MacBook Air 2013 Windows 7 freezes during installation

It happened to me, too. In my experience, let it sit and it will recover... Eventually. I don't think it is a good sign though. When my install finally worked, it didn't stall like that.

Yes, you are right. After more than 1 hour the installition was complete.

So I'm getting my MBA in the mail in a couple days and I plan to install windows on it. I'm very interested in this thread and wanted to ask for some directions from the beginning. It seems you guys have tried to install and had to fix it using several methods listed in here.

I was wondering if you guys could outline the installation process from the start for me? Like what to do exactly if I had just got my MBA and haven't done anything with it so there's no broken windows installed or whatever.

iselphy wrote:

So I'm getting my MBA in the mail in a couple days and I plan to install windows on it. I'm very interested in this thread and wanted to ask for some directions from the beginning. It seems you guys have tried to install and had to fix it using several methods listed in here.

I was wondering if you guys could outline the installation process from the start for me? Like what to do exactly if I had just got my MBA and haven't done anything with it so there's no broken windows installed or whatever.

You can follow the instructions provided by Codeus:

• Copy a Windows 7 or 8 ISO image on to your Mac
• Insert an 8GB or larger USB flash drive in to a USB socket (warning: it will be wiped).
• Run Boot Camp Assistant
• Select 'Create Windows 7 or later version install disk' and follow the instructions to copy the ISO to the USB drive.
• Select 'Download the latest Windows support software from Apple' and follow the instruction to download to the same USB drive.
• Select 'Install Windows 7 or later' and go through the installation process, make sure the USB drive is still plugged in.

It will take about ~30 minutes before the Boot Camp Assistant has finished the USB installation media, after which it will automatically reboot and start the Windows 8 installation. After this, everything works like it would work when installing Windows on PC. Only thing to notice is that when the installer asks you to select the partition, pick the one with name "BOOTCAMP" and format it using the "Drive options - Format".

After the installation was completed, my Air rebooted and loaded Windows 8. I had to choose a name for the PC but unfortunately mouse or the keyboard didn't work. Shutting down the whole computer and turning it back on solved the issue.

I am also trying to install Windows 7 ont my new MacBook Air 2013.

The problem is clearly like that -

If I used Bootcamp Assistant to create bootable Windows 7 USB and used the "Install or remove Windows 7 or later version" option, the Win 7 installation worked without any problem.

The problem is that if we use that way, I cannot create third "data" partition other than Mac OSX and Win7.

I want to create Mac OS X + Win7 + Data partitions.

If I boot manually from USB stick by pressing Option key, thet keyboard and moust do not work in Win 7 installation screen.

I want to install Windows 7 manually without Bootcamp assistant because I also want to create shared 'Data" partiton.

i was also blocked when i try to install win7 on my new air,and i thought it was a usb3 problem,same to u.

follow ur thread，i add usb3 drivers to the boot.wim.then a thought came to me,i decide to try add driver to install.wim and see what happen.the result is that what u want,a full solution.

add drivers to boot.wim works for the win7 setup program first running,and after the automatic reboot,i think the stuff in install.wim was incharge.so i tried,and it works.with these wim files replaced,the intall usb stick is albe to intall win7 freely,if you want an shared data partition,u can divide u ssd harddrive under osx with disk tools then bootup manualy with this usb stick and finish installation without keyboard and mouse block issue.

thanks for ur thread and hope u see this.hope it helps.

im from china,here is the link of my solution in chinese:

http://bbs.weiphone.com/read.php?tid=6613405&page=1&toread=1#tpc

too long to translate😝

I also had problems installing Windows 7 from the external Superdrive. Every time i got to the page to pur in the name of the pc the keyboard and trackpad would not respond. Eventually after reading lots of pages on this site and Macrumors I figured out that the keyboard and trackpad on the new MacBook Air 2013 are USB 3 and there are no drivers for them.

Apple posted a support document http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4599 which states that a blank USB drive should be in the left USB port and the Superdrive in the right one but this did not work for me because, I think, I should have downloaded the Bootcamp drives to the USB drive (I left it blank).

In the end the solution was elegant. I have a Win 7 Installer CD with a serial number. I ditched that and downloaded an ISO of Win 7 from digitalriver.com

http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html

and when I pointed the BootCamp app to it and my USB drive it downloaded and installed both sets of files to the USB. I let the installer run and it was the easiest Win 7 install I have ever done as everything installed without me having to interevene except click ok when I needed to. Forget the Superdrive disk install and install from an ISO disk image. It worked like a dream for me.

Problem is, that in W7 you cannot restoring from bit image, because of same problem. After restart of Win7 to restoring GUI, keyboard and trackpad and external devices not work :-(

Geof Corb wrote:

I installed Parallels and created a virtual machine for my Boot Camp partition-- which had been the plan all along, though I would still like to be able to boot natively into Windows when I need to. In any case, I was able to get the machine up and running through Parallels. I still have no mouse and keyboard when I boot directly to Windows.

I too would like to boot natively into Windows, one reason to see how the Intel HD Graphics 5000 perform.

I used Winclone to move my existing Windows 7 installation from my old MBA to the new 2013 MBA and I encounter the same problem as you -- I can run Windows 7 through Parallels, but when I boot directly into Windows, the mouse and keyboard freeze up (save the on/off key, which allows me to shut down). When in Parallels I am unable to install the Boot Camp drivers (downloaded to USB stick using Boot Camp Assistant), I get this error:

• Installation Error
• ---------------------------
• This version of Boot Camp is not intended for this computer model.

Probably because the drivers don't recognize the emulated Parallels hardware environment.

When I try instead to install the Intel USB3 drivers mentioned in this thread, I am stopped here:

• Error
• ---------------------------
• This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software.

Probably because of the same Parallels hardware environment reason.

Maybe I can boot into Windows and control things from another PC via VNC and do the Boot Camp driver install that way. If the network driver is working.

Connecting the MBA 2013 to a Thunderbolt Display and booting natively to Windows 7 allowed the monitor's built-in hub to allow access via USB 2.0 keyboard and mouse connection. I still get the "This version of Boot Camp is not intended for this computer model" error when trying to install Boot Camp drivers from USB key, which destroys the previous Parallels hardware environment theory, so my new theory is that the old Boot Camp drivers (version 4.0) are standing in the way. So how do I wipe the version 4.0 drivers off the system?

And isn't it odd that the MacBook Air 2013 isn't even listed on Apple's "Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems" page?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634

I had trouble installing Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise (that is not supported by Apple) on my MacBook Air 2013. My keyboard and mouse were unresonsive when the istallation was near the very end, and Windows was prompting for an account name and computer name. Apple support assumed the failure was because of the Enterprise version.

However, I found an Apple article (about Windows 8, http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4517) that mentioned a detail that I did not follow: keeping the USB drive with the "5033" windows support drivers plugged in during the Windows install. Based on the general instructions, I assumed that after the install I would "add" the 5033 drivers.

So I removed my Windows partition (using Boot Camp), then relaunched Boot Camp and performed the install keeping the USB drive with the 5033 drivers plugged in. This install worked. In particular, when I got to the prompt asking for account name and computer name, the appearance was quite different because the GUI window reflected the native screen resolution. On the first attempt, the GUI window was much larger. Also, I did eventually get to the 5033 driver installation. I assume that the install "peaked" at the USB drive with the 5033 drivers even before the formal installation of the 5033 drivers; but this is only speculation.

You will need to slipstream USB 3 drivers into windows 7 bootcamp install usb/disk. A summary of MBA 2013 issues:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5167322

After numerous tries and everyone trying to help (Apple Care) nothing worked until I read someone's advice below. You need to create an ISO of Windows 7 and put it on your desktop. Then run Bootcamp wizard and make sure you have the create a Window's 7 USB and select the ISO you created. After numerous tries this is the only suggestion that actually worked.

Good luck

M

Had the same issue, this method works.🙂