Removing OSX from MBA, Why not?

[droon]

I want to remove OSX completely from my 2010 Macbook Air and just have Windows 7 installed.

Are there fundamental reasons why I shouldnt' do this?


I bought the 11" MBA, a beautiful machine. I went with 64gb and 4 gigs ram,

I'm regretting that now.

The HD's been filled up to the brink for a few months now.

I installed Windows 7 ultimate 64bit on a 20gb partition, 10GB for the install, 4GB for the hibernation file, I need 4GB of space free to fully use the RAM (that's still true, right?), so that's it, I have like 2 GB for storage and additional application install, dropbox alone fills that up...

On the OSX side, my daily use OS, the 40GB keeps filling up just with Itunes and browsing .
There's a truckload of software i've been meaning to install on the MBA to finally start using it as a work tool, but i've been unable to do so. Partly because the common things, Photoshop etc, I need to install on both OS's

I need Windows because of some key apps I need that don't have OSX counterparts. Engineering stuff,

There are no such key applications that I need in OSX.

I like osx, but what I like more, is getting some work done..

So baslicly I made up my mind but i'm afraid i'll get into trouble deleting OSX.
Do you need it for firmware updates? Does it void the warranty if you remove it? Does the boot process somehow needs a copy of OSX present? OR are there other issues I don't know about? How best to proceed in deleting the OSX partition?

tnx for any tips guys.

i'm NOT looking for a windows vs osX battle, i'm not looking to buy expensive 3rd party HD's, and i'm not willing to exert more self controll in filling up my space.

 

[Oli3000]

I did a quick google, and basically it says, yes.

Just install the windows drivers that come with the snow leopard flash drive, or download them from apples site, to get the drivers for the hardware, should work fine.

 

[fleeper]

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/macbook-air-windows-7-part-imperfect-storm-135952

Paul Thurrott did just that. Read his blog.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

VMWare not an option ?

 

[johnhalsted]

1. If its under the 14 day? warranty thing, take it back and see if you can switch it for a higher model if you pay a little extre

2. Explain to them that 64gb is not enough and you would like to upgrade, thay may be nice and let you (sometimes they are super nice )

3. Sell it and buy a new, you would still get a very very good price for it probably only about a 7% loss or something (guess)

 

[trip1ex]

The 13" MBP is probably the machine you should have purchased.

 

[mayhone1]

The 13" MBP is probably the machine you should have purchased.

I agree, for your needs it would be better to just get a macbook pro, the extra storage and memory options would allow you to run both without getting rid of osx!

 

[droon]

no, i'm really glad I picked the MBA.

on the couch, on the move, the size and weight are really great. I love the "miracle of technology" aspect of it. it gets alot of "oohs" still..It's just I have 2 hours of the train every day where I occasionally need to get some work done..

I have a pro workstation at home that does anything truly demanding, where i actually store my files/ backups etc, do my rendering, etc..

My demands for it are realistic, just need like..20 gb more HD space.. just to be able to install my most currently used aplications in windows, that's it.. deleting the OSX partition should really solve most issues, I was just checking to see wether that would be a bad idea for some reason I didn't know about.

In hindsight, I would have picked the 128 gb version, but deleting osx will do as a solution..

tnx for all the input so far, the blog of the dude that "did just that" was most helpfull.

 

[2IS]

The 13" MBP is probably the machine you should have purchased.

No, what he should have purchased was the 128GB option. His only issue is storage. No reason to completely ditch the MBA for a MBP.

 

[heelsbigc]

Replace the ssd with a larger one from owc.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[brand]

Removing the Mac OS installation will prevent you from getting any future firmware updates since they are installed through the Mac OS.

 

[ulfses]

I did that to my macbook a while back. No problem at all. I just downloaded the bootcamp drivers from a torrentsite and installed whatever drivers Windows couldn't.
Wipe all partitions and install Windows as a clean install.

If you should have to return it for some reason - just slip back osx.

 

[droon]

Removing the Mac OS installation will prevent you from getting any future firmware updates since they are installed through the Mac OS.

see, that's the kind of stuff i'm affraid of


Also, the 30 days battery life when sleeping, is that upheld in Windows? Because i LOVE that about the mba, even after days of not touching it, just open it, hit the spacebar and you're watching the rest of your movie or whatever..

 

[Satori]

Before you go removing OS X, have you tried everything possible to reduce the size of the system install. For example, have you used a tool like 'monolingual' to remove languages and keyboard layouts that you don't need? Have you removed garageband and it's loops? You can save up to 6gb this way. Any other software that is part of the standard install that you don't need?

Can something similar be done on your Windows partition?

 

[maclaptop]

see, that's the kind of stuff i'm affraid of


Also, the 30 days battery life when sleeping, is that upheld in Windows? Because i LOVE that about the mba, even after days of not touching it, just open it, hit the spacebar and you're watching the rest of your movie or whatever..

Being a purist, working in a cross platform environment, I actually bought two MBA's. One to use Win 7 on natively. No worries, just get rid of OSX, forget firmware updates you won't need them. I bought mine on release day, and it's super reliable as is typical of Macs. The other one I run only OS X on. It's better than a VM solution due to the nature of my work.

When I'm not traveling I use my new 8GB / SSD equipped 15" MBP, it's a rocket. I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3, wow did that ever increase its speed. While not exactly a surprise, its noticeably faster than other SSD's I've used in the last year.

 

[2IS]

Being a purist, working in a cross platform environment, I actually bought two MBA's. One to use Win 7 on natively. No worries, just get rid of OSX, forget firmware updates you won't need them. I bought mine on release day, and it's super reliable as is typical of Macs. The other one I run only OS X on. It's better than a VM solution due to the nature of my work.

When I'm not traveling I use my new 8GB / SSD equipped 15" MBP, it's a rocket. I installed a 240 GB Vertex 3, wow did that ever increase its speed. While not exactly a surprise, its noticeably faster than other SSD's I've used in the last year.

You could have just run bootcamp and you'd have OSX and Windows 7 (native) and saved yourself over $1000. Not to mention the convenience of having them on one laptop instead of grabbing a different machine every time you want to boot into another OS.

 

[weckart]

Removing the Mac OS installation will prevent you from getting any future firmware updates since they are installed through the Mac OS.

Nah. Just get a 16GB usb pen drive and do a minimal install of OSX to that. You can just boot from that for any firmware upgrade.