. Sometimes OS Windows may be needed to install some programs so that you can play your favorite games, but there is no suitable alternative for Mac.

You can install the OS yourself. This can be done in several ways, for example, through a utility or using a flash drive. Let's look at the example of applications from Apple, which are called Bootcamp, Parallels Desktop and Virtual Box.

Preparing and installing Bootcamp

This option allows you to install an additional OS on Mac and iMac in a separately created partition on your hard drive. You can choose which system to boot into during startup. The advantage of this utility is that by installing the program through it, all the resources of your PC will be available to Windows, this will allow you to use the Mac’s performance to the maximum. The computer will easily play the latest games and perform complex tasks.

Before installing an additional OS, keep in mind that it will take up a lot of space on your hard drive. Make sure it has the required gigabytes. On average, you may need about 30 Gb.

Before you begin installing the operating system on your iMac or Mac, check and prepare Boot camp. First, make sure that all updates from Apple are installed on it. To do this you need to do the following:

When you launch the utility, you will have the opportunity to select the location where OS Windows will be installed. Before starting the software, you should close all open applications and programs.

Once the utility and flash drives for copying information are ready, you can proceed to the first steps:

Once all files have been copied, the iMac will automatically begin rebooting. Next, to display the boot manager, press and hold the Alt key. On the Mac, the disk menu will open, mark the partition with the name of the operating system. This will be followed by launching the OS and setting the parameters.

To install Windows 8 you need to do the same. Only in the window Selecting Actions"You should check the boxes next to the items " Download latest software" And " Create a disk to install Windows 7 or new».

Installing Windows on a Mac, or rather, setting up the program, begins with choosing a language. Select the correct language right away, otherwise you will have to do all the steps again. Having selected all the parameters in this window, click the Next button, which is located in the lower right corner.

To install the Windows operating system on a Mac, carefully follow all the instructions provided. Do not restart or turn off your computer during the process. The procedure cannot be interrupted in any way.

After your iMac reboots a second time, you can begin installing the necessary drivers. To do this, download them back from the flash drive, install and run the installation program.

Installing Windows via Bootcamp using a USB flash drive

Installation can be carried out either using a disk with the operating system or via a USB drive. To load a program from a flash drive onto a Mac, you must first download it. If we are talking about Windows 8, then the version of this system must be in iso format.

This installation option on Mac and iMac is no different from the previous one. Before you begin, you should also check bootcamp for updates and save all the necessary data. The following instructions will help you complete the task:

But it happens that when the installation media is a flash drive, the utility requires you to insert a disk with the program and refuses to continue downloading the software to the iMac. In this case, you can download the Daemon Tools Lite iMac driver. With its help, we mount the Windows iso image, it will serve as a virtual drive and then Bootcamp will complete the installation process of our OS without any problems.

Installing Windows on Mac and iMac via Parallels Desktop

In addition to Boot Camp, there are several other options for installing an additional operating system. For example, you can use the program Parallels Desktop, which is a virtual machine on the Windows installation. You will be able to run Windows programs without restarting your PC.

You can complete the installation by following the instructions below:

A special feature of Parallels Desktop is the high performance of the program. You can download a free trial version or buy Parallels Desktop using the link below:

Installing Windows using VirtualBox

VirtualBox is one of the popular virtualization programs. With its help, your PC will easily run two operating systems at once. Installing an additional OS via VirtualBox is quite simple.

To get started, enter the query VirtualBox into the search engine, go to the official website and download the program. Once installation is complete, click on the program icon and select “Create”. After this, you can begin installing Windows.

Sometimes it happens that after installing an additional operating system, problems with sound or video playback appear on the iMac. To solve this problem, you need to install on your Mac all the drivers that were previously saved to an additional storage device (disk or flash drive).

After all the steps taken, the installation of Windows on Mac is completely completed. Restart the program and everything will definitely work.

Video on the topic

Start: A comparison of installation methods is described in the article.

According to available data on the Internet, installing Windows 7 on a Mac via boot camp is possible with the following modifications:
32 bit version:

- MacBook, Mac mini, Mac Pro assembled on an Intel processor.

MacBook Pro, iMac released since 2007

- Mac mini released since mid-2010

iMac (21.5", 27", starting in late 2009)

iMac (21.5", 2010 and later)

MacBook (13" since late 2009)

MacBook Pro (15" and 17" since 2008, 13" since 2009)

Mac Pro since 2008

OS X version must be at least 10.5 Leopard. Those. if you have OS X Mountain Lion, then it will work, because... came out later than OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Preparation:

- Windows 7 disk and an external drive, if the Mac doesn’t have one or the built-in one refuses to read it.
- Important to remember:
- Flash drive and Internet access to download drivers from the apple website.

1) We start by updating OS X by clicking on the apple icon in the upper left corner, then “Software Update”.

2) Before you start installing Windows 7 on a Mac via bootcamp, it is recommended to back up your data, for example using the built-in Time Machine utility or another method, to avoid losing information when the disk is partitioned.

4) We select 2 checkboxes: “Download support software” so that the drivers necessary for correct operation are copied to our USB drive and “Install Windows 7”. Insert the USB flash drive to copy the support software, click next.

Within 10-15 minutes. The necessary files will be copied from the apple website and the "WindowsSupport" folder will be created in which the drivers are located. After finishing, remove and remove the flash drive from the mac, if it has autorun, so that when the installation begins, it will boot from the DVD, not the USB.

5) The next step is to set the partition size, the size of which depends on how many programs and games you will use. For example, if your tasks are limited to ordinary office tasks, then 25 GB is enough, but if you would like to play, then 100 GB may not be enough, because... only 1 game can take up more than 15 Gb. The operating system itself takes 10-15 Gb.

We insert the installation disc, if there is no optical drive or it does not read the disc, which is not uncommon, connect the external DVD drive and click “Install”.

After partitioning, the device will reboot and the installation of Windows on the mac will automatically begin using boot camp, in about 5-10 minutes. A menu will appear with a choice of language. If you want to interrupt the process and go to OS X, then press "alt" after rebooting and go to the desired environment.

Start:

Important to remember: In order to select the required operating system during startup, hold down the “alt” key immediately after pressing the power button.

6) At the beginning, a window will appear with a choice of language, marking the language used in the next item, click “Full installation”.

We mark the section with the inscription "bootcamp" and click the "next" button, if at the bottom there is the inscription "Windows cannot be installed...", then select the section with the inscription "boot camp" and go to -> "disk setup" -> "format".

7) After installing Windows 7 on a Mac via boot camp, you are prompted to enter your username and computer name.

8) The password field can be left blank; the key is usually located in the product box and is a 25-digit code. This code can be entered after installing Windows 7 on a Mac via boot camp, but no later than within a month.

10) We indicate the preferred network settings, in our case it is “Home Network” and then the desktop should appear. You may also be prompted to select wi-fi network to connect to the Internet, if this window appears, you can skip it.

Settings

The installation of Windows 7 on a Mac via boot camp is complete, but all that remains is to complete the setup, namely, install the drivers and boot camp in a new environment so that the video card and other components function without errors and with all the provided functions, this is especially important for the video card so that it can be used was used at 100% of capacity.

11) Windows will boot by default if you do not press the "alt" button at the beginning of boot to select native OS X. After loading, insert our flash drive with drivers, go to the "WindowsSupport" folder, click "setup" and then accept the default settings, itself the process lasts about 7 minutes. Upon completion, you will be prompted to reboot, and then you can begin full use.

12) At the bottom right in the Microsoft environment, the “boot camp” icon will appear, by clicking on it, then “boot camp control panel” you can select the operating system that will automatically load when turned on. You can also make the default selection in OS X in the "System Settings" -> "Boot Volume" section.

Data exchange

13) In Windows, the OS X partition is visible, but you can only read from it, open files, copy, but you won’t be able to write to it, because. file system types differ. OS X also sees the Microsoft partition, but can only read and cannot write. It is, of course, possible to exchange files this way, but it is extremely inconvenient. To record data on one medium, you can use a flash drive with file system fat or a special utility such as Paragon. There are 2 applications from Paragon: 1) NTFS for Mac to write and change files on Windows disk from mac and 2) HFS+ for Windows to write data to OS X from Win.

After installing these utilities, you can easily work in different environments without difficulty, changing and editing files, the only drawback is that Paragon is paid; at the time of writing, there was a free analogue, but it only allowed you to work with the NTFS system, and it was called “macfuse”.

With Apple's Boot Camp, you can boot your Mac natively to Microsoft Windows, without running two operating systems at the same time. This is largely useful for programs that do not run in Parallels virtual machines or VMWare Fusion.

Preparing to install Boot Camp

First, you need to make sure that all updates from Apple are installed:

• Go to the Boot Camp support page to see if there are updates for your model. Download and install if necessary;
• From the Apple menu, open Software Update and install all system updates;
• Be sure to create a backup!

Launching Boot Camp Assistant (for X 10.6 or later)

• Close all open applications, then in the Finder under Programs/Utilities, launch Boot Camp Assistant;
• Click Next to begin installation;
• If necessary, select Download the latest Windows support software from Apple;
• If necessary, enter the administrator password to begin downloading the software. Once the download is complete, save the files to your hard drive or USB.

Hard drive partition

Once the software download has finished, the Assistant will prompt you to create a partition for Windows on your hard drive. You will need to indicate how much free space will be allocated to this section. To install Windows 7 on a Mac, you will need at least 16 GB of free space.

Installing Windows on Mac

• Insert the Windows installation disc;
• Click the "Start Installation" button. The computer will restart and begin Windows installation;
• Follow the Windows Setup Wizard instructions;
• The screen asking “Where do you want to install Windows?” select the BOOTCAMP section;
• Then select Disk Options (Advanced) and format the drive. It's better not to touch other settings.

Installing Windows Drivers

Once Windows is installed, you need to install the drivers that you downloaded earlier in order for all your hardware to work correctly in Windows, including sound, display, and wireless network adapters.

• Remove the Windows installation disc;
• Insert the flash drive or disk on which you previously recorded drivers for Windows;
• Browse the contents and in the Boot Camp folder, double-click setup.exe to install the drivers. Next, follow the onscreen instructions to complete the installation. Do not cancel the installation!
• After installation is complete, restart your computer.

Selecting an operating system to run

Your Mac now has both Windows and Mac OS X installed, and you can choose which operating system to use when you boot. Simply hold down the Option key when you turn on your computer or restart to open the selection menu.