How to install Windows 8 on Mid 09 Macbook Pro (10.8.3)

So i loved the new Windows 8, and even had it installed before bootcamp supported windows 8 on my new iMac, i waited to buy a bigger hard drive and more ram for my mid 09 Macbook Pro. The day i bought the new hardware, Apple released 10.8.3, and an updated bootcamp to support Windows 8! Yay! I got my install disc out (iso file burned to DVD), opened up bootcamp assistant, only to get an error saying apple dropped support for my mid 09 Macbook Pro and Windows 8. Making the install impossible through bootcamp. Do not fret, i have the solution, and EVERYTHING works perfectly. Here we go.

Gather your Windows 8 install disc AND a Windows 7 install disc (you can surely find one by searching the net, use your old one, or borrow a colleagues... we are licensing Windows 8, NOT 7, this is just for my trick to fool bootcamp assistant and no i do not condone piracy)
Inside BootCamp Assistant, the driver download may hang,it did for me, twice..could be heavy usage due to the popular new update...so i recommend downloading it faster, and manually here http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents and get 4.1.4586 yes this is for windows 7, ALSO while you are there, download the windows 8 support pack 5.0.5033, as we will need that later as well. As a matter of fact, DO IT THIS WAY and dont bother
That being said and done, in BootCamp Assistant (OSX), only check off Install Windows 7, leaving the download support software unchecked
Partition your hard drive as youd like, this splits up your storage space however you like, keep in mind which OS you plan to run the most, and obviously give that one more room, i.e you do all your Photoshop work, and app development in OSX, and only use Windows for office stuff, you'd want to give yourself more room on the OSX side. I however bought a huge new internal drive to split them basically in half, as i use them both frequently.
This step is where the trick comes. OSX 10.8.3 / BootCamp will advise you there is no support for Windows 8..only 7 with your Mid 09 Macbook Pro if you have put your Windows 8 disc in, upsetting you as it did me...possibly bringing you to this post, thats not FAIR is it? Your 09 MacBook Pro is still JUST AS GOOD as a lot of PC's running Windows 8, why they excluded this model i have no idea...im sure they had reasons, but i dont care at the moment..lol
INSTEAD place a Windows 7 install disc in, and click next. BootCamp Assistant will now partition your drive, make the windows side bootable and restart your MBP.
Let it do its thing, and eventually you will land at the Windows 7 installation interface. We don't really want that, we want Windows 8 right?
Click the "x" to close the installation for Windows 7, it threatens your MBP will restart, and allow it to do so.
**IMPORTANT** Once you hear the beloved Mac chime, quickly press and hold the "option" key.
This brings you to an area where you can select a startup disk. At this point, lets get rid of the trick. Hit your eject button and get rid of the Windows 7 install disc, we are done with it now.
You now, well in my case anyway, should only see your Mac HD, and the Recovery Disk.
Insert your Windows 8 install disc
Now WAIT. Eventually, you should see a new DVD looking icon that says Windows pop up next to the MacHD and Recovery Disk. (depending on what you called your iso, it may something else...not sure, but you cant miss the new entry)
This is where a wired mouse will be needed, or use tab/space/enter to navigate to the new Windows Disc icon and launch it.
You are now in Windows 8's installation interface, cool!
Follow the steps until it asks you where you want to install it. You should see a partition about equal to what you set earlier in BootCamp Assistant, and it SHOULD say Bootcamp right on it. Select this partition. (mine was the last one, the fourth i believe)
OH NO, it says you cant install it to that partition, this is normal. You need to highlight/select this partition, and click format. I cant remember, but i think you have to click "options" to get to a the spot where you can format it. Pretty straight forward. Safety check, obviously make sure you have the Bootcamp partition selected, dont format your Mac OSX partition!
After the quick format is done, Windows 8 installer will then allow you to click "next" and from there the magic happens.
Go through the whole Windows 8 install, and setup how you would like, this takes awhile, and im not covering that, as its a hand in hand walkthrough like any other install.
Once your inside your new Windows 8, you'll see a bunch of things not working, like tap to click on your trackpad, no on screen displays for brigtness, volume, and possibly other stuff. Not cool right?
Grab your USB stick, or Burnt disc that you applied the bootcamp support downloads to in the begining of this tutorial.
FIRST open the Windows 7 Bootcamp install, 4.1.4586, open the folder and find setup.exe and run it (we are in windows 8 now)
It takes a while, but Apple's BootCamp will install a bunch of drivers, etc, and eventually restart your MBP, which is cool, let it do it.
Upon finishing, lets go back to the USB/Burnt Disc where all your support software was saved, and lets get the newly support BootCamp 5.0.5033 opened up.
Big Thanks to a post by ErikVanD i seen on this forum for the next step.
If you want, try and click setup in this latest BootCamp support set, and you will get another sad error claiming x64 is not supported, something awful to that nature. Awww man, this far, only to get let down. Nope. We are going to fix that. And this is where ErikVanD's post pointed me to what we do next.
It was said to navigate in the BootCamp 5.0.5033 folder to something of the effect of BootCamp/Drivers/Apple and run the MSI file "BootCamp" (MSI file will say Windows Installer in its description, and not necessarily MSI for anyone not too savy with Windows) **note - NOT .bootcamp (notice the period in the front) and it should work and install the new Windows 8 support for your MBP...but in my case it didn't, which is why im posting how i fixed this. Your setup may somehow be different, but mine gave me an error say it "needs elevated permissions to run, use setup.exe instead. We tried that remember! And it gave us the x64 not supported error. Oh man! Blabbing aside, this file needs to be ran as an administrator, which yeah your the only user, but Windows is funny like that. Normally youd just right click, and select run as administrator, but out the box, that option isnt there when you right click, only install, repair, open with etc. Here's the next trick, you need to add a registry file to enable running as an administrator, dont be afraid, this is an old trick, and really easy.
Open notepad in Windows, and create a new doc, call it Add_MSI_run_as_administrator.reg
Paste this following code into the new doc
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\Shell\runas] "HasLUAShield"="" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\runas\Command] @=hex(2):22,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\ 00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,6d,00,\ 73,00,69,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,63,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,22,00,20,00,2f,\ 00,69,00,20,00,22,00,25,00,31,00,22,00,20,00,25,00,2a,00,00,00
Or download the file already made from my company server at http://www.theprojectdev.com/public/pub.html **i put this there as a courtesy to help others like me, its just a complete reg file, so either create your own through copy and pasting above or download it. Either way, put it on your desktop.
Now double click the new registry file, and allow/ok it to do its thing.
Once done, you can discard the file from your desktop, or keep, your choice.
Guess What!? Now we can do the impossible! Lets revisit that solution from before by going to the newest BootCamp 5.0.5033, and navigate to BootCamp/drivers/Apple and select that tricky BootCamp MSI file that wouldnt allow us to run, this time RIGHT CLICK it. Because of our new registry entry we placed, we now have an option to "Run as Administrator" Click that option.
WooHoo! We have done what coudnt be done, BootCamp will now walk you through the installer, and add all the great support for Windows 8 on your mid 09 Macbook Pro that they for some reason neglected!
After the update, you will endure yet another restart. From there, most likely using a wired mouse still, navigate to the system tray icon on the bottom right corner of the screen (little up arrow) and click it. It will pop up a little menu, showing system processes/stuff running, click the gray squared diamond (this is bootcamp) and it will bring up the newest BootCamp control panel. From here, you can nav to trackpad/touchpad and set tap to click (finally) and gestures, etc. This control panel has lots of good stuff to make a MBP user feel comfortable in Windows 8. There you go! You did it!

I really, sincerely hope this helps someone, as it really made my day to get this resolved. I want to add that all On Screen Displays will work (your volume/brightness etc) they keyboard backlighting, and so much more, it really works great. I upgraded my hard drive to 1tb, and installed 8gb of PNY RAM from best buy ($40) and it runs Windows 8, AND OSX fantastically.

My company http://www.theprojectdev.com designs and develops mobile apps (iOS and Android) and web design and development, so im a heavy user of both OS's, and this setup is just the best thing that has happened to me in a portable sense. Runs so so so fast! Enjoy everyone!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Mar 17, 2013 8:28 PM

Top-ranking reply

rnwjr

Level 1

0 points

Posted on Mar 18, 2013 1:14 PM

projectRelentless thank you for taking you time to do this and help all of us loyal Apple users. I was able to install Windows 8 on my MacBook (Late 2009) by following you instructions last night. Since the BC 4 drivers would not install I skipped the step and went on to BC 5 drivers. It seems to be working okay on everything. If its working is there any reason why I should go back and install the other package and then install the 5 again?

Thanks again! Much appreciated!

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187 replies

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Apr 16, 2014 5:17 AM in response to adiroxpsp

It's the one labelled 1

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Apr 16, 2014 5:18 AM in response to adiroxpsp

Couldn't understand what?

How to get to page one?

Apr 16, 2014 5:28 AM in response to Csound1

okay

Mar 18, 2013 10:26 AM in response to projectRelentless

**********************IMPORTANT EDIT TO THE TUTORIAL***********************************************************

Everyone im sorry, i made a mistake informing you which BootCamp support drivers to download from Apple. You see I originally downloaded my Windows 7 Support from the BootCamp Assistant, and had the version number completely wrong.

The first BootCamp install packahe you should down load from http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents is actually 4.0.4033

That will be your first BootCamp installation in Windows 8 that works. Im so sorry Markeez for wasting your time, my excitement had blinded me last night.

Also be sure to copy both 4.0.4033's folder and the latest 5.0.5033 folders to your Windows 8 desktop as well, dont run them off your USB stick or DVD/C, whatever media you copied them to.

So Markeez, after you download the correct Windows 7 Support Software 4.0.4033, simply click setup.exe and it will run without any trouble.

Then after the inital BootCamp install is complete, your MBP restarted and all is done, you need to perform the "Run as Administrator" trick i posted above. Its real easy. Open notepad, and copy the EXACT code i posted in the tutorial in a fresh new doc, and save the file to your desktop EXACTLY how i posted it Add_MSI_Run_as_administrator.reg

Now close notepad, and double click the newly created registry file, and allow it access to do what it needs. What this does is allows your run the new installer in BootCamp 5.0.5033 as an administrator, which you wont have the option to unless you use this registry file.

Ok after the registry part is done, go inside the latest BootCamp 5.0.5033 folder, to BootCamp/drivers/Apple and find BootCamp --- probanly the ottom most MSI file, and again it will not say MSI on the right side, it will say Windows Installer or something to that degree. Also do NOT confuse it with a similar file in that folder called .bootcamp this is not the one we need. OK, so now, using a WIRED MOUSE, right click the BootCamp MSI file, and you will now have the option to Run As Administrator, if you did the registry bit. IF YOU DIDNT do the registry bit, you will only see Install, Repair, Uninstall etc. If thats the case, just download the zip from my company site, it contains only a completed copy of that reg file.

Running this file in the Apple folder as an admin is the key to making this work, let me know if you have any further issues, im watching. Also i apologize everyone, but for some reason i cant edit the tutorial to fix my mistake, very sorry about the confusion.

Mar 19, 2013 10:08 AM in response to projectRelentless

****************************ANOTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE TO THIS TUTORIAL***************************

A fellow on another thread i was working on brought up a point that after the install, in windows device manager, that a device called co-processor was missing a driver, and wouldnt update, we got a fix for it, which involves using 4.0.4033 support drivers from apple, simply go into the device driver details of this co-processor, click update driver, use browse my computer to find driver, and point it to the root of the Windows Support BootCamp 4.0.4033 folder and let it find the old windows 7 driver it so annoyingly needs. I still cant figure out why, as my Nvidia drivers updated fine, but thats what this thing is looking for anyway.

Check our discussion related to the solution towards the end of this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4892799?answerId=21554284022#21554284022

May 21, 2013 12:47 PM in response to M4rbin

Hey buddy did you install this? you have to do it in this order

Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033

This one you can run it just double click on the .exe

Boot Camp Support Software 5.0.5033

This one you need to do what it says below in this comment

worked for me: (you can see this whole comment on comments page 1)

The first BootCamp install packahe you should down load fromhttp://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents is actually 4.0.4033

That will be your first BootCamp installation in Windows 8 that works. Im so sorry Markeez for wasting your time, my excitement had blinded me last night.

Also be sure to copy both 4.0.4033's folder and the latest 5.0.5033 folders to your Windows 8 desktop as well, dont run them off your USB stick or DVD/C, whatever media you copied them to.

So Markeez, after you download the correct Windows 7 Support Software 4.0.4033, simply click setup.exe and it will run without any trouble.

May 22, 2013 8:24 AM in response to M4rbin

M4rbin,

Based on your description I believe you are seeing the Windows 8 brightness indicator and not the apple brightness indicator (same as in OS X). If that's the case then do this (as per my instructions at: Macbook Pro Mid 2009 - Bootcamp 5.0.533 - Windows 8):

Hit your Windows Key and "X" which will open a menu of options. Choose "Device Manager " from the list.

In the Device Manager window expand "Monitors", right click on the Generic PnP Monitor, and choose: "Disable". When asked if you really want to disable this device say "Yes".

And like magic your brightness controls will now work! (A restart may be required, but I didn't need to.)

R_Lex

Level 1

0 points

Sep 7, 2013 11:33 AM in response to adarkenigma

I just finished installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise (RTM builds already available for gold partners, so i got one from my friend - basically RTM is release)

I "upgraded" 7 ultimate to 8.1 enterprise (hard to say it was upgrade, it only moved my files to windows.old folder) so basically it was clean install.

I got keyboard/trackpad (option tap hasn't worked, so be sure to have mouse with you).

After that, i downloaded 5.x bootcamp and installed it with msiexec /i BootCamp.exe

Everything started working after that except couple of nForce devices (that "coprocessor" and "SM Bus").

I can't stand unknown devices in panel (lol), so i:

1) Downloaded 4.0.x (please note - NOT 4.1.x) bootcamp

2) Unpacked it. In fact, you only need Drivers\NVidia\NVidiaChipset64 folder. Only that. Or NVidiaChipset32 in case you have 32-bit system

3) Go to device manager, right-click on that devices marked by question symbol, click "update driver software" select browse local PC, and then point it to that "NVidiaChipset64" (or 32) folder. Mark "Search subfolders" as well.

4) Perform same for second unknown device.

Congrats, now you have fully supported system with all drivers.

Ah, and don't forget download and install recent nvidia geforce drivers. Our 320M is still supported by "nvidia mobile gtx" driver 🙂

aplet

Level 1

8 points

Sep 8, 2013 11:12 AM in response to projectRelentless

There is a much easier way of installing Windows 8. Just open Finder>Applications>Utilities> right click on Bootcamp> Show package contents> Contents> Info.plist

Right click and Get info on Info.plist and click the lock at the bottom of the info page and enter your password.

then click the plus to the left of the unlocked lock and add yourself. give yourself read & write permissions.

then open Info.plist

Scroll to the bottom and find the <key>Win7OnlyModels</key>

Then delete the whole line <string>MacbookPro5,5</string>

You might be promted to make a duplicate, just click OK and save it to the desktop. then close it.

Open Boot Camp and it should say "Install Windows 7 or a later version"

Vuela! much easier and legit 😉

Also as a side note if you ever wanted to change the PreUSBSupportModels you can add your model and then you can make a bootable USB drive from an .iso file on your Mac.

Dec 4, 2013 6:22 PM in response to projectRelentless

Just a quick update (Dec 2013)

This still works for Windows 8.1! You no longer need to right click for run as administrator (just click once, then go to manage, then click run as administrator!)

In addition, for Boot Camp 4 you have to click once on setup.exe, then Manage, then Troubleshoot Compatibility. Keep "troubleshooting" it and check it worked on previous operating systems. You can then press Windows 7 and it will run. Otherwise, it will give you an error saying "This software is only supported on Windows 7"

Dec 8, 2013 6:04 PM in response to R_Lex

@ Aplet,

thanks for posting, however, it did not work. Your answer was incomplete, as the file copied to the desktop is not being read by bootcamp, and thus does not change the program.

CORRECT WAY TO MODIFY THE BOOTCAMP FOLDER... some steps are probably unncessary, but this is how i got it to work, takes 15 minutes:

Finder>Applications>Utilities> right click on Bootcamp> Show package contents> Contents> Info.plist

Right click and Get info on Info.plist and click the lock at the bottom of the info page and enter your password.

Add the user "Everyone" AND your own user account (obviously admin account) Read and Write permissions to the Plist file AND to the Contents folder itself or you won't be able to add anything new to the folder.

Open Plist and erase the 5-5 Macbook pro line towards the bottom, or whatever Macbook you're trying to install Windows 8 or 8.1 on.

Save the file to the desktop and rename it info.plist

Send the New info.plist to the contents folder, and Authorize permissions. It will time out and not completely overwrite the file, even though you have granted permissions, I gave it about 5 minutes. Force restart the PC.

Try again, and it will timeout, I force restarted after about 5 minutes again.

On second reboot, OPEN Bootcamp assistant, info.plist will be dark grey and should have a file size of zero KB since we've tried to over-write it twice, it now contains no data.

Close Bootcamp and immediately delete the original info.plist, it will say the file is in use, click OK.

Rename your new info.plist to info2.plist and place it in the Contents folder

Now you can rename it to info.plist.

Reboot, open bootcamp, problem solved.

If you have a second Mac, an easy work around would be to Target disk mode the one you want to install windows 8 as an external hard drive, then navigating to the folder and over writing info.plist with the modified one without having to do all these tricks.

Here is a photo of my success:

If installing from a USB flash drive you can also modify which ones are compatible by editing the Pre-USB section in the Plist, and adding the <string>MacbookPro5,5</string> to it.

Raj006

Level 1

4 points

Feb 19, 2015 2:27 PM in response to projectRelentless

This helped me install Windows 8.1 on my MacBook Pro Mid 2009. I appreciate the time you took in writing this. The right click did not work for me for "Run as Administrator" (no option showed up). The registry hack did not work. Is anyone having the same issue? I opened the command prompt with elevated permissions (searched on web), and changed the directory destination to where the bootcamp.msi is located, and ran the file. This installed the above mentioned bootcamp drivers successfully. Thank you!

Mar 21, 2013 9:31 AM in response to rnwjr

ok im back. go to file explorer, click on your windows drive (i.e c:bootcamp) in the root should be an Nvidia folder, click through to nforce, 64 bit, and then run setup as an admin, see what happens there, also do the same for the drivers folder, youll see a setup to run in there. See if that finally runs the Nvidia control panel for you, then when it is running, click on desktop in the n-control panel, and click show in system tray. then we can mirror settings. i definitely have the windows brightness control, with OSD working perfect, so we will get yu there.

Mar 26, 2014 10:32 AM in response to kshadow

Hi,

on the fist page there are more post from project, where he specify the instruction. Also your (and our) problem about "Bootcamp x64 is unsupported on this computer model". You need to do "Add_MSI_run_as_administrator.reg" thing.

BUT try this, my solution that I found on Windows 8.1, because the .reg did not work for me.

So:

run cmd.exe as administrator
type "your path/BootCamp/Drivers/Apple/BootCamp.msi
done

Keep in mind that this worked on Windows 8.1 with the exact error message.

zeus.ve

Level 1

0 points

Aug 25, 2014 5:30 AM in response to projectRelentless

Hello everyone.

I eat a lot of entrants in this post have MacBook Pro and seek a solution to install BootCamp, and sometimes things get complicated.

That was my case.

I built the log file but every time I tried to install bootcamp I went out that was not compatible, my mistake it sounds silly I want to share with you.

I recommend you to check the log file switch the windows as shown in the first post, since by just copy and paste did not realize that when you paste in the blok added this note to the file spaces.

just let me go to registration and modificardo but could not install.

observe carefully spoken numbers and spaces between commas, delete and voila ... fixed ..

Greetings

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How to install Windows 8 on Mid 09 Macbook Pro (10.8.3)