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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

187 replies

Mar 28, 2013 6:37 AM in response to rnwjr

Noo boot camp in control panel-program and features

Mar 28, 2013 7:57 AM in response to rtheb

Karan8488- the advice given by rtheb is fantastic, as my feelings are exactly the same. However I fear on the 32bit issue you may have some issues, all of the functions bootcamp 5.0.5033 fixed are reliant on a 64bit OS. However, there are a ton of custom made drivers out there, trackpad++ comes to mind, that were lovingly built to fix issues that apple has left in the dust.

Thank you so much everyone for the support, being a programmer/designer, a lot of my world is inside a computer, so it means a lot to get some empathy from it!

I just don't get the screen freezing issue...rnwjr, I did however get an update notification for nvidia again, and chose NOT to update it, being I am working HEAVY in Windows 8 now, I'm using office 2013 project, visual studio 2012, and the adobe cs6 suite, along with my companies quickbooks pro 2013. I haven't had a freeze yet.

I'm going to investigate later today, I really want this to work for everyone.

Karan8488... Stand by, I have an idea

Mar 28, 2013 8:02 AM in response to Karan8488

http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents First off, did you have windows ever installed in your MacBook? Like vista/7 or something? If not, I'm on my iPhone so bare with me, as its a clunky suggestion, but I would use the link I posted above and download the oldest set of drivers, and see if you can install, and at least get a little functionality, then we can work on what's not working individually. As long as you get see kind of bootcamp version installed, you can always just use individual drivers from the newer updates

Mar 28, 2013 8:50 AM in response to projectRelentless

Have used win 7 worked perfectly at that time the prob with 8 is that trackpad is working but no right click and touch to click neend to press that button and noo sound at all not in speakers not in earphones, no brightness change but I am ok with it

Mar 28, 2013 10:27 AM in response to projectRelentless

Trackpad++ worked for me and audio also worked installed some driver now I just can't control brightness and that f1 buttons didn't work only

rtheb

Level 1

140 points

Mar 28, 2013 12:17 PM in response to projectRelentless

I think project Relentless may be on to something about previous versions.

Here is a link to Bootcamp 3.0 with all the updates to get to Bootcamp 3.3

https://truck.it/p/-u7zPWKxoZ

I would try and install these starting with 3.0 and upgrading incrementally and see how it goes.

If everything starts working I would then try installing the Bootcamp 4.0 drivers for your Mac.

Hope this helps.

BTW both compressed and uncompressed files at link so use whichever you are more comfortable.

Mar 28, 2013 1:20 PM in response to projectRelentless

I checked in Mac OS (10.8.3) on my macbook boot camp version 5.0.2(462) so the whole driver setup for bootcamp 3 won't install give error that it is for boot camp 3 though I can install individual driver by opening it but whole setup won't run boot camp driver package 4.0.4131 give me error that it is not made for my computer by apple site says it is for all the MacBook from 2006 to 2010 model and bootcamp driver 5.0 won't install because I am using 32 bit ver of win and it is for 64 bit so it gave me error this software can't be run

rtheb

Level 1

140 points

Mar 28, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Karan8488

Are you trying to run these drivers under Windows?

I don't understand that Windows would give a hoot where the drivers are from?

Did you try Apple > Drivers > Bootcamp.msi and try to install from there?

Mar 28, 2013 2:09 PM in response to rtheb

Bootcamp 3 drivers were from original Mac OS snow leopard disc which I got with MacBook and the other 2 downloaded from apple official support site

Mar 29, 2013 6:55 AM in response to Karan8488

thats great, if the brightness and the f keys are issue, your doing great! for the brightness and f keys, these will be issues, as the only win8 drivers are the elusive 64bit which you cant install... did you try to install them manually?

Mar 29, 2013 2:24 PM in response to projectRelentless

I tried to install manually but failed

mygavin

Level 1

0 points

Mar 30, 2013 5:50 PM in response to projectRelentless

Hey project,

I have a mid 2009 MBP

2.53 GHz
8 GB RAM

And I was able to sucessfully install windows 8 through bootcamp by following your instructions. I was able to install both bootcamps (4.0.4033 and 5.0.5033) and all seems to be fine except that I get frequent freezes. This problem started after the 10.8.3 update and I was hoping your "trick" would help fix this. Have you experienced any freezing issues with your Windows partition?

Apr 2, 2013 4:27 PM in response to mygavin

So I really apprecaited your guide, I've read the entire thread and followed every step including the nvidia stuff and getting the right drivers folders. I'm having the same issue as rnwjr and mygavin. My competer completely freezes at random, seemingly unconnected to what programs or processes are up at the time. The mouse pointer disapears after a few seconds following the freeze and the terminal is totally unresponsive. Cannot pull up task manager and am forced to hold the power button untill it shuts off.

Frezes happen at random. They have happened while simply surfing the internet, downloading things, installing things, once while just looking through the control pannel. They can happen within as little as two minutes of me starting up or up to three and four hours later. They seem to be getting more frequent. In fact, one happened while typing this. I was forced to boot into OSX where Apple proved their awesomness by auto-recovering this very post since they detected I has lost my connection. I sincerely doubt it is a RAM issue since when I look at resource monitor, even with my game running, it is never using 100% of the physcial memory. (Usually around 70-80%).

Specs:

Win 8 64bit

I have NVIDIA control pannel showing version 314.22

2.66 Core 2 Duo

4GB DDR3 RAM

Nvidia GeForce 9400M 256 MB GPU

10.8.3 OSX

Model designation 5,3

Bootcamp I used first the Win7 drivers (as you said in your fixing post) and then the new Win8 Drivers, these all installed fine. On screen brightness, sound, tap to click, so on and so forth all work with no problem. What little time I was able to spend logged into the game did show an improvement over my XP days (auto detect settings increased in a few categories and frame rate went up 10fps).

Is there somewhere in windows I can go to have it scan for all driver updates at once? I'm still finding a lot of the Win 8 UI just confounding and frustrating. I am upgrading from Win XP 32 bit which ran without any stability issues other than the very rare freeze while gaming. The only purpose for this partition is to game, which is why I upgraded to 64bit so that I could actually have access to all 4gigs of RAM.

Also, PS, you said you upgraded the RAM in your MacBook... is that hard? I was under the impression its nearly impossible to make modifications to these macbooks because of the way the internals are set up.

Thanks so much for your guide, sorry about your wife leaving you.

Edited to include bootcamp version information.

Message was edited by: FearlessSpeech

mygavin

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2013 4:22 PM in response to FearlessSpeech

Upgrading RAM is very easy (depending on model). I recommend checking this link out: http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

Apr 2, 2013 4:31 PM in response to mygavin

Thanks! I will keep this flagged. Though if I cannot get a stable version of windows 64 bit running, ther eis no point in upgrading my RAM.

I'm kind of new to all this. Is it possible to run some sort of scan in Windows to look for basic faults in the OS? Given the nature of the freeze where it is unbound to any one program and locks out task manager I feel like it is explorer or w/e its called in 8 having an issue or some other such background process.

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