Windows 8 randomly freezes on MB and MBP

Considering Windows 8 is beta and is not supported by Apple for use with Boot Camp it should come to no surprised that it doesn't work correctly.

Still there is NO REASON for Windows 8 to freeze (it can, due to drivers) it has NEVER frozen on my Mac.

Unsupported - my Mac 2006 is also "Not supported" for Windows 7; for 64-bit.

Windows on Mac you could say doesn't work anyway 100% (runs hotter, fans run slower) one person (Level 10) said Windows on MacBook Air doesn't support power management under Windows (sleep etc).

Really.

You are partially right on Chrome, there is an issue I only recently came upon but I think it was one of the extensions.

FireFox 13 seems good as gold.

Windows 8 RP has had a lot more changes. More complete.

But watch for drivers. I thought after a week of testing and on two different systems I had narrowed down to Intel RST 11.5.x beta - but others said it was fine on theirs.

I would depending on what you use it for:

make a system restore image

make WinClone 3.x ($20) image

Windows Easy Transfer - get all your settings for when you restore

Install the RP. When you do you are left with 20GB prior system (in case it doesn't work) and 2GB temp installer file you can delete later also (Disk Cleanup).

Clean the Registry. Found some of the freezes and lockups.

Graphic drivers from AMD (5/31) while still waiting for an WHQL Nvidia.

A couple things like BT and keyboard I think (there are a couple threads just on 8) do not work and most people learn to live with minor inconvenience, and find suitable drivers.

Remember Windows 7 RC. It was rock solid and being used on 10s of millions of desktops - all before RTM.

Funny about that, you "needed" BC 3.1 but you had to install old pre-release 3.04 first that was buggy and BSOD'd on many systems and there was no direct 3.1 installer. Same with Lion and BC 4.0 before 4.01 came out and failure to partittion properly on systems with prior Boot Camp present.

If you do a Windows only, you should have a 350MB system reserved now that you didn't. I don't think a Mac can use the UEFI option (but can if your PC mobo does) which then means just like OS X you use GPT instead of MBR for system drive initialization.

Windows 8 DP was not stable if I didn't do a full clean install. After that it was fine. It was better when I avoided Apple iTunes and other programs (but not drivers).

I am use to "unsupported" or shrink wrap or whatever but I do avoid the "dot zero" releases until they have had three updates to clean up and tested and even optimized.

Kaspersky won't have support until after RTM and their beta of KIS 2013 froze out installing on 8 now. There is a lot that changed. Anything beside Windows Defender for AV/IS protection seems like support is an issue.

Drivers - the fewer the better.

I had to dig around harder with RP to get Paragon's Clone OS to work (HDM 12 program) which was also not supported but worked before - now the pre-install scan says it is not and really doesn't want to let me launch (it did install just fine).

People have run 8 w/o any Apple support or BC drivers. Fine and an option, and so what.

But it runs better, smoother, than 7 has, and recovers quickly; even go through and repair itself (esp now with RP) - quite amazing. And can return to initial state and wipe any changes you made.

It also works with VirtualBox pretty well.. I would not expect to be able use VHD (someone tried on their PC that wanted to test VM. I think VMware will eventually offer a nice means. Parallels pushed an update today to make it easy to load and setup and make it more automated.

End of day but just one follow up:

Windows 7 can boot from .VHD

Windows 8 for now I thought would not.. And does this work on Mac or only PC (with BIOS and other differences).

One Mac Pro tower, two PCs.

How to Create and Configure a VHD in Windows 7

http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2009/08/25/how-to-create-and-configure-a-vhd -in-windows-7/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/aviraj/archive/2009/01/17/windows-7-boot-from-vhd-fir st-impression-part-1.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/dual-boot-from-vhd-with-windows-7-and-w indows-sever-2008-r2.aspx

Native VHD Boot

Native VHD boot enables the seamless transition to virtualization using a single image format that boots on both physical and virtual machines. Native VHD boot means that the Windows image in a VHD file can boot on a physical machine without starting a Hyper-V virtual machine.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2009/05/14/native-vhd-support- in-windows-7.aspx

Windows 7 Boot from VHD

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/Windows-7-Boot-from-VHD.aspx

JayMelBE wrote:

Great answer ! Very constructive.... 51 080 points just answering "I won't try to help you".

My expectations on this community were really low... but I couldn't think it could be even lower than this... Thank you Templeton Peck which is staying quite in his Sweet hom in Chicago... very helpful !

You are quite welcome!!!!! My pleasure!!!! 😉

I am having these issues as well. I couldn't figure out what exactly is the problem, but I am certain that the nVidia graphics driver is part of the problem. I often get a random system freeze, but sometimes the system crashes with a BSOD "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE".

I have read, that nVidia is going to release a new graphics card driver version very soon. Maybe that'll help.

I think that Apple should really release new Bootcamp drivers, Windows 8 is already in Release Preview state!! I mean, nVidia, ATI, Intel, and all other companies have updated drivers since the Consumer Preview, but I bet that Apple still needs 4- 6 months after the release of Windows 8 to come up with new Bootcamp drivers.

Does anyone know if Apple has already announced the new drivers?

Glad this helped but no Intel and others are still beta testing and won't have drivers until later, and we know Apple won't given past history.

Programs I use that are low level driver and system level can probably now begin to test. RP made a lot of changes.

Many Apple developers have to wait until after Apple ships a new OS to really begin testing, given that what you see is not what gets shipped and can end up wasting time and development on code and features that will change. .

How else to explain changes in Lion 10.7.4 that caught SoftRAID and others off guard on what happens in Macs using 32-bit kernel mode using Apple software RAID in Disk Utility.

My ATI graphic card drivers were regularly recovering but it never affected or brought down the system. And the two with GTX cards have not had a hiccup even though I am using what 8 RP provides while waiting on Nvidia.

Windows 7 went RTM in July 2009 and Apple wanted to beat MS to the punch and get 10.6.0 out early and put BC 3.0.4 in there which was before 7 shipped months later, and later in November Windows 7 changes meant Acronis and everyone else had to make changes. Apple eventually came out with an update 3.1 but not a new 3.0.

Given WWDC and all the other events happening, my take away is this is not on top of the list and will mean you have to get 10.8 to get new support (just like you needed 10.6 to get Windows 7, they didn't just provide drivers for 10.5 owners even though there is nothing to stop that).

I'm having the exact same freezing issues with Late 2010 iMac 27" (Core Duo 3.33 Ghz) - Fresh install of the release preview.. will randomly freeze - sometimes within 10 minutes, sometimes up to a few hours.

I've tried:

- Not installing the boot camp drivers (4.0)

- Installing the boot camp drivers (4.0)

- Updating the AMD GPU drivers to Windows 8 compatible (from AMD)

- Not installing anything, just a fresh install and just using IE to browse around for a bit

- Disconnected all peripherals except a keyboard and mouse (even tried different keyboards and mice)

It's a hard "freeze" or "lock up" - you have to hold the power button down in order to shut it down.

The only thing that I haven't tried is to do a Windows 7 install, install the boot camp drivers, then upgrade to Windows 8 release preview. Thanks for the advice someone gave about WinClone, that's going to save me a ton of time. I'll report back with my findings.

I doubt that this will change anything. I tried to upgrade to Windows 8 Consumer Preview from a fully installed Windows 7 and got the same issues as well.

Drat - I suspect that it might have something to do with the missing drivers for the cpu core (Windows 8 couldn't find it).. but tough to say.