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Windows 7 on 2010 Air (Bootcamp)

O

OSMac

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 14, 2010
1,456
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Anyone install Windows 7 via bootcamp on the 2010 Air?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4407

Be interested in hearing your comments, on disc space used, boot times into windows, memory usage , and any other things worth mentioning, does bootcamp allow you to choose the partition size?
 
Holy moly, it looks like Windows 7 boots at least 2x faster than OS X does on the air, and otherwise work almost just as fast or faster, depending on the task.
 
Do you need to use the USB superdrive to install Win 7 or is there some way to use drive sharing/burn a copy of win7 install disk to flash drive etc?
 
It's easy if you follow this guide, I've done it on a few occasions. You need a working windows computer to do it though, another mac with a DVD drive and bootcsmp is fine.

Scratch that unfortunately I just realised thebootcamp installer won't recognise a USB stick formatted in that way. Sorry.
 
Re: Windows 7 on 2010 Air (Bootcamp)

Bootcamp will let you choose partition size. on my drive I gave 80 to Windows 7 and 40 to OsX (I rarely use OSX). Windows boots in about 20 seconds if you don't have all kinds of extra services and apps set to load at startup. Windows 7 allocates all memory, so while the memory utilizaiton looks high, it's really just managing the memory. Performance is excellent. Just make sure that you use the workaround for the Bootcamp.exe problem that causes system freezes/delays. Apple's keyboard driver is poorly written, and they haven't fixed it yet so you need to use the workaround. Someone else solved it, but I posted information about this elsewhere on the forum.

ImperialX: you just need to connect any old external USB DVD drive. Borrow one from a friend, you'll only need it for a short time. My point is, you don't need a "super drive", just a dvd drive. :)
 
Runwin said:
Performance is excellent. Just make sure that you use the workaround for the Bootcamp.exe problem that causes system freezes/delays. Apple's keyboard driver is poorly written, and they haven't fixed it yet so you need to use the workaround. Someone else solved it, but I posted information about this elsewhere on the forum.
Click to expand...

Sorry coming up empty finding the bootcamp.exe fix?
 
I have it installed on mine seems to work quite well. Good performance and all the hardware features are supported 100%. Haven't heard of the 'bootcamp.exe' issue.
 
J400uk said:
I have it installed on mine seems to work quite well. Good performance and all the hardware features are supported 100%. Haven't heard of the 'bootcamp.exe' issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks, what model do you have,
how is ram and disc space with Win7 installed?
 
I've just got the completely standard 11" model with no upgrades. Its using about 45% RAM just idling (51 processes), feels nice and peppy, no slow downs, disk space is also OK have used about 15GB for a complete 32-bit install with Office and a few other apps and about 500mb of documents. Make sure you turn off system restore though as if left on you will find it uses up a lot of your disk.
 
Windows 7 Bootcamp Install

I have just completed this step on my 11" 128 GB 2 GB MBA.

It is easiest done with an external DVD drive, and I used a memorex that I already had.

I am having a few issues with Windows Update. The updater runs fine, but one of the updates is causing restart issues. Although Windows is able to repair the issue, I then had to reload the Apple Drivers.

Issue was with Security Update (KB981957), which I had to deselect from the install list. I will figure out the issue when I have a little more time.

Performance seems just fine, given the hardware limitations of this small system. Boots up into Windows in under 20 seconds, and all of the Apple features, including display and ethernet adapters seem to work just fine.

I only use Windows for some configuration and support software at work.
 
kuruption said:
It's easy if you follow this guide, I've done it on a few occasions. You need a working windows computer to do it though, another mac with a DVD drive and bootcsmp is fine.

Scratch that unfortunately I just realised thebootcamp installer won't recognise a USB stick formatted in that way. Sorry.
Click to expand...

have you seen this video? I've done all the steps except for installing (going to put it on MBP first), plus waiting for my SSD before i run this install but seemed to work acorrding to the review.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31012_7-20020513-10355804.html?tag=epicStories
 
CRASH ... As reported above kb981957 results in a blue screen and needs to be rolled back.
 
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