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Windows 7 64bit on Late 2009 iMac

W

wfj5444

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 2, 2008
265
3
Has anyone had success installing Win7 x64 on a new iMac?

I know the previous gen didn't support it. I am wondering if the new ones do.

Because of some of the gaming I do, I would really like support for more than 4GB of RAM in Windows.


I searched around and found some limited references to people attempting it.
 
iDAG said:
Apple said support for Windows 7 in Snow Leopard and Leopard is not coming until early next year.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but even with BootCamp 3.0, Vista 64 is not supported on the C2D iMac even though it is technically capable.

My question is more for folks who have done it, not what Apple supports :)

My wife's iMac is running Win7 32 bit just fine.
 
Plenty of people have done it including me. Head over to the windows on a mac forum and there are plenty of posts about it. As far as support, the only issues I had were with screen resolution on the 27" and bluetooth, and a simple windows update took care of both of them.

If you have a copy available, I would say go for it, join the club.

Just to be clear, I have installed Windows 7 Professional 64bit on my 27" iMac and my 15" unibody mbp and have zero issues.
 
mpuck972 said:
Plenty of people have done it including me. Head over to the windows on a mac forum and there are plenty of posts about it. As far as support, the only issues I had were with screen resolution on the 27" and bluetooth, and a simple windows update took care of both of them.

If you have a copy available, I would say go for it, join the club.

Just to be clear, I have installed Windows 7 Professional 64bit on my 27" iMac and my 15" unibody mbp and have zero issues.
Click to expand...


Glad to hear. I have both 32 and 64 bit available. I was hoping to hear it wasn't an issue.
 
I'm looking forward to checking it out come the end of the year!

Anyone have any experience transferring a license to another computer? I have a desktop that I am going to pretty much rip apart and build with new parts. I have 1 Win7 license on it and then I have 1 unused license. I want one on my upgraded desktop and one on my iMac.

Anyone have any success transferring their licenses? I know you gotta call them but I haven't done that much being more of a Linux user myself. :D
 
mpuck972 said:
Just to be clear, I have installed Windows 7 Professional 64bit on my 27" iMac and my 15" unibody mbp and have zero issues.
Click to expand...

I read/heard that many will face issues because applications designed to run in a 32-bit environment may struggle in a 64-bit platform?

Also, that the drivers designed for certain devices will only work in 32bit platforms and will simply fail in 64bit platforms. Have you needed to get around any issues of this sort?

I have the option of going for Win7 64bit but am not sure if it will fully support everything out there (mainly because not everything has been created/written to adhere to 64bit spec environments).

Input appreciated...
 
cman-uk said:
I read/heard that many will face issues because applications designed to run in a 32-bit environment may struggle in a 64-bit platform?

Also, that the drivers designed for certain devices will only work in 32bit platforms and will simply fail in 64bit platforms. Have you needed to get around any issues of this sort?

I have the option of going for Win7 64bit but am not sure if it will fully support everything out there (mainly because not everything has been created/written to adhere to 64bit spec environments).

Input appreciated...
Click to expand...

Drivers are the biggest issue. Also, it's really not necessary because you won't see a gain unless the apps are written for 64 bit... In that case they'd take up more RAM which happens to be one of the bennefits of a 64bit OS. You can use more ram!! :p

I have an Athlon x64 CPU desktop and I only installed the x32 version and it runs great.
 
madwolf said:
What game needs (or even makes use of) more than 4gb of ram? I haven't seen any...
Click to expand...

There are none.

A lot of people say that because they game they need lots of ram... Nope.

Unless you're running some intense program in the background you don't.

Read the recommended ram for the software and you'll be good. If you want to run more than just that software over the OS you'll probably be fine, because they assume you may have a couple background processes. iTunes or Winamp won't take up too much :D
 
ViViDboarder said:
There are none.

A lot of people say that because they game they need lots of ram... Nope.

Unless you're running some intense program in the background you don't.

Read the recommended ram for the software and you'll be good. If you want to run more than just that software over the OS you'll probably be fine, because they assume you may have a couple background processes. iTunes or Winamp won't take up too much :D
Click to expand...

Nope, no game goes, not that I have seen. The issue is being able to multitask while also gaming. I have tested the difference in my performance while gaming with 2GB, 4GB, and 6GB on my Mac Pro. Once you hit 4GB there are no gaming impacts, but there are other tasks that are impacted.

With only the OS booted and playing EQ2 (Win) or WoW (Win or Mac) about 3GB is in use. That leaves only 1GB of RAM if you are lucky for doing anything else. Memory is so cheap it isn't worth not getting more.

Plus consider the fact 32 bit OS is only able to utilize 2GB of memory for the user space, with 2GB reserved for the OS. That is unless you are using a Windows server OS and you can use the /3GB boot switch, allowing for up to 3GB.

That means if I am running EQ2 in Windows and it is running at 1.8GB, which it normally does, pretty sure I am memory bound for any other application I want to run.
 
cman-uk said:
I read/heard that many will face issues because applications designed to run in a 32-bit environment may struggle in a 64-bit platform?

Also, that the drivers designed for certain devices will only work in 32bit platforms and will simply fail in 64bit platforms. Have you needed to get around any issues of this sort?

I have the option of going for Win7 64bit but am not sure if it will fully support everything out there (mainly because not everything has been created/written to adhere to 64bit spec environments).

Input appreciated...
Click to expand...

A few years ago this was an issue. I remember my first 64bit Vista machine and all the issues I had locating 64bit drivers.

Now it seems that 64bit has become so mainstream that there is no longer an issue with that. I think most companies have just resigned themselves to creating a 64bit driver alongside the 32bit. The only issue I had was with the screen resolution on the 27" iMac not being at the highest it could be, but a Windows update included a driver from ATI that fixed it. Once installed I was able to achieve the max resolution of the iMac.

Everything else, sound, magic mouse scrolling and backwards and forwards work fine. If you run the bootcamp cd from Apple it may not install everything automatically, so you might have to explore the disc and manually run the driver installations.
 
wfj5444 said:
Nope, no game goes, not that I have seen. The issue is being able to multitask while also gaming. I have tested the difference in my performance while gaming with 2GB, 4GB, and 6GB on my Mac Pro. Once you hit 4GB there are no gaming impacts, but there are other tasks that are impacted.

With only the OS booted and playing EQ2 (Win) or WoW (Win or Mac) about 3GB is in use. That leaves only 1GB of RAM if you are lucky for doing anything else. Memory is so cheap it isn't worth not getting more.

Plus consider the fact 32 bit OS is only able to utilize 2GB of memory for the user space, with 2GB reserved for the OS. That is unless you are using a Windows server OS and you can use the /3GB boot switch, allowing for up to 3GB.

That means if I am running EQ2 in Windows and it is running at 1.8GB, which it normally does, pretty sure I am memory bound for any other application I want to run.
Click to expand...

What else could you possibly be doing while playing a game? That's my question, haha. Yes, obviously ram would help if that was the case that you were trying to do something else while a game was running, but it's not likely. That's the point I'm trying to make. In most cases 1gb of ram for background tasks is plenty.
 
ViViDboarder said:
What else could you possibly be doing while playing a game? That's my question, haha. Yes, obviously ram would help if that was the case that you were trying to do something else while a game was running, but it's not likely. That's the point I'm trying to make. In most cases 1gb of ram for background tasks is plenty.
Click to expand...

Well when it comes to EQ2 or WoW, there are spots of downtime.

Sometimes I can watch a TV show on the other monitor, or surf (yes sometimes Safari can use up to 320 MB of RAM), etc, etc.. To me it is worth x64 os + $100 in RAM to not impact my game play or The Next Iron Chef!
 
wfj5444 said:
Well when it comes to EQ2 or WoW, there are spots of downtime.

Sometimes I can watch a TV show on the other monitor, or surf (yes sometimes Safari can use up to 320 MB of RAM), etc, etc.. To me it is worth x64 os + $100 in RAM to not impact my game play or The Next Iron Chef!
Click to expand...

Nice. :D I just started watching that show.

I'm used to FPS where I couldn't imagine doing anything else at the same time. Haha.
 
No Luck!

I have the i7 iMac, when I try to install Windows 7 64bit everything go smoothly until the restart after the install. It shows the "Starting Windows" then the screen goes black. It sits there for hours until I shut the machine off by holding the power button. Anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on how to fix it? I tried doing a fresh partition and install and I get the same results. Almost seems like a driver issue with the 27'' monitor.

Any help would be great!
 
OptimusHale said:
I have the i7 iMac, when I try to install Windows 7 64bit everything go smoothly until the restart after the install. It shows the "Starting Windows" then the screen goes black. It sits there for hours until I shut the machine off by holding the power button. Anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on how to fix it? I tried doing a fresh partition and install and I get the same results. Almost seems like a driver issue with the 27'' monitor.

Any help would be great!
Click to expand...

i know this is going to sound sketch as hell, but i had this same problem and had a tech savy buddy come over and we worked on it for a weekend. it's a driver issue - windows is attempting to load incompatible video drivers during the final parts of installation. i can't remember how, but i think he (my friend) disabled some of these in a command prompt prior to install. we tried it again and it booted in! i've only had 7 screw up once, but i've been playing COD4, some Fallout 3, and Arkham Asylum quite a bit since then with great results. good luck!

ps - to reiterate, this is in regards to 64-bit windows 7 on an i7 imac. ;)
 
mpuck972 said:
Plenty of people have done it including me. Head over to the windows on a mac forum and there are plenty of posts about it. As far as support, the only issues I had were with screen resolution on the 27" and bluetooth, and a simple windows update took care of both of them.

If you have a copy available, I would say go for it, join the club.

Just to be clear, I have installed Windows 7 Professional 64bit on my 27" iMac and my 15" unibody mbp and have zero issues.
Click to expand...

Windows 7 64 definitely works on my new refurb 24" 8800GS iMac. None of the keyboard special keys work in bootcamp but all the other Vista 64 bootcamp drivers worked just fine. I haven't tried updating the nvidia driver yet.

Cheers,
 
Why even bother with Win7 right now? Sure it's prettier but isn't OSX your primary OS with Windows only being booted up to play games/use certain programs?

If that's the case wouldn't it be more sensible to just use XP? Better driver/more stable/better compatibility/official support etc.

Unless you need to use some really RAM heavy program. In which case Vista would actually be the way to go from what I understand. the 7100 beta of 7 benchmarked much lower when it came to ram utilization and muti-core processing from what I recall.... but then again this was like a good 6 months ago so that may have changed.

Just throwing in my 2 cents
 
Found the Solution!

Ok so I got it running! And it is great!

Here is how I did it:

After creating my boot camp partition I did the usual install. I let it go all the way until the screen went black. (This part is important) Wait for at least 20 min while the screen is black. If you restart your machine to soon it will not work.
After waiting hold down the power button until the machine powers off. Start up the machine again, it will ask if you want to go into safe mode or not. Select "Safe Mode"

\\While booting in safe mode you'll eventually get an error saying "setup cannot continue in safe mode. click ok to reboot". don't press OK!. Press shift F10 and type "compmgmt.msc" and hit enter. When the computer management screen comes up go to device manager and disable the video card (not uninstall it). You will still get video so don't worry.

Close device manager and click 'ok' on the message and continue the install as normal, alternatively just do a reset. When the machine reboots this time you should have video, albeit it at a crippled resolution.

Finish the Windows 7 64bit install. Then after you get in stick in the OSX DVD that came with your 27'' iMac. Do not run the auto installer that pops up. Instead do this:

In the Windows 7 Start Menu Type “cmd”, then right-click on the program that appears and choose “Run As Administrator”.

Then enter;

D:
cd "Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple"
msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

That will install the Apple 64bit drivers. After a restart the video card works great as well as all the other Apple hardware.

The only issue I have had is when the wireless mouse and keyboard are inactive for a minute or so they stop working. I found that if plug in a mouse and log out and log back in they start working again. If anyone has a solutions to this problem let me know.

Sorry if my sentences/spelling are bad, I was in a hurry.
 
OptimusHale said:
snip

In the Windows 7 Start Menu Type “cmd”, then right-click on the program that appears and choose “Run As Administrator”.

Then enter;

D:
cd "Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple"
msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

That will install the Apple 64bit drivers. After a restart the video card works great as well as all the other Apple hardware.
Click to expand...

This is great little tidbit. I will have to try it out on another system (since this one works except the special function keys)

Cheers,
 
For the black screen issue, someone else on another board said you could simply plug a monitor into the iMacs MDP and the windows video feed would actually be there, and the iMacs screen would be black. You can then continue with the install and the driver issue will eventually solve itself.

Evidentially Windows is sending the video to the iMacs MDP after the reboot instead of to the main screen.
 
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