Q: Boot Camp won't start in Windows 8

I noticed this too (new MacBook Retina w/ Windows 8 RP)!

Unfortunately, having to use a secondary account all the time is a bit of an annoying workaround... but Boot Camp Control Panel definitely works correctly under a secondary, non-admin account.

So far, I've tried forcing Bootcamp.exe to run under a different account (the secondary account) to avail, as well as running it in compatibility mode (Windows 7) and as an Admin. Nothing works.

FYI, Windows 8 won't let you make the primary user a standard, non-admin account. It's locked into Administrator.

Whatever is wrong with Bootcamp Control Panel under Windows 8, it's uniquely tied to that primary user account. :-/

Played around some more and this is what I found...

If you make the secondary user account an admin, THEN you can make the initial account a standard user... BUT...

Doing this breaks Boot Camp Control Panel for BOTH ACCOUNTS.

BCCP stops working for the secondary (admin) account, and it remains broken on the original (non-admin) account. So the problem somehow is related to BCCP having administrative rights.

As an additional note, if you change the account types back (original = admin, secondary = standard) then BCCP resumes working on the secondary account.

This is not my experience. The Boot camp control panel works for all accounts that are standard, and not for admin accounts.

Windows requires that at least one user is admin on the box (this maks sense).

So to change the boot camp settings on your primary admin accout, what you do is:

1. Log of you primary account and log in to secondary admin acount (create one if you don't have one).

2. Log in to secondary account, and change your primary user to standard user

3. Log in to primary user

4. Make your bootcamp changes using the control panel

5. Log of you primary account and log in to secondary admin acount.

6. Change your primary user to back to admin

This works for me every time. I don't see it as a big problem, becuase I never need to change anything in the Boot camp control panel again. So I actually deleted the secondary account.

I have my "tap to click", and the F1-F12 are standard windows function keys. To change volume, light and keyboard backlid I need to press fn.

Bingo, tjmentium, that does the trick!

At first I was going to argue that it didn't work, but then I noticed that on my main account I was still forcing Bootcamp.exe to Run As Administrator even though the account was busted down to standard. By turning that off and trying again, it worked!

Like you, I was even able to delete the secondary account since there's no need to change settings again.

Kudos! Problem solved :-)

good solution thx.

i modify applecontrolpanel.exe Manifest to non admin require

change your c:\windows\system32\AppleControlPanel.exe

http://shampu.clus.org/tc/Shampu/attachment/5742072070.xxx

Good luck

Sorry shampu... I'm not going to download a .exe file manipulated by a random user ;-) Could you explain how you changed the file?

But i did inspire me to figure out how to run the Apple Control panel without creating a second account.

1. Start notepad and paste the following (se *** comment below):

runas /trustlevel:0x20000 "C:\Windows\System32\AppleControlPanel.exe"

2. Save the file as "BootCampControlPanel.cmd".

3. Create a shortcut to this file and save it in the start menu or on your desktop.

4. Right click the shortcut file. Select properties. Click Advance.." and check "Run as administrator".

5. Use this shortcut to start the Control Panel (the icon tray icon still does not work)

So basically we run a Command Prompt in Admin mode, and use this to start the applecontrolpanel.exe in user mode (sounds weird I know... but it works).

*** 0x20000 might be diffrent on your machine. From a command prompt run "runas /showtrustlevels" and use the hex number for (Basic User).

Thomas

tjementum, your solution as graceful as mine.

i modify AppleControlPanel.exe's Manifest by Hex editor is Near by EOF

level="highest~~~"

to

level="asInvoker"

but just controlpanel.

can't use tray icon bootcamp.

somebody has this solution?

Works great, Thank you!

This resolved it for me too.

Sounds to me like the op has installed Win8 in EFI native mode (selecting 'EFI boot' vs 'Windows' in the Option boot menu when installing).  This has a long technical history with it (see http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=696523) but in short, the startup disk and other system registers are not configurable (as of yet) by the Boot camp control panel, thus the error.  The proposed workaround allows opening of the BC control panel without the startup disk tab available.  This also explains why the display adater is onboard rather than discreet.

Anyone have a solution to getting the "Restart in Mac OS X" option working?  It was a pretty handy option to have when you wanted to switch over to Mac OS without restarting and holding down the option key.

For now, if you select the option, it appears to execute normally until you realise it's only restarting the computer back into Windows 8.

Thanks,

Gabe

This post is in two parts.

Part 1:

I have a theory on all of this: I think this underlying technial issue is relating to why Apple has had AHCI disabled on Apple computers running Boot Camp all these years, as discussed in these other threads:

Older topic, "Enable AHCI for windows 7" (archived)

https://discussions.apple.com/message/10276326#10276326

Newer topic, same underlying issue, "AHCI"

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18143189#18143189

Part 2:

I believe my above theory to be true, because I have EXACTLY REPRODUCED THESE WINDOWS 8 ISSUES ON WINDOWS 7 X64 ULTIMATE on my MacBook Pro Retina 15", by simply installing the new official Intel RST (not RSTe) drivers version 11.6.0.1030 or higher, as found here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&keyword=%222012+Intel +Rapid+Storage+Technology+%28Intel+RST%29%22#

NOTE: Your Windows 7 IDE disk type will be transformed into the new Windows 8 AHCI SCSI Disk platform, and it will finally ENABLE TRIM IN WINDOWS if you use SSD (e.g. if you have the SSD option for the new MacBook Pro Retina), as well as dramatically increase performance, enable the Intel RST monitoring taskbar, etc.

WARNING:  By doing this, I broke my existing and previously-working Boot Camp taskbar in Windows 7 in the same way as discsussed in this thread:  it started giving me the exact same errors:  "An error occurred while trying to access the startup disk settings.  You may not have privileges to change the startup disk. Make sure you have administrative privileges and try again."

It's also interesting to note that I have also reproduced ALL of the partial-solutions in this thread for my Windows 7 x 64 installation as well (e.g. reducing user-levels to Normal).

Unfortunately, I'm still unable to get the "Restart in Mac OS X" option working, which was a personal favorite feature of mine... but adding TRIM and nearly doubling my performance was worth it to me.

I'm very much looking forward to an Apple update to the Boot Camp 4.0.1 drivers to resolve this issue.

At least the bootcamp control panel can easily be fixed by modifying the code a little.  However, I'm unsure how they plan to fix the "Restart in Mac OS X" under this new platform.  If history repeats itself, and it isn't easily resolved, they may simply remove the option all together.

Hi GabeZs,

I had the problem of it restarting into windows 8 too. However an easy fix is restarting it into mac os. go to system preferences and then choose startup disk and choose mac os x and it will always reboot into mac os. i hope this helps.

This thread originally was about getting the Boot Camp Control Panel to run under Windows 8.

For all of you who wants to set a startup disk, you should really just install rEFIt on the OSX partition: http://refit.sourceforge.net/.

It lets you select the boot partition on startup. I've selected Windows as default, and left 2 seconds to choose OSX. Last line in config file.