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Installing windows 7 on mac book pro late 2013

Installing Windows 7 on Mac Book Pro Late 2013

Background

Mac Book Pro Late 2013 uses a USB 3.0 hub for the external ports, the keyboard and mouse devices.

Windows 7 does not have the drivers to support USB 3.0 ports so these must be integrated into the boot.wim and install.win files so that Win7 can be installed and used on a Mac. If these drivers are not integrated when win7 is booted up then the mouse and keyboard will not function.

Requirements:

Two USB Flash drives

Access to a Mac computer

Bootcamp Assistant application

Access to a Windows computer with windows 7 installed

Windows 7 install disk or ISO file

WinUSB application

Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 (WAIK)

Method

On a Mac

First prepare a USB Flash drive by formatting it using disk util app, found in Application Utility folder, to FAT format this will store the Apple drivers that can be downloaded from Apple using BootCamp.

This will be called USB1

Using Boot Camp Assistant select 'Download the latest windows support software from Apple' to get the files from apple for win7 for your particular machine these will be downloaded and copied to the USB Flash drive called USB1.

On a PC

Using a PC download a copy of WinUSB from www.joshcellsoftwares.comthis software can create a bootable USB with the win 7 files copied on to it.

Obtain a copy of Windows 7 either in DVD or ISO format.

Using WinUSB and the Win7 DVD create a second bootable USB Flash drive. This will be called USB 2.

About DISM

DISM is a windows application that allows the editing of windows image files with the extension of WIM.

If DISM is not installed on the PC it can be downloaded from windows website.

To test to see if DISM is installed, open up a command prompt. Then type 'dism' without the quotes this will display the help description of DISM.

Drivers

The apple drivers need to be added to the boot.wim file so that mouse and keyboard can function during the setup phase.

The apple drivers need to be added to the install.wim so that mouse and keyboard can function after the setup phase.

The video drivers are also added as it appears to cause problems if they are not included.

Create a directory structure like this:

c:\appleboot\

drvrs

mount

win7x64install

win7x64boot

Create the following files in c:\appleboot\ with the following code:

adddrivers.cmd

color 0a

dism /image:c:\appleboot\mount /add-driver /driver:c:\appleboot\drvrs /recurse

================================================================================ ==========

mountboot.wim.cmd

color 0a

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\appleboot\boot.wim /index:2 /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount

================================================================================ ==========

mountinstall.wim.cmd

color 0a

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\appleboot\install.wim /index:4 /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount

================================================================================ ==========

unmountcommitfiles.cmd

color 0a

dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount /commit

================================================================================ ==========

Copy the following files into their respective directories:

Copy from USB 1 into drvrs the $WinPEDriver$ directory

Copy from USB 2 \sources\boot.wim to win7x64boot directory, this will store the original file

Copy from USB 2 \sources\install.wim to win7x64install directory, this will store the original file

Then copy boot.wim from win7x64boot directory to the c:\appleboot\ directory

Then copy install.wim from win7x64install directory to the c:\appleboot\ directory

Once all the copying is completed then run the following cmd files in this order:

For boot.wim

mountboot.wim.cmd - this will mount the file for adding of drivers

adddrivers.cmd - this will add the apple drivers to the mounted boot.wim

unmountcommitfiles.cmd – this will commit the changes and unmount the boot.wim

For install.wim

mountinstall.wim.cmd- this will mount the file for adding of drivers

adddrivers.cmd - this will add the apple drivers to the mounted install.wim

unmountcommitfiles.cmd – this will commit the changes and unmount the install.wim

Copy the files back to USB 2

Copy the boot.wim and install.wim files from c:\appleboot\ directory to USB 2 sources directory and overwrite the files.

BOOTABLE USB

You will now have a bootable USB Flash Drive that has the additional drivers needed to install Win7 on Mac Book Pro Late 2013.

Mac Preparation

On your Mac using Disk Util reduce the size of the partition of Macintosh HD so that there is approx. 80GB free for the use of Win7.

Add a second partition, label it win7 and format it to FAT. This is so that win 7 setup can identify the correct partition.

Installing Windows 7

Insert USB 2 into your Mac and reboot, whilst holding the option key down.

After reboot there will be three icons displayed one is the Mac operating system, the second is the recovery partition and the third is an orange icon indicating a bootable USB drive.

Select this and win7 setup application will proceed to boot up with the keyboard and mouse functioning.

Follow the prompts and when the drive selection appears select the win7 partition and format it to NTFS so that win7 can be installed. When windows setup reboots press and hold down the option key and select the windows partition so that setup can continue to install.

After completion of installation of win7 insert USB 1 with the additional apple drivers. Goto the bootcamp directory and click on setup.exe file this will install additional drivers needed to use Win7 on a Mac.

Once completed reboot your Mac and select windows to allow the drivers to update in windows.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 3, 2014 5:14 AM

Reply
27 replies

Jan 14, 2014 1:57 AM in response to berniefromsanta ana

This works on my Mac Book Pro Late 2013. So if you follow the instructions to download the specific drivers for your iMac using the boot camp assistant the specific drivers will be downloaded and copied to USB1.


The boot.wim and install.wim files are very large so i'm looking at using another solution using just a mac.


I have seen other solutions that involve using one flash drive with the win7 drivers on one port and a bootable win7 os on another flash drive on another port. When the win7 flash drive is booted it will see that there is a autoinstall file on the flash drive with the apple drivers and use them. This will allow the installation of win 7 but not allow the win7 flash drive to used as a stand alone.

Jan 15, 2014 11:22 AM in response to pacav69

I spent three days experimenting with Windows 7 installations, but couldn't fix the non-responding keyboard/trackpad issue on my MBA (late 2013). I tried the procedure described by pacav69, and at least got to the point in setup where I was asked for localization details. The next dialog - no keyboard, no trackpad.


It took me a while to figure out what was going wrong. It turned out the description in the initial post is not generic (enough) - and is lacking a significant detail. When mounting the install.wim, one needs to specify the index of the image to be processed. I can only speak for the install.wim I used, which contained these four images:


Index 1: Windows 7 HomeBasic

Index 2: Windows 7 HomePremium

Index 3: Windows 7 Professional

Index 4: Windows 7 Ultimate


Use this command line to display the image of install.wim, that is referred to by the value after index:

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:appleboot\install.wim /index:1


Now this means the original mountinstall.wim.cmd only added drivers to the Ultimate image of install.wim. Since I was trying to install a HomePremium version of Windows 7, changing this had no effect on my installation attempts. Once I had modified the script to modify install.wim index 2, installation went like a charm.


Thanks so much, pacav69! This is the only working solution I found!


By the way, in the process of checking the drivers, I noticed the Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller drivers provided as part of the Bootcamp drivers are outdated - current version as of today is 2.5.1.28.

Jan 17, 2014 3:12 AM in response to applekryzzle

Yes this is correct that the /index:4 refers to the ultimate version of windows in mountinstall.wim.cmd


dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\appleboot\install.wim /index:4 /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount


Users should do what applekryzzle suggested if you have a different version of windows. Thanks for the tip applekryzzle.


With regards to the Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller drivers they are the ones that are provided by apple via boot camp assistant.

These appear to work correctly and downloading as per instructions simplifies the procedure.


For those that are interesred the updated drivers can be found here https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=22824&ProdId=346 7&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%207%20%20*&DownloadType=Drivers


I have also seen in other discussions that some users get black screens i believe that it is the lack of video drivers which is included in the download from apple using boot camp assistant.


I'm certain that this works on Mac Book Pro Late 2013 models and i feel confident that this will work with other models.


I will appreciate any feedback if this works on other models.


Mar 8, 2014 3:54 PM in response to pacav69

Hi pacav69,


There are two places in your instructions where "/index:#" is used. Should both of them be changed according to the desired Windows version? For example, I puchased Windows 7 Pro. Should I change them both to "3", or just the one for "install.wim"?


dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\appleboot\boot.wim /index:2 /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount

...

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\appleboot\install.wim /index:4 /mountdir:c:\appleboot\mount

The reason that I ask is because applekryzzle didn't mention changing both, and your instructions specified different values.


Thanks

Mar 12, 2014 3:40 PM in response to chevysales

i have done it twice once using a usb 3.0 lacie 16gb stick and another with a 2.0 usb innovera generic cheapo.


event log showed error for keyboard and tracking device as only loading usb 2.0 drivers. wasn't an error that showed anywhere other than by me checking event logs...i am using OEM from newegg w/7 64 bit pro and thru disc and superdrive on 15" late 2013 rMBP. device manager shows all is well too. but showing same setup on Mavericks 10.9.2 as i also show on Windows 7 pro 64 bit via latest bootcamp.using USB stick for bootcamp/apple software and SuperDrive for actual windows installation.... no hiccups there but odd that I am getting USB 2.0 speeds on keyboard and trackpad while white papers shows this is USB 3.0 and on mac side all drivers loaded and fine...no errors


Device Manager shows all is well and the error never showed up after initial install. Using System Diagnostics shows for keyboard and tracking device (no mouse) as HI-Speed 12mb/s (USB2) and all hubs as SuperSpeed 5GB/s


this is exactly as shown on Mavericks 10.9.2 in System Information (exact same app different name)


I often run a script from windows seven forums that cleans out all event logs making trouble shooting easier on my windows box.


User uploaded file

Installing windows 7 on mac book pro late 2013

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