HOWTO Windows Vista on the MacBook
From WikiTechia
The latest version of Boot Camp adds support for vista making this article an antique.
This is a step-by-step guide on how to get Windows Vista running on the MacBook and MacBook 2 (Core 2 Duo powered MacBooks).
Contents |
Hardware Listing
Before we get into the nitty gritty, here is a quick listing of the hardware that we'll need to get going once vista is installed.
- MacBook TouchPad
- Atheros Wifi adapter (MacBook 2 uses an 802.11n draft compatible chipset)
- Bluetooth Adapter
- MacBook keyboard bindings
- iSight Webcam
A fresh install of Vista is actually a very usable system, sleep works, 3D graphics and sound. Suffice to say, nobody likes working on half finished setups so we'll be going through how to get everything working.
Boot Camp
You will need to get the latest version of Boot Camp.
Once you install Boot Camp, you will now have access to the Boot Camp wizard from which you will need to burn a driver disc for windows and also have the option to resize your Mac partition to make room for your OS.
Partitioning
You'll need to make space on your HDD for Vista or any other OS you wish to install. You can either resize your mac partition to make room for one more OS, or you can go from scratch.
A base install of Vista Ultimate will take up just under 10GB, but once you have a lot of essentials installed, it's safe to say you'll be using 20gb. So I'd recommend the minimum size you allocate for vista be 25+GB.
Resize your Mac partition
Use the Boot Camp wizard to resize your mac partition.
Start from scratch
Or if you are starting from scratch, as in installing OS X again for a fresh setup, you can partition the drive at this point.
Because of the magic required by Boot Camp, you can only create primary partitions on a working Boot Camp setup, that is to say, a maximum of four partitions.
Once in the installation of OS X, fire up the Disk Utility and change the drive partitions. The maximum amount of partitions you should create is three because of the invisible first partition.
You only need two partitions, but you may want to use three for various reasons. In any case, windows should always be installed to the last partition. If you created three partitions, you could use the spare partition to perhaps either install another OS like linux, or use it as a sharable scratch drive that both Vista and OS X can read.
In any case, you should assign the last partition the MS-DOS format.
Uninstalling Boot Camp (optional)
When you install Boot Camp, it will perform the firmware update that enables the magic that allows you to install Windows or any other compatible OS with the hardware. So you can uninstall Boot Camp from your system, it is only needed for resizing partitions and burning the windows driver disc.
Installing rEFIt (Optional)
rEFIt is an extension to the bootloader that allows you to select on startup the OS you wish to use from almost any medium and it is also configurable.
Installing Vista
Booting
Putting the vista install disc should be enough to get the install on it's way to getting your system going.
If you rEFIt installed you can select the medium to boot from at any time, and if you don't, then holding down the option key may help you by bringing up the boot options, or if you have rEFI
Partition Setup
In the Vista installation you'll see the partition table. You will want to install windows to the last partition. To do this, you will need to format that partition by selecting it and then clicking advanced and the format. You will then be able to continue the installation to that partition.
Done!
Just going through the Vista install normally should eventually get you into the system with sound, 3d accelerated aero and sleep functionality. The rest of the guide will outline how to get the rest of the system working.
Installing Devices
As stated previously some devices may not work, or may not work quite as well. Here we'll go through the process of getting them all working nicely
Extracting the drivers
On the driver disc that you burned with Boot Camp, there is the driver installer named macdrv.exe
Open a command prompt (Open the start bar and in the search bar type cmd) and navigate to where macdrv.exe is located and run it with the following command.
macdrv /a
This starts a network install of the drivers which simply extracts the drivers without installation. This is necessary because running the installation normally will fail.
TrackPad
The touchpad does work with the default Vista install however you'll probably want to enable two finger scrolling and two finger right click capability.
- Bring up the Device Manager (Right Click My Computer -> Properties -> Tasks - Device Manager)
- Look for the USB Human Interface Device with the Hardware ID
USB\VID_05AC&PID_021A&REV_0013&MI_01
You can do this by right-clicking on the device -> Properties -> Details -> Property - Hardware Ids
For my case, it happened to be the fourth device listed.
- Right Click on the device -> Update Driver Software...
- Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer -> Have Disk...
- Browse... to the mac drivers folder and select the folder labeled aapltp
- Select Apple Trackpad and click Next.
- Vista will complain about the driver being unsigned, just continue.
- Done!
You will now be able to right click by putting 2 fingers on the Track Pad and clicking and scroll using two fingers.
Wifi (MacBook 2)
The original macbook won't have any trouble with the default Vista drivers, however the MacBook 2 now has an 802.11n compatible atheros based chipset.
- Go to Device Manager -> Other Devices -> Network Controller
- Right click -> Update Driver Software... -> Browse My Computer for Driver Software
- Browse for the folder in which you extracted the drivers and the go to Program Files/Macintosh Drivers.../NET5416
- A dialogue will appear about not being able to verify publisher, just click Install this driver software anyway
Viola!
Keyboard Bindings
You'll probably want the ability to ctrl-alt-delete pretty quickly :)
Bluetooth
iSight Webcam
Intel graphics drivers (Optional)
The drivers shipped with Vista are comparatively good and don't really need replacing. The official intel drivers are however a tad faster, although I've found compatibility with games to be reduced (Enemy Territory: True Combat Elite would crash with the intel drivers installed). The installation is straight forward after you have downloaded the driver setup from intel.
