Installing Windows 7 Beta on Macbook

I got a chance to install Windows 7 Beta on my MacBook today. The installation is pretty smooth. The boot camp assistant has a detailed guide about installation. To get the installation guide, open Boot Camp Assistant under Mac OS and click on Print Installation & Setup Guide to print it. Follow the instructions for Vista. I’ll summarize the steps here.

1. Open Boot Camp Assistant and partition the hard drive for Windows 7.  You need at least 16 GB for it. I use 32 GB for my installation.

2. Once the partition is ready, insert the Windows 7 installation media and reboot the machine.

3. Installation begins after reboot. For more screenshots, please refer to this post. When you are prompted with installation type, click on Custom (advanced).

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You need to install Windows 7 on Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP. However, the partition is not formatted correctly. If you click on Next, the installer stops.

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Click on Show details of this error and you see that this partition has to be formatted. Click on Drive options and then format the BOOTCAMP partition. When it’s done, you can continue the installer.

4. After a few minutes and the installation is done.

w7-macbook

5. The final step is to insert the Leopard installation disc and install the additional Windows drivers.

Everything seems to be working fine except the sound driver. The system indicates it’s installed, but there is no sound and microphone is not working either. I tried some tricks that worked under Vista, but none of them works. I’ll post again once I got the audio to work. BTW, the machine is a MacBook (early 2008 model).


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10 Comments

  1. My guess is you install the 32bit version of Windows 7 since it went so smoothly. I tried the 64bit but the Macbook’s EFI boot loader expects 32 bit and it hung up the install. 32bit Win7 installed fine. I think 64 bit is supported for the MBP and Mac Pro, not sure about the newest unibody macbooks.

  2. Yes, I installed the 32bit version. I had some bad experiences with XP 64bit, and I have been trying to stay away from anything 64bit.

  3. I have an early 2008 model MacBook Pro and I installed the 64-bit version with little difficulty aside from needing the audio driver.

  4. Had little difficulty also, but my bluetooth mouse is not being recognized? Initially it was until I loaded the Bootcamp drivers from the Leopard CD. Tried installing the 2.1 update, still no luck. Any ideas?

  5. I don’t have a bluetooth mouse, so I cannot test it. However, I did test the bluetooth file transfer and it worked perfectly. The driver I have is 2.0.0.1. If your current driver doesn’t work, you can try to roll back the older driver.

  6. Old article, I know. But I have the same Bluetooth mouse issue. Mine’s a wireless mighty mouse. Otherwise, no problems, didn’t even need the audio driver, maybe the Windows updates?

  7. HI could you help me that i have macbook and installed windows7 ultimate but the sound is unavailable and the driver seems that working. But sound is not coming so please reply me and at [email protected].
    Thanks

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