Boot Camp Drivers Kill Windows 7 RC1 Install on iMac

[jmpage2]

I have been trying to install Windows 7 X86 RC1 on my brand new early 2009 iMac and have been having the same problem every time.

Initial installation goes very smoothly, but all the trouble begins when I load the Boot Camp setup.exe from the Leopard disc.

During Boot Camp installation I get a compatibility warning about some of the Apple Boot Camp drivers working correctly with this version of Windows.

If I go ahead with the installation then what happens is I get a BSOD and then Windows becomes un-bootable. This is repeatable as it happens every single time I do the installation.

Things initially seem to work up until I load boot camp assistant from the Leopard install disc, so I'm wondering if there are other drivers available that play well with Windows 7 for my iMac that I can try? I've followed several Boot Camp tutorials for iMac with Win7 and am pretty sure I am doing everything correctly, but things just aren't working.

Any help is welcome!

 

[rwilliams]

That's weird. Perhaps it is something specific to the iMac, because I was able to install Windows 7 RC1 on my MacBook (including the Boot Camp Drivers) with no problem whatsoever. Have you tried running Windows Update to see what drivers they offer?

 

[jmpage2]

Windows update loaded one critical item that was about 11MB. Did you load the X86 or 64 bit version of Windows 7?

I did ultimately get it installed, but it's acting a bit flaky. After the BSOD, I rebooted and was able to get back into Windows and run the Boot Camp Setup.exe a 2nd time.

This time everything installed other than drivers for the Radeon 4850 card. I did an MS Driver update and it found the MS drivers and loaded them.

It's working now, but a few things are really weird;

1. I can't run the Experience rating. When I click on the button to rate the computer nothing happens.

2. The optical drive is really really slow in Win7. I don't know why. Installation of Crysis took around 40 minutes.

I ran dxdiag.exe and the machine passed all the tests. With the vanilla Radeon drivers I am getting okay performance in Crysis (around 40fps at 1280X968 resolution with high details), and everything seems to be working.

I'm tempted at this point to try to load it with my X64 copy of Win 7 RC1 and see if it is working any better with those boot camp drivers (which seem to be on my iMac OS X Leopard disc).

 

[rwilliams]

I installed the x86 version. I'm glad to hear that it's working, even if it's being fussy. I think it would be worth it to try the 64 bit version to see if you get better performance.

 

[nylon]

I installed the X64 RC1 on my unibody Macbook and used the LIMO patch to install the drivers of the Leopard disk. Everything works great. Do not install the latest Nvida drivers off of Windows update if you want to be able to control the brightness of the screen in Win 7 RC.

 

[crazyxzer0]

I installed the X64 RC1 on my unibody Macbook and used the LIMO patch to install the drivers of the Leopard disk. Everything works great. Do not install the latest Nvida drivers off of Windows update if you want to be able to control the brightness of the screen in Win 7 RC.

i just did

 

[nylon]

i just did

It's not a probem just go into device manager. Click on video adapter and click on 'Roll back driver'. Worked like a charm.

 

[jmpage2]

Does anyone know if all the 64 bit drivers I need are on the Leopard disc that came with my iMac before I try to install 64 bit Win 7?

I thought I read something a year or so ago about Apple not providing any 64 bit drivers for the iMacs.

 

[jmpage2]

I'm guessing from the resounding silence that either the iMac can't easily run 64 bit windows or that it's a snap and non issue.

 

[SlamuelBTP]

I've been trying to install 64bit Windows 7 on an early-2008 black Macbook, and that can't even find any drivers to install with. I was going to eject the disk and put in the Apple Boot Camp one, but guess what? The Eject button didn't work. What a waste of a DVD.

I mean, it's not like my hardware can't run a 64 bit OS; Leopard is 64 bit. So why doesn't Apple make some damn drivers?

 

[jmpage2]

I've been trying to install 64bit Windows 7 on an early-2008 black Macbook, and that can't even find any drivers to install with. I was going to eject the disk and put in the Apple Boot Camp one, but guess what? The Eject button didn't work. What a waste of a DVD.

I mean, it's not like my hardware can't run a 64 bit OS; Leopard is 64 bit. So why doesn't Apple make some damn drivers?

Leopard is not 64 bit, it's 32 bit with 64 bit memory management. Snow Leopard will (hopefully) be 64 bit and actually work.

It makes very little sense to me why Apple feels they should only provide support and drivers for 64 bit Windows OS for users of MBP and Pro machines. Give me a break, all of these boxes can run 64 bit OS and the damn top of the line iMacs now are going for over $2,000 and they hobble it to only run 32 bit Windows OS?

Stupid Apple.

 

[nylon]

Leopard is not 64 bit, it's 32 bit with 64 bit memory management. Snow Leopard will (hopefully) be 64 bit and actually work.

It makes very little sense to me why Apple feels they should only provide support and drivers for 64 bit Windows OS for users of MBP and Pro machines. Give me a break, all of these boxes can run 64 bit OS and the damn top of the line iMacs now are going for over $2,000 and they hobble it to only run 32 bit Windows OS?

Stupid Apple.

i have a Macbook Unibody 2.4GHz and the Leopard disc has 64bit Vista and XP drivers on it.

 

[illegallydead]

You need the driver disk from one of the Pro machines. I was able to find one on one of the torrent sites, and it worked just fine. Mind you I am running Build 7057, not technically the "RC1" but technically M$ has not released RC1, so again technically none of you should be either. but I don't judge (actually I just haven't gotten around to install RC1 lol)

 

[jmpage2]

You need the driver disk from one of the Pro machines. I was able to find one on one of the torrent sites, and it worked just fine. Mind you I am running Build 7057, not technically the "RC1" but technically M$ has not released RC1, so again technically none of you should be either. but I don't judge (actually I just haven't gotten around to install RC1 lol)

Worked fine on your iMac? Do you know what the disc in question is labeled? Is it labeled OS X or is it labeled something else?

 

[illegallydead]

Worked fine on your iMac? Do you know what the disc in question is labeled? Is it labeled OS X or is it labeled something else?

My iMac? lol I have a Macbook, and yes, I was able to get them to work fine with the build that I have. All the drivers are in there for most of the modern equipment, so they should work fine in an iMac, Yes.

I know there is a thread on this on another sight, and it provides the link to the torrent download for the drivers you need. You might be able to ask for something like this in an Apple store, not sure how helpful they would be but worth a check if you are not into the whole torrenting thing.

[EDIT] Search TPB for "BootCamp Mac Pro Drivers for Windows (64bit)" if you want. I am in no way condoning piracy yadda yadda yadda, do with this what you will (read: don't ban me for this. just providing a solution for something that Apple is rediculous about not including with non Mac Pros)

 

[Chad H]

Their is a thread just below this I believe that has the dos prompts that you can enter to bypass the BS warning on the leopard install cd. I just installed all my drivers for Vista 64 this way on my iMac.

 

[illegallydead]

Their is a thread just below this I believe that has the dos prompts that you can enter to bypass the BS warning on the leopard install cd. I just installed all my drivers for Vista 64 this way on my iMac.

^ This is NOT what you want to do ^. Running a 64-bit Windows then forcing it to use 32-bit drivers is counter-intuitive and could play hell with the stability of your machine. Just find the 64-bit drivers!!!

 

[John Jacob]

I installed the X64 RC1 on my unibody Macbook and used the LIMO patch to install the drivers of the Leopard disk.

What is this LIMO patch? I did try searching, but I couldn't find anything relevant.

 

[Chad H]

^ This is NOT what you want to do ^. Running a 64-bit Windows then forcing it to use 32-bit drivers is counter-intuitive and could play hell with the stability of your machine. Just find the 64-bit drivers!!!

Why not? It installed the 64bit drivers fine. Both sets are on the leopard cd. Its just Apple has a built in warning to prevent you from installing them on a 64bit OS besides on the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro.

 

[illegallydead]

Why not? It installed the 64bit drivers fine. Both sets are on the leopard cd. Its just Apple has a built in warning to prevent you from installing them on a 64bit OS besides on the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro.

Oh. I misunderstood what exactly it was that you were doing. If your DVD does indeed have the 64-bit drivers on there and you need this hack to install them, then by all means go for it. I thought you were more or less forcing it to use the 32-bit drivers which would not be desirable.

 

[Chad H]

Oh. I misunderstood what exactly it was that you were doing. If your DVD does indeed have the 64-bit drivers on there and you need this hack to install them, then by all means go for it. I thought you were more or less forcing it to use the 32-bit drivers which would not be desirable.

Oh no. The bypass does work to install the 64bit drivers. But I certainly agree and warn everybody don't install 32bit drivers on a 64bit system. That will cause major crashes in the OS.

 

[nylon]

What is this LIMO patch? I did try searching, but I couldn't find anything relevant.

The LIMO patch is simply a installer replacement for the Vista drivers on your Leopard disc that allows you to launch the installer on Windows 7 and install the requisite drivers.

What you would need to do is copy the Windows Vista driver folder off your Leopard disk to the desktop in Windows 7 replace one file and then double clock to install. The Apple installer will then launch and install all the necessary drivers. Without the patch the Windows 7 will reject running the installer of the Leopard disc.

Search google for LIMO patch and i think you should be able to find it.

 

[AntiPhoenix]

Guys, check out this post, its for an X1600 MBP, so should work on anything, really...

http://blog.sallarp.com/installing-windows-7-rc1-mbp/

its a guide for installing the 7 RC

 

[vinceboy02]

winodws 7 in macbook 64 bit working fine

when i installed windows 7 rc 64 bit in my macbook with the used of my mac osx leopard this is what i did when windows 7 installation was already done
boot camp drivers should be installed what i did is insert the mac os x disk 1 and press the open new folder to view , then right click the boot camp there and choose open in new window then from than window i press Apple then i look for boot camp 64 then i press it then there is a pop up message saying compatibilty thing but i click the run the program for my own risk and it installed all the drivers then all of it is working fine! if this already knows with the please just ignore it thank you

 

[vinceboy02]

need more to add

just want to clarify something before you can press apple you need to press drivers first before you can see it