How to: Boot Camp without a Boot Screen

[bookemdano]

I think I now remember this being discussed in this thread and elsewhere, but for the benefit of anyone else reading, one of the biggest downsides to using UEFI mode (apart from the potential boot rom corruption) is that using the Startup Disk applet in System Preferences to boot to Windows does not work properly.

It's like it appears to set the cMP to try to perform a legacy boot from that drive (which I guess is what would be expected on a cMP), but because Windows is installed in UEFI mode, the legacy boot fails (just get a flashing underscore in the upper left corner of the screen). The crazy thing is that even physically removing the SATA connection to my Windows disk (with only my macOS drive connected), the cMP was still booting in BIOS mode and was giving me a "No bootable device" message in DOS text in the upper left corner of the screen. My only option was to PRAM reset. EDIT: Just dawned on me I could likely have booted to my Recovery partition via Command-R and reset the Startup Disk to macOS that way.

I'm sure some of the other methods to set Windows as the boot volume (scripts, bootrunner, etc.) probably avoid this problem. But some or all of those require SIP to be at least partially disabled. If you want to keep SIP fully enabled and boot back and forth between Windows and macOS on the cMP using the "stock" Apple utilities, then I think you need to use legacy mode. Happy to be proven wrong if someone has figured out a way to use the built-in macOS "Startup Disk" functionality with Win10 UEFI mode, but I tried it twice and it definitely did not work properly.

 

[startergo]

I think I now remember this being discussed in this thread and elsewhere, but for the benefit of anyone else reading, one of the biggest downsides to using UEFI mode (apart from the potential boot rom corruption) is that using the Startup Disk applet in System Preferences to boot to Windows does not work properly.

It's like it appears to set the cMP to try to perform a legacy boot from that drive (which I guess is what would be expected on a cMP), but because Windows is installed in UEFI mode, the legacy boot fails (just get a flashing underscore in the upper left corner of the screen). The crazy thing is that even physically removing the SATA connection to my Windows disk (with only my macOS drive connected), the cMP was still booting in BIOS mode and was giving me a "No bootable device" message in DOS text in the upper left corner of the screen. My only option was to PRAM reset. EDIT: Just dawned on me I could likely have booted to my Recovery partition via Command-R and reset the Startup Disk to macOS that way.

I'm sure some of the other methods to set Windows as the boot volume (scripts, bootrunner, etc.) probably avoid this problem. But some or all of those require SIP to be at least partially disabled. If you want to keep SIP fully enabled and boot back and forth between Windows and macOS on the cMP using the "stock" Apple utilities, then I think you need to use legacy mode. Happy to be proven wrong if someone has figured out a way to use the built-in macOS "Startup Disk" functionality with Win10 UEFI mode, but I tried it twice and it definitely did not work properly.

You are right- the startup disk only tries to boot in legacy mode, it will not boot in EFI mode. I got 2 EFI Windows disks and just got my MATT card, on which I will install the current ROM so should any other upgrade corrupt the bootrom It will be the MATT card's ROM and not the original.

 

[MisterAndrew]

It's nice being able to switch seamlessly between macOS and Windows in legacy mode using Apple's utilities. I can't remember why I previously installed Windows in EFI mode. I guess I just assumed it was better because it's newer and recommended by Microsoft, but that's for PCs that properly support it. I plan to keep Windows in legacy mode on the cMP from now on.

 

[bookemdano]

It's nice being able to switch seamlessly between macOS and Windows in legacy mode using Apple's utilities. I can't remember why I previously installed Windows in EFI mode. I guess I just assumed it was better because it's newer and recommended by Microsoft, but that's for PCs that properly support it. I plan to keep Windows in legacy mode on the cMP from now on.

The only other advantage folks have mentioned is that the SATA controller isn't natively in AHCI mode with a legacy install (and it is with a UEFI install). But other folks have said the speed difference is barely noticeable and things like TRIM still work.

Installing Win10 in UEFI mode also added two certificates to my boot rom (none were there previously). Might need to ask tsislex to clean that up for me at some point.

I'm with you, I think I'm done messing with UEFI mode. This weekend I'm going to dig up my spindle of Dual Layer DVDs so I can burn a Win10 disc. I tried deleting the EFI folder from my USB Win10 installer, but booting from it holding the "C" key just ended up in black screen.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I was having trouble booting from the Win 10 DVD so I booted a Win 7 DVD and installed that first. Then I ran the Win 10 installer from within Win 7. After that I used Disk Cleanup in Win 10 to delete the Win 7 installation.

 

[h9826790]

It's nice being able to switch seamlessly between macOS and Windows in legacy mode using Apple's utilities. I can't remember why I previously installed Windows in EFI mode. I guess I just assumed it was better because it's newer and recommended by Microsoft, but that's for PCs that properly support it. I plan to keep Windows in legacy mode on the cMP from now on.

I did that because Bootcamp apps can't see APFS partition. So, why not try EFI Windows if I use Bootchamp anyway.

And of course, it's a part of my learning because I never did that before.

And now, I am 100% back to the Apple native way of OS switching. I am very happy with that.

 

[PianoPro]

This weekend I'm going to dig up my spindle of Dual Layer DVDs so I can burn a Win10 disc.

You don't need Dual Layer to burn the Win 10 installer DVD. It's just less than 4.7 GB.
[doublepost=1540631540][/doublepost]

I was having trouble booting from the Win 10 DVD so I booted a Win 7 DVD and installed that first. Then I ran the Win 10 installer from within Win 7. After that I used Disk Cleanup in Win 10 to delete the Win 7 installation.

Did you convert the Win 10 iso to a cdr and then burn the cdr to DVD? I've not had your problem. I just boot the DVD into legacy-BIOS mode holding the C key.

 

[bookemdano]

You don't need Dual Layer to burn the Win 10 installer DVD. It's just less than 4.7 GB.
[doublepost=1540631540][/doublepost]
Did you convert the Win 10 iso to a cdr and then burn the cdr to DVD? I've not had your problem. I just boot the DVD into legacy-BIOS mode holding the C key.

Thanks! Yeah I just realized that after downloading the iso. I think in the past I had burned a 32+64 bit disc which did require a DVD-DL. But no need for 32bit these days. Burning it now to try next week when I'm back at work.

 

[Factionrider]

Can anyone point me in the right direction to install boot camp 6.1 once in windows? I know I can use brigadier to download the files I need, but can I just pull the boot camp package the 5.1 Mac Pro requires? Will that update to 6.1?

 

[bookemdano]

Can anyone point me in the right direction to install boot camp 6.1 once in windows? I know I can use brigadier to download the files I need, but can I just pull the boot camp package the 5.1 Mac Pro requires? Will that update to 6.1?

No, unfortunately it won't. Apple doesn't seem to update older Mac's bootcamp support files for very long. Brigadier is very easy to use and h9 posted a great tutorial just a few posts up in this thread. I didn't even bother installing the cMP-specific bootcamp driver package--just installed the iMacPro one downloaded via Brigadier and had drivers for everything except the WiFi from my upgraded BCM943602CDP WiFi/BT card--I needed to download the iMac17,1 package for that.

 

[bookemdano]

Do other folks who installed bootcamp have the Eject key working in Windows on official Apple keyboards (specifically the first gen Magic KB)? I'm finding lots of older results (XP-era) via Google saying it's supposed to work but not much from more recent releases.

One post said you have to install the specific AppleODDInstaller64.exe from that Mac's bootcamp driver package. So I tried installing that from the cMP's bootcamp driver set, but am not seeing any difference. I know that the keyboard driver is installed as it shows up in Device Manager under Bluetooth Devices and my volume hotkeys work.

And I know I can right click on the DVD drive icon to Eject it, but having a key on the keyboard to open/close the drive door is more convenient. If no one has it working, no big deal. But if anyone did get it to work inside Windows then I'll keep messing around with it.

Thanks.

 

[startergo]

Do other folks who installed bootcamp have the Eject key working in Windows on official Apple keyboards (specifically the first gen Magic KB)? I'm finding lots of older results (XP-era) via Google saying it's supposed to work but not much from more recent releases.

One post said you have to install the specific AppleODDInstaller64.exe from that Mac's bootcamp driver package. So I tried installing that from the cMP's bootcamp driver set, but am not seeing any difference. I know that the keyboard driver is installed as it shows up in Device Manager under Bluetooth Devices and my volume hotkeys work.

And I know I can right click on the DVD drive icon to Eject it, but having a key on the keyboard to open/close the drive door is more convenient. If no one has it working, no big deal. But if anyone did get it to work inside Windows then I'll keep messing around with it.

Thanks.

There is a keyboard remapping software. Sharpkeys
http://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/
Did you try that?

 

[bookemdano]

There is a keyboard remapping software. Sharpkeys
http://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/
Did you try that?

Thanks, and no I have not tried SharpKeys but from what I can see there that's simply remapping keys to reverse the order of the Win/Alt keys and mapping F13 to Print Screen.

I did find Apple Wireless Keyboard though which states it should enable Fn+Eject to work for ejecting the optical drive. I'll report back on that. Mainly though I just wanted to see if anyone here had it working natively (with Apple's botocamp driver set), because a google search led me to a lot of results (albeit older) stating that it's supposed to work in Windows exactly how it works in macOS, without any third party mods.

 

[tnthlmnt]

Hey everyone, I was able to follow along with most of @h9826790's guide and got Windows 10 installed from in Legacy mode as well as getting the newer Boot Camp control panel to allow me to switch back to Mojave. My issue is going from Mojave to Windows. It hangs on a black screen and Windows never comes up. I'm using an RX 580 so I have no boot screens. Only way to get back is a PRAM reset. All drivers are up to date in Win 10. Am I missing anything?

I've got a Flashed 4,1, with 24GB of RAM and an X5690. Windows 10 is on an SSD in a sled adapter and Mojave is on a Kingston Predator AHCI SSD Blade in a PCIe adapter.

Any help would be great! Thanks for all your guys research into all of this!

 

[PianoPro]

Hey everyone, I was able to follow along with most of @h9826790's guide and got Windows 10 installed from in Legacy mode as well as getting the newer Boot Camp control panel to allow me to switch back to Mojave. My issue is going from Mojave to Windows. It hangs on a black screen and Windows never comes up. I'm using an RX 580 so I have no boot screens. Only way to get back is a PRAM reset. All drivers are up to date in Win 10. Am I missing anything?

I've got a Flashed 4,1, with 24GB of RAM and an X5690. Windows 10 is on an SSD in a sled adapter and Mojave is on a Kingston Predator AHCI SSD Blade in a PCIe adapter.

Any help would be great! Thanks for all your guys research into all of this!

Are you using a bless script, or using the Startup Disk preference pane to boot to Windows? If a bless script you need to disable SIP-nvram. If using the Startup Disk preference pane you might try a PRAM reset to fix that. (Note: A PRAM reset will re-enable SIP entirely and a bless script will not work)

 

[h9826790]

Hey everyone, I was able to follow along with most of @h9826790's guide and got Windows 10 installed from in Legacy mode as well as getting the newer Boot Camp control panel to allow me to switch back to Mojave. My issue is going from Mojave to Windows. It hangs on a black screen and Windows never comes up. I'm using an RX 580 so I have no boot screens. Only way to get back is a PRAM reset. All drivers are up to date in Win 10. Am I missing anything?

I've got a Flashed 4,1, with 24GB of RAM and an X5690. Windows 10 is on an SSD in a sled adapter and Mojave is on a Kingston Predator AHCI SSD Blade in a PCIe adapter.

Any help would be great! Thanks for all your guys research into all of this!

If SIP is disabled, and the system preference start up disk doesn't work as expected. I recommend you use Bootchamp, a bit quicker than use system preference as well.

 

[tnthlmnt]

I was using System Preferences, no bless script and SIP was enabled. It was a clean install of Mojave as well. I just finished installing Mojave onto a Kingston A1000 NVMe blade and was able to boot back and forth between Windows 10 and Mojave no problem! Seems like it might be something with my Kingston Predator AHCI blade. Thanks for the ideas and help!

 

[PianoPro]

I was using System Preferences, no bless script and SIP was enabled. It was a clean install of Mojave as well. I just finished installing Mojave onto a Kingston A1000 NVMe blade and was able to boot back and forth between Windows 10 and Mojave no problem! Seems like it might be something with my Kingston Predator AHCI blade. Thanks for the ideas and help!

When you say "back and forth" do you mean you could boot into Windows from some other Mojave installation before you installed it onto the Kingston?

 

[tnthlmnt]

When you say "back and forth" do you mean you could boot into Windows from some other Mojave installation before you installed it onto the Kingston?

While I had the Kingston HyperX Predator AHCI Blade in the machine I could not boot back and forth from Mojave to Windows. I tried doing a clean install, tried booting from a High Sierra install on a separate SSD and had no luck. I removed the Predator AHCI Blade installed a Kingston A1000 NVMe blade did a clean Mojave install and have been able to boot into Windows from Mojave using the System Preferences app or from Windows into Mojave using the Control Panel app flawlessly. Haven't tried reinstalling the AHCI Blade yet. May be re-purposing that into a PC build.

 

[tsialex]

Anyone here knows when MS will send 1809 again?

I need to do some installs and has been a month in waiting for the new ISO.

 

[startergo]

Anyone here knows when MS will send 1809 again?

I need to do some installs and has been a month in waiting for the new ISO.

"We will continue to closely monitor the update and all related feedback and diagnostic data from our Windows Insider community with the utmost vigilance. Once we have confirmation that there is no further impact we will move towards an official re-release of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. We apologize for any impact these issues may have had on any of our customers. We are committed to learning from this experience and improving our processes and notification systems to help ensure our customers have a positive experience with our update process."

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsex...ber-2018-update-released-to-windows-insiders/

 

[startergo]

Anyone here knows when MS will send 1809 again?

I need to do some installs and has been a month in waiting for the new ISO.

"On November 13, 2018, we will begin the re-release of the Windows 10 October Update (version 1809), Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server, version 1809. We encourage you to wait until the feature update is offered to your device automatically," Microsoft noted in a support document.
[doublepost=1542201401][/doublepost]Very cool feature for 1809 release:
7. Expanding Windows Subsystem for Linux features.

If you are into Linux, but don't want to setup a dedicated system, then you can still play with it by using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). There are plenty of distributions to try as well such as Kali and Debian. Microsoft also added Tar & Curl to Windows and released a tool that allowed you to port your favorite Linux distro to WSL. With this update, Microsoft is also introducing the ability to create Windows Firewall rules that affect the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

 

[JedNZ]

OK, done!

Thanks for providing all the required info. This is my version of "how to do it".

1) Insert the Windows installation DVD into the super drive

2) Shutdown the Mac

3) Hold "C" to boot

4) Follow the on screen instruction until reach the "Where do you want to install Windows" step
View attachment 797517

5) "Delete" all the target SSD's partitions. In the above capture (downloaded from internet), you can see that there are 4 partitions for existing EFI mode Windows. Select each partition one by one, and click Delete. Be careful, do NOT remove other drive's partition. All partitions should be on the same drive. e.g. In the above example, all belongs to Drive 0. There is no requirement to remove any other hard drive from the cMP. But if you want to play safe, you can physically remove them between step 2 and 3 to avoid error.

Eventually will looks like this. No more partitions, but just a single large piece of Unallocated Space.
View attachment 797518

6) Click New. This will automatically create the correct and required partitions with all available space. For legacy installation, should be only two partitions automatically created.
View attachment 797527

7) Select the newly created partition, and continue the installation.

8) For Windows 10, the LAN line should work straight away after installation completed. So now, you can use Edge to access the internet.

9) Go to https://github.com/timsutton/brigadier/releases

10) Download brigadier.exe (0.2.4)

11) insert a USB drive (this is not mandatory, but just make the command prompt work easier)

12) Format the USB drive to FAT32

13) Copy brigadier.exe to the USB drive (assume it's the E drive)

14) Open Command Prompt (search CMD can find it)

15) type

e:

16) type

brigadier -m MacPro5,1

17) Once finished, rename the "Bootcampxxxxxxxxxx" folder to "Bootcamp5"

18 ) type

brigadier -m iMacPro1,1

19) Once finished, rename the "Bootcampxxxxxxxxxx" folder to "Bootcamp61"

20) search CMD again, but this time right click, and choose "run as admin"

21) type

e:

22) type

cd Bootcamp5/Bootcamp/Drivers/Apple

23) type

msiexec /i bootcamp.msi

24) After installation finished and reboot. Search CMD again, right click, and choose "run as admin"

25) type

e:

26) type

cd Bootcamp5/Bootcamp/Drivers/Apple

27) type

msiexec /x bootcamp.msi

This will NOT remove the drivers, but just the bootcamp apps

28) type

cd Bootcamp61/Bootcamp/Drivers/Apple

29) type

msiexec /i bootcamp.msi

30) Let it finish the installation and restart

So now, if you run the bootcamp apps. You should see something like this.
View attachment 797522
Language doesn't really matter, but you can see all the selections.

Those HFS+ High Sierra options will show the hard drive's name (e.g. 8T Backup)

Those APFS Mojave options will show as "Mac" above macOS.

From now on, you can use startup disk in Mojave to select Windows 10 (I renamed the SSD, usually it should shows BOOTCAMP, but not Win 10)
View attachment 797524

And of course, we can use bootcamp apps in Windows to select Mojave.

And have everything working as expected. e.g. Keyboard functions keys, Magic Mouse, BT 4.0, Wifi ac, USB 3.0, etc.

P.S. I am not sure if step 24 - 27 can be skipped or not. You may try, may safe you a minute for rebooting.

I had problems trying to install the iMacPro6,1 BC drivers. Kept refusing to uninstall because the version of the uninstaller didn't match the version that was installed, or something like that. So a quick doodle found this link from Microsoft's site, and it worked a charm. I was able to install BootCamp6.1 (via the excellent instructions provided by @h9826790). In Boot Camp utility, I chose the first "Mac macOS" drive that was listed (there were two showing), which booted me straight back to WIn10. Huh? So I then chose the second "Mac macOS" drive, and voila! I booted back into my primary Mojave (APFS) drive.

When I checked System Preferences > Startup Disk it didn't have a startup disk set, so I click on the padlock to unlock it, and then selected my Mojave drive.

Off topic slightly, but does anyone know why APFS for Windows (by Paragon) doesn't mount my APFS Mojave boot drive as Read/Write - just Read-only? It says something about it only mounting in Read-only due to the drive having snapshots, but I don't know what that means.

 

[1151105]

Are you installing as UEFI boot or legacy-BIOS boot? Did you use the Bootcamp Assistant to partition Win 10 disk or the Disk Utility? If Disk Utility did you try to create a GUID or MBR disk? Are you trying to put an HFS+ or APFS volume on the same disk?

right, so I'm at this point in the install process... re-burning the installer to triple check I did it right. just right click the .cdr and select burn yeah?

I also finally got disk utility to reformat the nvme drive. I had to change it to a journaled drive first then I formatted it as exFAT with mbr. once the disc is done burning I'll try the 'c' process again and then repost... hopefully from windows ;p [sort of ]
[doublepost=1543289420][/doublepost]so, I get the same error. it appears that there are maybe no drivers for the disloyalties? or its not being allowed by the botrom? the disk may not be initializing correctly? its. showing in the installable disks list, but she just won't take er...

 

[1151105]

I was frustrated so i decided to look closer... i see conflicting information.

1. why is the drive labelled not bootable?

b] if its not bootable, how come i have been able to boot from it when installed via EFI?
c] definitely on 140 FW, does anyone with a working win10 legacy bootable nvme installation say the same thing?

2. sip is unsupported, is that a problem if its enabled on the system [ive done several pram resets]?

[doublepost=1543293074][/doublepost]i think that that information is only relevant to OSX. if i change the format it changes the information. in this case its exfat mbr. however, shouldn't that be bootable?