Successful Windows 7 install (mostly)

I would like to report that I have been successful at installing Windows 7 RC on a dedicated drive on a Mac Pro (early 2008) using the following procedure:

1. Downloaded the ISO (Windows 7 RC 32-bit) from Microsoft and burned the image to DVD using Nero 6 in the XP environment (using the lowest burn speed available for best results).

2. Booted to OS X and ran the Boot Camp Assistant to select the drive and have it partition the drive (which results in a drive with a mini 200 MB partition used for the boot process and a main partition for installing the OS on).

3. Inserted the Windows 7 RC DVD in optical drive and waited as usual for the disc to appear on the desktop and clicked ‘Continue’ in Boot Camp Assistant.

4. After the Window 7 RC DVD loaded files, I was presented with a list of partitions that the Windows installer sees. Being careful not to select the 200 MB partition, I selected the proper partition to install Windows on and then clicked the ‘Options’ link below the list of partitions.

5. After clicking the ‘Options’ link, I clicked on the ‘Format’ option and once that finished, I proceeded with the installation which was nothing more than clicking the button at the lower right corner of installer dialog and letting Windows install itself (which includes rebooting a couple of times).

6. Once the installer finished, I was presented with the ‘User Name’ options followed by the ‘Password’ and ‘Window Update’ options (I entered a password for security and selected the ‘Recommended’ update option for ease of process).

7. Windows then prepared the desktop by running the hardware evaluation sequence and I finally arrived at the desktop.

Note – I used the included thin aluminum full sized USB keyboard to enter data in step #6 and a USB mouse to click in all other steps.

I attempted to run the Boot Camp installer off the OS X install disc included with the Mac Pro, but Windows 7 promptly informed me that Boot Camp had known issues with this version of Windows.

I quit the installer and then opened Windows Explorer by clicking the folder icon on the taskbar. Selecting ‘Computer’ allowed me access to the optical drive icon which I could right-click to use the ‘Open’ option to view the contents of the disc. Opening the ‘Boot Camp’ folder and then the ‘Drivers’ folder gave me access to the individual driver installers which can be installed as needed (if needed).

I found the following issues while installing the drivers referred to above:

1. Installing the Apple keyboard drivers did install the Apple keyboard driver file to the correct location (‘:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\’) but did not enable the Eject key on the keyboard. The other keys all seemed to work correctly for Windows commands although I have not tried all variations, just the typical Ctrl, Shift, Alt modifier combinations.

2. Installing the other ‘Apple’ drivers did not enable the Eject key either.

3. Attempting to run the ‘BootCamp.exe’ file by itself resulted in the compatibility error message again, which convinced me that it is this file creating the problem and not the individual driver files. Note – this meant that the Boot Camp applet was not available to select a boot drive from in the Windows 7 RC environment (I had to use the ‘Option’ key during boot to change the boot drive away from Windows 7 RC).

4. Running the individual Realtek audio installer resulted in improved audio functionality over the audio drivers included in the Windows 7 RC image.

5. Running Windows Update offered an update to the nVidia 8800 GT card in the Mac Pro which installed and worked correctly.

6. Looking in Device Manager (right-click Computer \ select ‘Properties’ \ click Device Manager link) – I saw only one missing driver listed as a base device which I believe is the PCI bridge for the data controller enabling the SATA data transfer.

The end result is that I have access to running Windows 7 RC with the following missing functionality:

1. No use of the ‘Eject’ key on the full sized aluminum Apple keyboard (work-around is to use the optical drive context menu ‘Eject’ command and close tray by hand).

2. No full speed data transfer on SATA controller (still using the UDMA mode ‘5’ as in both XP and Vista).

3. Maximum RAM access is still limited to 2 GB (same as XP and Vista 32-bit) although Windows 7 RC sees all 8 GB. If I understand correctly – which I admittedly may not – this has something to do with the 200 MB boot partition and the resulting communication restrictions imposed by the differences between BIOS and EFI.

Note – I have not tried to connect the Bluetooth thin aluminum Apple keyboard yet, but will try later today after work.

Note #2 – this Mac Pro machine has had successful and problem free Windows XP (32-bit) & Vista Business (32-bit) installations with the exception of items #2 & #3 above which seems to be driver / firmware related.

I have read that a number of people are having problems with installing Windows 7 RC when upgrading an existing Vista install. Due to the incompatibility with the current version of Boot Camp and / or other Vista specific files that may be in conflict, it may be worth trying to do a clean install using the Boot Camp Assistant in OS X to repartition and prepare the drive for install (although you would obviously need to reinstall all apps into the Windows environment and backing up your email, favorites and personal files to copy to Windows 7 RC after install).

I would also recommend burning your Windows 7 RC image using the lowest speed possible. Until about 18 months ago, I was a PC power user and have seen failed installs of various Beta and RC versions due to corrupt files created during high speed burns.

I apologize if this is long winded post, but I thought it might help some people and also might help any Apple tech’s dropping by that are trying to identify the issues popping up with running Windows 7 RC on a Mac.

A special thanks to ‘The Hatter’ for taking the time to create this great ‘FAQ \ information link’ post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866970&tstart=0 on the Windows 7 Beta install process for Mac users.

Peace.