Life isn’t easy for those who have an iMac and want to install Windows 7 64 bits. Apple decided that the 64-bit drivers couldn’t be installed on iMacs, only on MacPros, but everything has a way :-D. In this other post, I described how to install the 32-bit version of Windows 7 RC, but with Boot Camp 2.1 from old Leopard.

The problem is that I liked the new toy and bought the Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. I already knew that the RC would be destroyed, so I started prepared. The box arrived on Monday, I bought it for $56 in a super promotion still in July at PixMania.be! For $56 it’s an interesting option, I don’t know if I would have done the same if I had to pay the $99 that Microsoft asks today. Backup made, starts the adventure!

Using the same partition of my Windows 7 RC, I just asked BootCamp 3.0 from Snow Leopard to start the Windows installation CD. I booted and installed normally, using the Windows setup. Windows 7 comes with two DVDs, one with the 32-bit version and another with the 64-bit version. It’s good to look at before giving boot, because I don’t remember any visual indicator of which of the two was being installed (beyond on the DVD itself!).

I installed Windows 7 64 bits on the same partition as my Windows 7 32 bits RC, but to my surprise the installer said it would be moving everything to a folder called Windows.Old. I was already prepared to start from scratch, waiting for the disk formatting, which did not happen. Everything from the old Windows 7 RC was moved to the Windows.Old folder, including Program Files and other directories.

After installation, I had no problems with the Mac until I needed to install Boot camp. The message that appeared is that the 64-bit version of the drivers is not supported on my computer: Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model.

A quick visit to Apple’s website, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846, reveals that iMacs are not in the list of supported equipment for 64-bit Windows Vista drivers! A quick search on Google reveals this article: http://jonsview.com/2008/10/16/installing-windows-vista-64-bit-on-an-imac. I had already read others, but few about the restriction on iMacs. My iMac is a 2008 model. Before that, it wouldn’t even make sense to try. You don’t need to download anything from strange sites, everything you need is in the Snow Leopard DVD. One of the comments on the article says that he was able to install BootCamp through the .msi file. Apparently it’s the setup.exe that checks the restriction on iMacs. The problem is that clicking on Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple\BootCamp64.msi in Windows Explorer doesn’t install it. The comment also suggests running it from a privileged command line. That was strange, because I was already an administrator of the system. I remembered that Windows 7 is a close relative of Vista, annoying even.

What you need to do:

  • From the Start menu, open the Accessories folder and right-click on Command Prompt. Choose the option to run as an Administrator.
  • In the command window that opened, go to the BootCamp64 directory, in my case it’s the DVD-ROM drive D:

d: cd “\Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple” msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

After that, you just have to hold your breath and have faith. The installation of Boot camp is intimidating. Black screens and flashing lights happened in my case, but it’s quick, beeps also happen. Nothing that shouldn’t scare you during the installation of a new Windows, especially installing Vista 64 drivers on Windows 7… but you can already wait until the native Windows 7 drivers are released.

A good thing is that even before Boot camp was installed I had network access. Network with cable and Wi-Fi worked right away after installation. Sound, eject, and camera only worked after installing BootCamp. Alias, sound isn’t so great either. A tip is that the eject works through Windows Explorer, even before installing Boot Camp. Just click on the DVD drive with the right mouse button and select eject.

The best surprise was being able to access the Mac partition from within Windows Explorer. This is very cool, especially when you’re looking for a file that’s in the other system.

Regarding memory usage, I lost about 200 MB just switching from 32-bit to 64-bit. The Windows 32 asked for about 400 MB to show the Desktop :-)… the 64 already starts with 600MB. That was the excuse I needed to put more 2G :-D.