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Windows 7 not Supported on Older Intel Macs? (Mac Pro 2006)

The following KB article says Windows 7 will not be supported on older macs. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be? Perhaps this due to graphics card drivers or other hardware configuration issues? I've upgraded my card, and had ordered Windows 7 before this article was released.

I'm hoping this means a lack of support from Apple, but that Windows 7 will still run, as we have seen to date with the current version of Bootcamp.

Thoughts?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3920

Summary
Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.

Products Affected
Portable Computers, Desktop Computers
Requirements:
In addition to the Boot Camp update, you will need the following:

• Your own authentic copy of Microsoft Windows 7 or Microsoft Windows 7 upgrade

• An Intel-based Mac computer

Note: The following models will not be supported for use with Windows 7 using Boot Camp.

iMac (17-inch, Early 2006)
iMac (17-inch, Late 2006)
iMac (20-inch, Early 2006)
iMac (20-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2006)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2006)
Mac Pro (Mid 2006, Intel Xeon Dual-core 2.66GHz or 3GHz)

Mac Pro 2006, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 22, 2009 1:03 PM

Reply
26 replies

Oct 22, 2009 1:16 PM in response to Mr Grinch

It doesn't ever give why, or technical reasons. So throw logic out the window.

64-bit isn't / won't be supported if you have pre UEFI (EFI64) such as our 1,1 Mac Pro but it doesn't say "Mac Pro 2007" either. And didn't mention the 2GHz Mac Pro....

I can see EFI firmware, but unlikely.
Boot Camp Assistant may not be setting the proper offset for Windows 7 partition tables.

I lost faith, built two PCs, one for test, one for regular use, and the Mac Pro to play with.

Oct 23, 2009 4:38 PM in response to bobio

32-bit will work fine. 64-bit requires some legwork to burn a special cd as the older 2006 Mac's use EFI32 and choke when installing Windows x64.

You will need to do the following to create a working cd for Windows 7 64 bit:

Download oscdimg on Windows - found here http://sergiomcfly.blogspot.com/2008/04/select-cd-rom-boot-type-when-installing. html
Copy the entire contents of your Windows 7 64-bit CD to a new folder in Windows
Run the following command in Command Prompt on Windows - "oscdimg -n -m -bc:\newfolder\boot\etfsboot.com c:\newfolder c:\newfolder\server2008dvd.iso" (minus quotes and do not put a space between -b and c:\)

Take that ISO and burn it via Disk Utility on OS X.

After running Boot Camp and install Windows 7, pop in your Snow Leopard disc. Autoplay should pop up. Close it and open the SL disc through My Computer.

There should be a directory called drivers that contains a list of folders named by company. Go into the Apple directory, right click on the BootCamp64 exe and look for something like "run compatibility" and select that. A window will pop up and say that Windows has found a solution that is "disable compatibility check" and ask if you want to run BootCamp64. Proceed and it will install 64 bit drivers that will work on Windows 7.

I don't know if this will work on more recent macs but it worked fine on dual core 3.0ghz Mac Pro.

Also I am encountering two problems:

1) Extremely slow boot up times, my Mac Pro will clock for 3-5 minutes showing a blank grey screen before "Starting Windows" will appear. I've verified my disk via Disk Utility, fixed permissions in Onyx and cleared the PRAM. Same issue.
2) My Apple Bluetooth Keyboard is really flakey. I was able to fix it by using a different Bluetooth stack on RC1 but I've forgotten the exact steps.

If I can't fix the slow boot up times, I'll probably go back to Vista. I just use Boot Camp to play TF2 or L4d every now and then to unwind.

Oct 23, 2009 11:22 PM in response to Mr Grinch

Just upgraded a bootcamp partition from XP Pro 32-bit to a Windows 7 64 bit clean install without any significant problem. The bootcamp partition was on a hard drive also containing a normal Mac partition. I made a copy of the WIndows 7 install disk via instructions found at:

http://jowie.com/blog/post/2008/02/24/Select-CD-ROM-Boot-Type-prompt-while-tryin g-to-boot-from-Vista-x64-DVD-burnt-from-iso-file.aspx

The ONLY issue was when the install program reboots during installation after booting from the DVD, I had to hold the "option" button on the keyboard to make sure it rebooted to the hard drive, rather than the DVD as it did the first time.

My startup time is about a minute. Windows recognized all 12 GB of memory and so far I have had no problems. Right now I am backing up the fresh install with Winclone in case I mess it up at some point.

I am running a 64-bit version of Windows on my "ancient" 2006 Mac Pro. It is very frustrating that Apple cannot be bothered to create a workaround so I can use Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode. I do intensive medical imaging-related work, as well as video and audio pro apps. Breaking the 4 GB per app barrier would be very helpful. It is ridiculous that Snow Leopard cannot take FULL advantage of my 64-bit computer (advertised as such) but Windows can!

Oct 24, 2009 12:22 AM in response to bandersnatch

Never tried any of the RCs. It should not matter if you are using Leopard rather than Snow Leopard since the Mac OS really is not involved in any way when you boot into Windows. I have not installed any Apple Bootcamp drivers. Still boots reasonably fast. My drive is nothing special, a WD 1 GB green drive (relatively slow).

Played with Win 7 some more. Runs REALLY well - better then Vista Ultimate I briefly installed when it first came out (Bill Gates Signature Edition no less!). The sound finally is coming out of the line out jack - which I could never get XP to do. The volume is low, as others have reported. I just turn my speakers up - just turn them back down when I go back to Mac. I am using a Logitech Edge bluetooth keyboard via a small bluetooth dongle without any problem. I have a NVidia 8800 GT and Windows had no problem finding a driver for it. My dual 30" monitors work perfectly.

Of course I will use my Mac for most everything, but at lease now I can tap into all of the raw power my computer has, despite Apple's pathetic abandonment of my 2006 Mac Pro.

This has been a much better experience that I ever imagined!

Oct 24, 2009 8:04 AM in response to Neurorad

Install the latest RealTek audio drivers and you'll be fine.

Odd but some PC users are having trouble with their EVGA 8800's when installing Windows 7 (fine once they are able to install the graphic drivers). There are problems with Nvidia's latest, btw.

Boot Camp 3.0 is iffy on the AppleHFS and shame there isn't an easy way to turn on/off the service.

Oct 24, 2009 12:38 PM in response to bandersnatch

I wanted to provide an update. I tried to install Windows 7 32-bit on my Mac Pro and experienced the same extremely slow boot up. My Mac Pro automatically recognized the disc, so I didn't have to burn a custom CD like I did for 64-bit.

I think I'm going to just build a separate PC box for my gaming needs. Christmas is coming up and in Canada, our Black Friday is the day after called Boxing Day. I'm confident I'll be able to build together a decent system for around a grand.

Oct 31, 2009 8:28 PM in response to bandersnatch

Ok, I'm really having trouble doing this. I followed this guys intructions:
“Select CD-Rom Boot Type:_”

Steps:

1 – create 3 folders c:\windows7iso c:\windows7exe c:\windows7dvd
2- download this .exe file and put into c:\windows7exe
3- put the windows 7 .iso you downloaded from ms into c:\windows7iso and unzip the contents with imgburn
4- move .iso file out of c:\windows7iso
5- open a dos prompt in c:\windows7exe and type exactly as shown (Obviosuly if you decide to use the disk, change c:\ in the first part to be the letter of your DVD drive) :

oscdimg -n -m -bc:\windows7iso\boot\etfsboot.com c:\windows7iso c:\windows7dvd\windows7dvd.iso

Now burn the windows7dvd.iso file to a DVD and proceed to install windows 7 on your mac!


Now I am not familiar with DOS and didnt know you had to type cd: to even get into the C: drive. So here is exactly what I have typed into the command prompt"

cd c:\windows7exe
oscdimg -n -m -bc:\windows7iso\boot\etfsboot.com
--- Now I have been ok up to this point----
Next i type cd c:\windows7iso
then I type c:\windows7dvd\windows7dvd.iso however I get an error message saying that the command line is not recognized. So I then type cd c:\windows7dvd\windows7dvd.iso and I get a message saying the system cannot find the specified path.

Please someone help me create this ISO file I need to burn!

Just to note, I didnt download Win7 I have the 64bit version on DVD and I copied all the files onto the windows7iso folder.


Thanks in advance!

Nov 1, 2009 10:29 AM in response to Raziel1

I had read about the method you used to create a new DVD with the proper boot type to install Win 7, but I didn't try that method.

I had another Mac with a working Windows 7 install (Macbook 13" with Win 7 64) and used the imgburn method. That got a Macbook Pro 3,1 that previously hung at the "Select CDROM boot type" message to boot up and install. For some reason it hung in the final setup, and I rebooted. I may have just been impatient. In any case, a second go (and a trip out to grab a bite so I couldn't be impatient) did the trick, it is working perfectly. Then had to use another trick to install the bootcamp64 drivers by running cmd.exe as an admin, and using msiexec to install the bootcamp64.msi from the Snow Leopard DVD.

All is sweet. An unsupported Win7 64 Macbook Pro is working... with all devices available.

Nov 1, 2009 10:43 AM in response to Moonlight Mac

Other options, even mentioned in new Apple technote:

Boot from Windows 7 DVD and see if System Repair solves problem;
Boot in Safe Mode if a new driver is causing freeze/crash or BSOD.

Copy the entire /Boot Camp files off OS X DVD to your Windows desktop folder, and just navigate to bootcamp64 in /Apple/Drivers I believe.

Use control + click on installers and select Troubleshoot Compatibility

I installed Windows 7 on my PC (Core i7) and moved the drive to one of the Mac Pro open drive bays. Not an easy option for MacBook, but Windows installed all the changed chipset drivers and such.

Nov 2, 2009 2:12 PM in response to Mr Grinch

so, my system isn't even on this list of unsupported. I have osx 10.5.8 on macbook (don't recall year but I got it before osx v10.5 came out, so last one with tiger)
I do not have snow leopard. I'm sure it would just slow the **** thing down more anyways.

I want to know if I should bother on this sytem or not? I got 1/2price on windows 7 and want to know if i should just install on a faster machine or a new one later?

If someone could post if bootcamp will work on this hardware I'd appreciate it. Would save me alot of time and considering how long it took for a triboot, would save me from a headache or two

Nov 11, 2009 8:23 AM in response to Neurorad

I have W7-64 bit running on my MacPro1,1 but when I try to install BootCamp64.msi in BootCamp/Drivers/Apple using the Troubleshoot Compatibility option and reboot, I get a blue screen error34. Did you install the Apple drivers this way and if so, can you describe your exact choices?

I installed the RealTek sound drivers and sound and video seem to be working fine.

Thanks.

Nov 11, 2009 8:48 AM in response to JohnZonie

Not sure how others installed the bootcamp64 drivers, but this is what I did...

In the start menu, in the search field have it search for: cmd

It will show you cmd.exe. With a 2 button mouse, right click on cmd.exe and select run as administrator (or something like that)

Now you have a command window open with admin rights. Use the cd command to change to the directory that has the bootcamp64.msi

Then use: msiexec /i bootcamp64.msi

If that is what you did already, then I'm not sure what to uncheck to avoid the blue screen.

Windows 7 not Supported on Older Intel Macs? (Mac Pro 2006)

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