Garry Brooke

Q: Windows 8.1 on a late-2009 iMac ?  Why not ?

I have a 27" late-2009 Core i5 iMac.  Using BCA (v5.1.4), I was able to install Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit.  But, I found after the install that BCA had not installed any of the support software.  That meant that Windows was the default boot device instead of Mac OS X (which I wanted) and that could not be changed.

 

From within Windows, I tried to run the support software installer manually.  I got an error msg saying there were compatibility issues.  I was directed to download another version of BCA.  It downloaded v4 !  I tried to run the v4 edition but got another error saying that "x64 is unsupported on this computer model".

 

Not being able to install the support software, I decided to delete the Windows partition altogether.  I tried doing that using BCA but it stopped with an error saying "Your disk could not be restored to a single partition.  An error occurred while restoring the disk to a single partition".

 

So, I had to use Disk Utility to manually restore to a single partition.  Because the non-existent Windows partition was still the default startup disk,  also had to reset the startup disk too.

 

Windows 8.1 x64 will clearly run on a late-2009 Core i5 iMac.  Actually it ran well - very fast.  It booted in 50% of the time it takes OS X.  So, why don't BCA and the Windows Support Software support W8.1 x64 on my iMac ?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), late 2009, Core i5, 2.66Ghz, 12Gb

Posted on May 8, 2015 9:55 PM

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Q: Windows 8.1 on a late-2009 iMac ?  Why not ?

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