Mid 2014 15" Retina Macbook Pro Bootcamp Windows 8.1

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Mid 2014 15" Retina Macbook Pro Bootcamp Windows 8.1

Okay, so this is part question and part rant.

The question part: Has anyone successfully installed windows 8.1 in bootcamp on a mid2014 Macbook pro?

The rant part:
This new macbook is awesome. Everything is great. Except that apple needs to get their $h1t together on this bootcamp crap. I am an engineer. It is a sad world that we live in, and there is little I can do to change it, but as of right now, Microshaft owns the corporate world. Software for engineering is developed for winblows. Hopefully that will someday change, but for now I have to put up with it.

I purchased this brand new macbook with the understanding that I would have to install winblows on it, and with the understanding that I would spend about half of my time there. This is not choice, it is necessity. When I purchased this computer I did so because I was reassured that windows would run well in a dual boot.

5 hours of my time has been wasted trying to make that a reality. Currently, I am sitting here watching my mac reinstall Mavericks after being forced to wipe the entire drive due to incompatibility bullpoop.

So far I have tried:

Letting bootcamp do it's thing. This resulted in a near perfect installation, followed by a notification that the boot configuration could not be updated. great.
booting again and trying to format the partition with winblows. Winblows cannot install because of the GPT setup.
delete partition leaving blank space, boot in efi, and then allow windows to make the partition. This resulted in windows making 2 partitions (so far so good) and getting all the way to the end before letting me know that I am right back to trial 1 and it cannot update the boot configuration.
1. So I go into mac to delete these two partitions. The main one deletes, and the little one wont.
2. So i go into recovery. Still cannot delete partition.
3. I was forced to TOTALLY wipe the drive, and I am not sitting here looking at a screen telling me that in 4 hours the mac will have downloaded and installed Mavericks, and I will hopefully be back where I started a day ago. This is ridiculous.

So far I STILL do not have windows, and I am not really any closer. This is total and complete bologna, and I am about ready to return the macbook, and but a piece of $h1t winblows machine simply because it will ACTUALLY do what I HAVE to do. It would suck, because I prefer the Macbook, but if it flat out won't do what I need it to AND apple won't put enough effort into their compatibility software, I am going to be forced to make a compromise.

I send this faithfully from my Late 2008 13" Macbook running the new OS that I am not allowed to mention in this post without my post getting autodeleted.... Don't get me started on that... What is happening to apple? I want to love you guys, really I do!

Somebody help me please... If not with the computer, at least send me a cocktail.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), Bootcamp

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 7:16 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 13, 2014 7:03 AM in response to ianstein951

I'm having the same problems. Are you trying to install 8.1 enterprise or another version?

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Answer 2

ianstein951 Author

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Aug 13, 2014 3:56 PM in response to johnduggins

I was installing Windows 8.1 Professional.

I finally got it, but I did many things at once, so I'm not sure what worked.

Wiped ENTIRE drive
Installed Mavericks from the online recovery
Used bootcamp to partition
Manually interrupted restart
Put USB in a different port
Reset SMC
Reset PRAM
Booted and selected EFI Boot
Installed windows
Manually installed bootcamp on windows

It worked finally.....

Sorry you all had to endure my rant in the middle of last night....

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Answer 3

destrozo

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5 points

Aug 14, 2014 11:45 AM in response to ianstein951

I am also having an issue installing Windows 8 or 8.1 on my 2014 15" MBP but not sure if this will work for me.

When I get to the part where it asks which partition to install Windows on I choose Drive 0 Partition 4: Boot Camp and format. When I click next I get a message at the bottom saying "Setup was unable to use the existing partition because the system volume does not contain the required free space."

Do you think this will work for me?

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Answer 4

Aug 21, 2014 12:22 PM in response to ianstein951

I just installed Windows 8.1 on a new MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) with Bootcamp.

From the steps you mention, the required were basically:

3. Used bootcamp to partition

4. Manually interrupted restart

8. Booted and selected EFI Boot

Without the manual EFI boot I got some error after the Windows installer had basically completed. It told me that the installation will be reverted. Well, it wasn't entirely, but the machine froze when trying to boot from the created Windows volume. I went back to Bootcamp to delete the broken Bootcamp partition.

I managed to install Windows 8 with Bootcamp and a single USB stick. Then upgrade that to 8.1

Full guide for installing Windows 8.1:

Get some machine that already runs Windows.
Download Windows8-Setup.exe from Microsoft http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only
Run it, and choose to create a bootable device
Plug in a USB stick (my installation files used 4,27Gt in total)
Enter your Windows 8 product key when prompted
At this point I took the stick to my Mac
Download the Boot Camp Support Software – find the correct version at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634
Unzip the bootcamp zip
Copy the contents of the extracted folder (not the folder itself) to the root of the USB stick
Launch Boot Camp Assistant
Tick the last checkbox only (prepare disk partition) and select next
Choose your Windows partition size (I gave it 60Gt but you choose)
When the machine boots, it should display the blue Windows logo
Press the power button to "force" shut down
Start up again, press down the option key (alt), until you get to choose which disk to boot from
Select EFI boot
When Windows installer starts, select the Bootcamp disk
Click disk settings (or was it disk details? any way..) and then format the Bootcamp disk
Continue to Install Windows on that disk
Once you get to running Windows, run the Bootcamp setup from the USB stick to install some Apple drivers etc.
Install Windows updates
Go to Windows Store & upgrade to Windows 8.1

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Answer 5

mtopinka

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Sep 11, 2014 3:30 PM in response to juhoautio

Hello ianstein951, juhoautio, destrozo, ianstein951, johnduggins, and anybody else with an informed opinion-

I am hoping to do iOS and Android mobile development, as well as some Windows .NET... and I was wondering what you all think about your MacBook Pros running boot camp Winblows? I'm thinking I might be able to instead of buying two rather expensive laptops, just splurge on one extremely high-end Macbook Pro, and dual boot with boot camp + Winblows.. how are you all doing after getting through this boot camp snafu - any lingering incompatibilities, driver issues, disappointments, or is all happy in apple land? Thanks! -Mark

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Answer 6

ianstein951 Author

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Sep 11, 2014 4:56 PM in response to mtopinka

Mark,

So here's the scoop. I literally did exactly what you are suggesting. I bought one computer, a 2014 top-spec 15" pro. If I had to do it again, I would make the same choice.

What I have found is that the Macbook works in OSX and windows flawlessly with very few exceptions, and the exceptions are things that I can very easily get over. The first is text and graphic rendering in windows. Occasionally in certain programs text will render poorly due to the retina display. When the text is defined by pixels, and the computer tries to scale it up it can cause the text to appear pixelated. The only other complaint is that battery life in Windows is not wonderful compared to the battery life in OSX. Compared to other winblows machines, though, it is right on par. The boot time in Windows is mind-blowing, and the speed is crazy fast. The solid state HDD makes a huge difference!

Ultimately, I am in love. The hardware is amazing, and OSX is awesome. I am a linux user 90% of the time, and use windows only when I need software compatibility. What I have found over time is that I am gravitating towards OSX more and more. I venture into Windows very rarely, and even my windows programming I do in OSX often.

You mentioned doing Android and iOS programming. iOS is certainly best done on OSX, though I do not have much experience with it. Android programming on the other hand is something I can speak to much more. I do quite a bit of ROM development, and the occasional app development. It seems as though you are suggesting that you need windows for the Android Dev, and I would tend to disagree. Android is built on a Linux kernel. Android development is BEST done in Linux, and I would probably choose OSX as second place. Sure, the "incredible android kitchen" is a windows program, but in the end, you probably won't use it as much as you think. Once you dive deep into Android dev, you begin wanting to use all of the tools directly and not through the fancy noob-friendly interfaces. (I am not bashing them, I was a noob once! And they were great then!)

In the end, most of the tools are available for OSX, and if you do have a dedicated OS for android stuff, do your self a favor and use linux. I personally have a huge leaning towards Debian based distros, which is handy because the de-facto standard for android dev is Ubuntu. I don't use Ubuntu, but I do use distros that use Ubuntu package repositories and bases. My current daily driver is Elementary OS.

I have gotten a bit away from you question, but I don't want you to get stuck thinking you need Windows for Android.

To answer your question, get the Mac. You won't be disappointed. That is coming from someone who hated everything apple with a passion for many years. This is the first new Mac I've ever bought, and I'm a total convert. I probably won't buy another brand of laptop again. Seriously. I would argue against their desktops for all but very specific uses, but Apple has the laptop thing figured out. I would totally encourage it.

OSX is a dream, and Windows runs great as well. I run Linux on the desktop, and haven't personally messed with it on the Macbook, but the guys over in Ubuntu have reported great luck, so I wouldn't hesitate to go that way. If you run windows, I have Parallels Desktop 10 pointing at the Bootcamp partition, so I get the best of both worlds there. I love this setup.

Enjoy your new laptop! Feel free to contact me if you ever have questions, or want help setting something up.

-Ian

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Answer 7

Sep 16, 2014 12:36 AM in response to ianstein951

Thanks Ian !

I have tried many times many ways to install win8.1 or win8 into my mid-2014 rMBP but failed until read your post. I didn't wipe entire drive but i did your follow steps. and IT WORK!!!! I don't know why. But thank you very much!

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Answer 8

vilasack

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Oct 20, 2014 9:17 PM in response to ianstein951

Please help me. I am having the same problem. I tried following your step. I get to the windows install then it gives me a Load Driver error.

"A media driver your computer needs is missing..."

I am trying to install Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit on a MacBook Pro mid 2014 Retina.

When I select the EFI Boot it just boots back in to the Mac OS. My OS is Yosimite.

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Answer 9

rimcrazy

Level 1

45 points

Nov 5, 2014 11:10 AM in response to vilasack

This is probably late but I just finished installing Win 8.1 on my new Mid 2014 15" MBP. It still has a few quirks but it works. I just purchased my MBP and it is configured with 16Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD, 2.5Ghz CPU and the NVidia Graphic Controller. I am running the latest version of Yosemite. Here is how I was able to make it work:

1) I purchased an OEM Version of Windows 8.1 64bit Professional from Newegg.com. I needed an ISO in order to use bootcamp. For this I used my dedicated windows 7 machine and installed burnaware_free. This ripped an ISO from the Windows DVD. Some websites will say you can use the Microsoft Windows 7 USB Download tool. This tool will NOT work with an OEM DVD of Windows 8.1. I tried it 3 times and all times it barfed and told me the tool could not be used on my version of windows.

2) I used a 16gb Flash drive and plugged it into my MBP and started the bootcamp utility. (I used a 16Gb drive as I did read on a few web sites that stated you needed a Flash drive this big. I'm not sure why as it does not fill it but perhaps with a 8Gb drive there is some temp files created that cause a problem) When it gives me options I let it download the bootcamp drivers and when asked, I pointed it to my Win8.1 ISO that I created earlier. (A side note, you MUST let the Apple bootcamp utility create the bootable USB drive. Foolish me used a standard windows utility to create a bootable Win8.1 drive. Went all the way through the download tools, repartition, etc. The MBP reboots and then pukes telling me the USB I inserted is not a bootable drive. It will boot on a windows box but not on the MBP. I have no idea why but I know this to be the case.)

3) Windows should boot on the apple created USB flash drive. It will walk you through the install. The first thing you need to do is format the partition that the apple bootcamp utility created. You will most likely be given 4 partitions to choose from. Pick the partition that matches in size the one you created on the OSX side and select to format that partition. Once formatted you can hit next and go forward.

4) Just a note.... if your eyes are as old/bad as mine, when Win 8.1 is installing it is not smart enough to know to scale objects and so displays everything in the native retina resolution. I literally needed a magnifying glass to check the serial number I typed in to be sure it was correct.

5) Let the install do it's thing and finish. When it completes and reboots, it will default to boot into windows. This is probably not bad, as if you are like me there is then a whole host of things to install and multiple reboots are required. Before I did a bunch of installs however, I wanted to test to make sure I could go back and fourth between the two OS's. Here is where things get interesting. On my install, once bootcamp was complete and windows 8.1 was installed, booting my MBP no longer gives the gray screen on boot. The screen is now black. At first this had me fooled into thinking something was wrong. When it reboots and you just see the very faint change in the black screen you need to hit the alt/opt button. Better yet, just have it shutdown and then hit the on button and hold the alt button next. You will now be given two drives to boot from, the OSX side and the Windows side. The recovery disk is no longer present.

6) I picked the OSX side and booted into Yosemite. Everything on the Yosemite side is mostly right. OSX sees the bootcamp drive. I use the Paragon utilities that allow me to R/W NTFS from OSX and R/W HFS from Windows. On the OSX side I can R/W the Bootcamp drive without an issue. It is curious, however, that if I go to the system configuration and select Startup Disk, my windows drive is not visible. I don't know the reason but it does not give me an option.

7) I reboot the MBP again and this time I go into windows. On the Windows side Win 8.1, for some reason, is not seeing the OSX drive. I can to into System Management tools and the partition is clearly there but at the desktop level there is no HFS drive. For what I do this is not a huge deal but it is curious as with my old MBP, Win7 and Mavericks everything was visible on both sides. If I go to the BootCamp Utilities and select Startup Drive, the utility on the windows side DOES see the OSX partition and gives me the choice to make OSX the default boot OS if I want or I can select Windows too.

So far everything works, sans the inability to see my OSX drives on the Windows side. I've not used Windows 8.1 yet and so now I'm quickly discovering what all of the fuss is about. I don't want to turn this into a Win8.1 rant but holy crap..... what did Redmond do? Anyway, I found enough copious threads on the web to get 8.1 almost looking like 7 so I'm happy. This was a major PITA however.

PS - One last note. All of this came about because my poor mid 2011 17" MBP finally started suffering the graphic adapter fail that so many have been seeing. Really torxs my chain as I really loved this trusty laptop. Sans the graphic card issue I should have been able to run it another 5 years at least but turned itself into an unreliable time bomb that I just can't trust. Its a real shame but it is what it is. The new 15" MBP are very nice, very fast and very well built but I miss my 17" screen for certain.

I hope this helps someone so they don't have to go through the pain I did.

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Answer 10

rimcrazy

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45 points

Nov 5, 2014 11:30 AM in response to rimcrazy

I see from a post by LonerT that the reason I don't see the HFS drives anymore is because they are no longer HFS but CoreStorage. Oh well. Not a huge deal but it is a nuisance to be sure.

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Answer 11

Jan 8, 2015 5:39 AM in response to ianstein951

Have you tried using Parallels? I have that installed and use windows 7 with it. I do occasionally get the explorer popup but otherwise I have no issues using both systems at once. I too was sick of the Windows crap happening with every system I had (gateway, dells, hp, compaq etc.) no problems with my MacBook after two years..

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Answer 12

rimcrazy

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45 points

Jan 8, 2015 5:55 AM in response to Rhosalina

I got fed up with this and purchased VMWare Fusion. It's like Parallels but IMHO a little bit better and offers more options that I need for other work that I do. I use to use Bootcamp exclusively because what I needed on the windows side was access to some CAD software that only ran in native mode not in a VM mode. I no longer require that functionality and for what I need a VM Windows machine works fine. This makes far better use of my hard drive also and I no longer have issues seeing Mac drives from the windows OS. You are correct. If you really don't need bootcamp a VM system like Parallels or Fusion should work just fine.

(..... my 2cents on Windows 8.1 is now I understand what all of the outrage has been about this OS. My goodness what in the world were the software engineers in Redmond thinking? I can see this is probably nice for a tablet but for a desktop this UI is totally worthless...)

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Answer 13

Jan 8, 2015 6:28 AM in response to rimcrazy

Yes, exactly! I run windows 7 and it has been fine. Not upgrading to 8. I don't understand why windows doesn't keep their software updated like apple. Not many software complaints with apple ie viruses... Probably a conspiracy... I could have purchased 10 MacBooks with all the money I have spent with those windows machines.

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