Old macbook air 2012, Catalina 10.15.6, no good option to run windows 10?

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Old macbook air 2012, Catalina 10.15.6, no good option to run windows 10?

Catalina 10.15.6

Got an old macbook air 2012" that I like and can't afford a new one anyway, I want to run windows just for very few programs, I got this adapter/ssd for my mac in general.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07NSFY5XM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and this 1tb ssd

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B073SB2MXT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bootcamp would be ideal option, but I didn't know about all problems with running bootcamp/installing windows with third party internal ssds and don't want to run into that and troubleshooting it when there's partition problems.

OWC drives with their special firmware and software for bootcamp and all that might have worked but it's not worth it they're 3x more expensive than third party drives.

Win2usb probably won't work well on usb3 speed, booting a MacOS clone from usb3 is painfully slow.

Similarly parallels or other vmware would probably not work well because of the notebook only has 4gb ram, and cpu can get a bit hot running multiple programs in MacOs, but performance is generally not slugglish.

So, for this laptop, just no Windows or are one of these options worth a look at?

MacBook

Posted on Aug 20, 2020 12:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

dialabrain

Level 10

122,729 points

Aug 20, 2020 9:42 PM in response to GGarrett2

See: Install Windows on your newer Mac using Boot Camp - Apple Support

FWIW, I'm not aware of an issue using Boot Camp on an APFS formatted Mac.

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

361,753 points

Aug 20, 2020 2:04 PM in response to GGarrett2

You should know that Windows will not install on or boot from an external drive. You use Boot Camp Assistant to create a special partition on the internal drive on which you can install Windows. You then have a dual-boot computer.

If you would rather run Windows concurrently with macOS, then you need to use special emulation software such as Parallels Desktop for Mac. Parallels will install on or boot a Windows VM from an external drive.

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Answer 3

GGarrett2 Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 20, 2020 2:43 PM in response to Kappy

I want to do bootcamp, but there are many posts online about people not being able to install windows and screwing up their systems when they tried bootcamp after they changed their internal ssd to a new one, which is what I am going to do.

Parallels seems great but I think my macbook might be underpowered, they have a free trial I suppose I could try.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,753 points

Aug 20, 2020 8:35 PM in response to GGarrett2

People we cannot install Windows or screw up their systems are unable to read and follow instructions. The latest macOS formats SSDs using APFS which is incompatible with Windows.

If your computer is underpowered for Parallels, then it is underpowered for Windows. If you use Parallels, then you will need at least 8GBs of RAM.

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Answer 5

GGarrett2 Author

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15 points

Aug 20, 2020 9:30 PM in response to Kappy

So you can't even run boot camp and install windows from apfs formatted SSD, for instance an SSD formatted by newest Catalina to be apfs?

I googled and mostly read about people complaining about not being able to see apfs and read and write files between windows and mac when in windows, but those posts are from 2017-2019, not current, and I don't care about that, if I can simply have a way to have a dual boot option on startup and keep my apfs mac drive, that's fine.

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Answer 6

GGarrett2 Author

Level 1

15 points

Aug 20, 2020 9:46 PM in response to dialabrain

I think the issue seems to be with read/write and windows lacking drivers to properly interact with apfs drives, which doesn't interest me, I will read a little more and perhaps give it a go, thanks.

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