Running Windows only on a macbook, my experience

First off I did this as an experiment, to see if I could do it. This really isn't guide worthy, but someone may find it interesting or useful.

I got the keyboard Eject key to work. Post has been updated accordingly.

This was done on an early 2009 white Macbook, with Vista SP2. Your mileage may vary. I'm not responsible for any damage or loss of files. On that note, always remember to backup data before doing a reformat!

First of all, I booted from the OS X Install disc, went into Disk Utility, clicked on the hard drive and selected Partition. From there, I created a new single partition, under options I selected Master Boot Record table. After it was done I rebooted, holding the ALT/Option key until I got into the boot manager, and I ejected the OS X disc and inserted the Windows disc (I am using the original Vista RTM disc in this case, and I installed SP1 and SP2 later).

I proceeded to install windows as normal, and after rebooting I started installing drivers from the OS X Install disc. I made a list of what I needed to satisfy the device manager. I installed these drivers in this order:

It is essential to install BootCamp.msi first!!
Remember to copy the drivers to some location (i.e. the desktop). Do not install from the DVD!

If you get any prompts to restart now or later, choose later. You will be rebooting after all the drivers have been installed.

BootCamp.msi (install first!),
NvidiaChipset.exe,
NvidiaMobileSetup.exe (these are the display drivers),
BroadcomInstaller.exe,
RealTekSetup.exe,
AppleKeyboardInstaller.exe,
AppleiSightInstaller.exe,
AppleTrackpadInstaller.exe (if you want trackpad support).

Reboot computer.

Those are the Vista 32-bit drivers. Any XP drivers will have XP in the name, or 64 for 64-bit Vista.

After rebooting, all devices are installed. Mind you, this is with the early 2009 white macbook (nvidia 9400m), and windows vista 32-bit.

You may disable the useless Apple Time Service (because it's buggy and doesn't work anyway), but to preserve the Eject key function, I discovered in my experimenting you should not disable the Apple OSS (OS Switching) Service.

An interesting thing to note:

After you get your Windows solo boot up and running you may notice when you first turn on your Mac there is a 20-30 second "hang" before Windows boots. This is normal behavior and nothing to worry about. The Mac's EFI first searches for a GUID based boot partition on the hard drive (OS X). After it realizes it can't find it, it then boots the next partition on the drive (which in this case will be Windows).

I hope someone finds this useful, and as interesting as it was fun for me to do this little experiment.

talin

 

Edited post and reserved for questions.

 

I was wondering about this. I know people complain about windows over heating and bad battery so I was wondering if you could just do a dual boot without using boot camp. Just like if you installed Vista and Lenux on one computer or something execpt it being Windows and OS X or in your case just Windows... Interesting to note you're still using boot camp for drivers... would it be possible to hunt down all of the required drives from like intel and nvidia and stuff? I have not researched this, just thinking off the cuff here...

Cause at one time, I considered just buying OS X and putting it on a my dell.... til my dell died...

 

Well, the boot camp drivers that you can get off the OS X Install disc. But the other thing, that is against the EULA and against the forum rules, so it's not allowed here.
This thread is just about running only windows on a mac.

 

Oh wow, I had no idea. What is it again EULA? I am sorry, back to your regularly scheduled topic

 

Running osx on non-mac hardware. It's a way for apple to prevent people from stealing their hardware business.

 

Logically it is not right.
Because they sell the software separately (standalone) there should be no limitation on what it can run on.
They can choose not to provide support on normal x86 laptop but they can't implement it as EULA that will be monopoly.

 

Let's keep it on topic please.

 

Ok so why did you buy a Macbook to run Windows ?

 

I bought a macbook for two reasons. One, I love the hardware and design. I really like how thin the macbook is, but also the minimalist design.
Secondly, I had read (and heard) that Apple's customer support is one of the best, and considering the bad experience I had with Dell previously I wanted to try them (and very glad I did).
I liked OS X quite a bit, but it's lost it's novelty with me. Coupled with the fact that I only use it for internet access (usually better security out of the box, and almost no viruses), but everything else I do on windows (especially gaming).
Thirdly, I like to experiment. I like to see if I can do something, just because I can. The learning never stops, and it's fun. Just like I had my four or so months playing around with linux, just because.
So that's why. I was curious to see if I could do it, but it would also be nice if I can since I don't use OS X much any more and I'd like to have just one OS.

 

You can install bootcamp on a single boot. I installed it on my desktop with Vista and it works fine.

 

Your desktop? And what desktop would that be? If it's a hackintosh nevermind...
I read that if you do that it can cause problems, and I can verify that because before windows was stuck in an endless bluescreen though I rebooted several times and even in safe mode. The way I did it this time seems to have worked.

 

Guys, look at the thread title. Read the first post. Now if you would stay on topic that would be great. Thanks.

 

...

Who cares if it is a Hackintosh. It is not anyway, else it wont be a "single boot". I have a MBP 15" as a Mac desktop replacement. I have Bootcamp installed because I use the Apple Wireless keyboard. That is the easiest way to get the media keys working.

 

I've also been thinking of using Windows only on my MacBook, more or less for the same reasons you have stated.

Too bad that the drivers Apple supply are of bad quality (knowing Apple, it's by purpose). I think the best is to leave the MacBook plugged in, and hooked up to an external screen, mouse and keyboard, to get the best Windows experience. If you really use it as a portable, then you'll at least have the trackpad problems, and lack of power management, which kind of ruins the portable experience.

 

I just reinstalled Vista. I went through the steps I highlighted in the first post, only this time as a test, I just copied the BootCamp.msi installer from the OS X Install disc, in the Apple folder, to my desktop. After installing the drivers and I rebooted, I ran the BootCamp.msi installer, it installed and rebooted, and I have full keyboard functions, and no bluescreens or anything. It's working great. The key is, do not run the installer directly from disc, because it will go through it's list of drivers to install, and I think somewhere along the way it causes problems. By doing it all manually it works fine.
I'm currently installing service pack 1 and 2, but all seems to be great. I'll update my original post.

 

OK I will say it one more time.

As you can see from the first post, Talin is here to discussion his experience about the technical side of installing Windows on a Mac. He is not here to discuss whether or not he should install Windows on his machine. Nor is he here for people to whine at him about having windows only on his machine.

If you are not here to help. Then go away. Simple, no?

 

Actually, power management may not be as good as in OS X (I've read that), but I can still select which power profile I want from the taskbar, and the trackpad does work. I didn't install the Apple trackpad drivers though, since Windows already did. Mainly I just wanted to install drivers that satisfied device manager.
Edit: I was wrong, you do need to install the Apple trackpad drivers.

 

what do you do under windows except gaming?

 

Everything but web browsing.
It's nothing against OS X, I like it, but I don't like it as much as I first did.

 

I understand, I had same issue, but found a solution-having 2 computers-PC and a Mac(and in my case,9 PCs) so you don't get annoyed...

And there is no such thing as more productive browsing

 

There is when there is no popups or pop-unders, but I only have that with firefox. Atleast that's made for all operating systems.

 

There are other popup block than flashblock and adblocker plus.

e.g. admunchers. It works for all browsers/programs...etc, at least in windows.

 

withh firefox on mac, is it really limited on add-ons? Or do they share the same add-on library?

 

It's shared. All Firefox add ons will work on Firefox for Mac.

 

Just curious (and hope not off topic), but if you like Windows better than the OSX now, why not just sell the Macbook and get a dedicated Windows machine? This is not to start a flame war or anything (as I have both an XP for dedicated gaming and OSX for everything else...just me), but if I was through with Mac I'd just head over to the Windows side and forget about trying to figure out driver compatibility and the rest. I would guess you could sell the Mac for enough to get something you'd want and would enjoy. Of course if you want both then this whole post is totally invalid.

 

No I'm happy to answer your question. I got a Mac for two reasons. One, I love the design and hardware. I really like the minimalist design, and the thinness of the macbook. Secondly, I had heard that Apple has great customer support, and coming from a really bad Dell experience I wanted to try them, and I'm glad I did!
I do like OS X, but, not so much as I used to. I kind of get bored after awhile and always switch operating systems. Plus I wanted to see if I could do it for the shear curiousity of it.

 

Run Win for a month,then switch back,and so on

 

gt to know the command line... install GTK or qt and get X running KDE or Gnome and mess with it like a Linux box... all kindsa fun things to do.

 

That's it.

I would, if I could get linux to run.

 

I didnt say run linux.. i said run it like a linux box.. you can install anything Linux can run and run it on OSX, even Gnome and make it look exactly like ubuntu, but its still OSX.

This is why I don't have Linux installed anymore, there is nothing you can do in Linux that you can't do with OSX.

 

You mean I can run XMMS on OS X?
Tell me more, I beg of you!

 

Cool, I came to this section just to find a thread like this. In a month I will order me a mbp 13.3" and install win 7 on it. I hate OSx with a passion, but the hardware is exactly what I need (literally, weight, power, price, etc).

Do you have any idea what the battery life is like now with vista?

 

Customed Kernel Compile?

 

About 2.5 hours approximately. It's not great.

 

Is that 2.5 hours underload? If so that's not bad.

 

Minimal everything. Just browsing the net, screen at 40%, power saver profile.

 

wow thats terrible, what do you get on OS X?

is there any solution for this? is there a team of programmers somewhere working on patching this up so windows runs better on the new MBPs?

 

About 5 hours give or take. I think Apple writing efficient drivers for windows is not a high priority. They don't want people dumping their OS entirely. For those that are mobile it's a no-brainer, OS X is just more efficient with power management and consumption.

 

nope

Should be able to, I haven't tried it myself... you'd probably have to make sure you had all the dependancies installed and compile it yourself, and it would run under X11.


If you want quick and easy ways to get a lot of Unix and Linux type stuff on OSX, check out Fink and Macports... they have a ton and automated ways to get them... Fink even adds in "apt-get"

I use them for some things, but like to get source code and cusotm compile stuff for myself.

You'll have to install Xcode on your machine too so you get all the compilers and stuff you need for building, but it all works command line just like Linux, even the old "configure" "make" "make install" ...

 

well....obviously! what i mean is, any 3rd party mac or windows geeks on the case? i thought there'd be big demand for it

 

not much of a demand for it no... most people that want a Windows machine, don't buy Macs... and almost all Mac buyers primarily use OSX.

 

Thank you. I will investigate this further, it makes me giddy just thinking of having anything remotely similar to winamp on OS X!
Also being able to run other linux stuff is awesomely useful for my univ work.
Cheers!

 

with macports instaled I just did a "port search xmms" and found an installable version... so if you set up macports you should jut be able to do a "port install xmms" and have it.

 

Will do! I actually have no mac... but i'm gonna order one friday, and been lurking around these forums to learn more and be ready to adapt. The lack of a winamp like (similar looks, small, minimalistic) player for mac is something that makes me...not happy. I liked XMMS on linux as it was the closest thing there to the things in like in winamp, so this find makes me pretty happy

 

Winamp is better than XMMS, you should just use Wine or Crossover and run Winamp.

 

I suppose i could, but if i use crossover to run winamp it would be spending a lot of resources (loading the whole windows) for something relatively simple.

'bout Wine tho, how would that work? does it 'boot' windows like crossover and such, or does it only do some simple emulation?

 

Crossover uses Wine, but on Mac they have their own custom X11 server instead of using X11.app so it runs a little smoother with things like games that want full screen and resolution changes.

Neither Crossover or Wine use Windows at all. They basically are adding the Windows APIs so that you can run Windows software, there is no boot or Windows involved.

using open source Wine is much more advanced, and by default all command line and for Macs you'll have to compile it yourself.

Crossover is much simpler, and fully GUI controlled. You'd open up Crossover.app then hit to install unsupported software.. point it to the WinAmp installer, and go through a install. When its done it would make a shortcut Winamp.app for you that looks like a Mac app, anytime you double click that it would start Crossover if its not running (which takes maybe 10-20 seconds at most to initialize), and open Winamp. I have not tried Winamp, but its reported to work.

according to this ( LINK) it works fairly well with a few issues. I think they are having drag and drop issues, and some GUI parts not showing up fully, but that its usable.

 

This makes perfect sense to me -- sounds like a fun challenge. Me, I run both: an aluminum MacBook (which I love) and a Latutude 6500 (also a great machine). Got no quibbles with Vista or Windows 7 either as far as stability goes, but I do notice I spend a lot more time futzing around in the Windows environment than I do in OS X.

Ignore the zealots and have fun; I, for one, am reading the thread with real interest.

 

I tried crossover for like 5 games. It was buggy as hell and not one would run. The same goes for wine in ubuntu. I know you're a big fan of crossover judging by your sig, but it's not the best solution for most. Still nothing beats running windows natively.
I even tried trial versions of VMWare and Parallels, I had a little better luck with them, but my gaming experience was still pretty buggy (and slow but I already expected that ). Crossover and virtual environments are not for everyone...
Since you're talking about winamp, that's a different story.

Back on topic...
It's still bugging me that I couldn't get keyboard eject working. I'm wondering if it has to do with the order in which drivers are installed. I noticed when installing from the OS X disc last week (I reinstalled OS X and installed Vista in bootcamp), bootcamp installed Bootcamp Services before AppleKeyboardInstaller... next time I try this which wont be for probably a week or so, I'll do it in that order and see if it makes a difference. It could be that keyboardinstaller requires something from bootcamp services to be already installed to get everything working correctly.