vieirae

Q: Lack of Win 10 support for "older" MacBook Pros

I've just recently installed Mac OSX "El Capitan" followed by a Win10 upgrade install of the Bootcamp Win7 partition on a late 2011 MBP. Everything is working fine except for the network adapter Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX + some sound problems (Cirrus Logic CS4206B). A computer without networking is more or less useless...

Apple communicated that Bootcamp Win10 support for MacBook pros is discontinued from mid 2012

or earlier. This is really schocking! That a presumably serious company discontinues support for expensive hardware

(ca. 2000 USD) that is not even 5 years old is simply unacceptable.

Is there any set or combination of Bootcamp drivers (Win7, 8, 10) that will work for this network adapter and sound card?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), Model late 2011

Posted on Sep 13, 2016 5:22 AM

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Q: Lack of Win 10 support for "older" MacBook Pros

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  • by Rudegar,

    Rudegar Rudegar Sep 13, 2016 7:43 AM in response to vieirae
    Level 7 (28,561 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 13, 2016 7:43 AM in response to vieirae

    you can connect an usb wifi dongle

     

    or you can try the last bootcamp drivers that supported your mac my iMac use windows8 drivers in windows 10 because it's not supported everything works fine apart from the apple tool thingy and I can't access the mac hd and likely some keyboard and trackpad gestures don't do fancy stuff but I don't use those.

     

    you can complain to apple in feedback channel http://www.apple.com/feedback/

     

    also if you don't need to run 3d games all versions of windows would work perfectly fine in a virtual machine like oracles virtual box which also does not require a set partition so windows would only be using the space currently used from the hd not a fixed size

  • by JimmyCMPIT,

    JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT Sep 13, 2016 7:45 AM in response to vieirae
    Level 5 (7,491 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2016 7:45 AM in response to vieirae

    have you tired the developer website for the drivers?

  • by vieirae,

    vieirae vieirae Sep 13, 2016 8:25 AM in response to Rudegar
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Windows Software
    Sep 13, 2016 8:25 AM in response to Rudegar

    Dear Rudegar

    I'll try then with the Windows 8 drivers. Do you mean Bootcamp Drivers from "Bootcamp5.1.5769" = BroadcomWireless8x64.exe, BroadcomComController64.exe and BroadcomEthernet64.exe and see

    what happens...

     

    Broadcom delivers directly to the manufacturers and doesn't supply drivers. I've looked everywhere

    but couldn't find any BM4331 drivers for windows 10.

     

    Thanks for your help, vieirae

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Sep 14, 2016 1:08 PM in response to vieirae
    Level 7 (23,828 points)
    Safari
    Sep 14, 2016 1:08 PM in response to vieirae

    vieirae wrote:

     

    I've just recently installed Mac OSX "El Capitan" followed by a Win10 upgrade install of the Bootcamp Win7 partition on a late 2011 MBP. Everything is working fine except for the network adapter Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX + some sound problems (Cirrus Logic CS4206B). A computer without networking is more or less useless...

    Did these work properly in W7? Was W7 updated to latest updates, before the W10 upgrade?

    Apple communicated that Bootcamp Win10 support for MacBook pros is discontinued from mid 2012 or earlier. This is really schocking! That a presumably serious company discontinues support for expensive hardware (ca. 2000 USD) that is not even 5 years old is simply unacceptable.

    We can debate these forever, but Apple has provided fair warning. You upgrade at your own risk.

    Is there any set or combination of Bootcamp drivers (Win7, 8, 10) that will work for this network adapter and sound card?

    If W7 drivers worked properly, they are grandfathered in to W10. Is there a way to verify your W7 drivers status with latest updates.

  • by vieirae,

    vieirae vieirae Sep 16, 2016 8:31 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Windows Software
    Sep 16, 2016 8:31 AM in response to Loner T

    Dear Loner T

    A "fair warning" doesn't excuse bad business practice. This is even worse than "programmed scenescence".

    A MacBook Pro is not like an iPhone that some people change every year. Five years of support is far too short;

    especially since providing the missing drivers (sound & wifi only) shouldn't be that much of an effort. Dell Win10

    support was also discontinued, but for an 8 year old machine. Fortunately, they don't have exclusivity to their hardware like Apple has, so it's possible to find appropriate drivers elsewhere. That Apple chooses to abuse of their monopoly is their legal right, whether is encourages customers to stay with them is another matter...

     

    I upgraded from win 7 with all the available win7 updates at the time.

  • by BobTheFisherman,

    BobTheFisherman BobTheFisherman Sep 16, 2016 8:37 AM in response to vieirae
    Level 6 (15,329 points)
    Sep 16, 2016 8:37 AM in response to vieirae

    I suggest you get a Windows PC if Windows 10 support is necessary. Apple makes Apple computers not Windows computers. It is of great benefit that Apple provides the means for Windows to run at all on Apple computers. I am grateful that Apple provides me the means to run Windows but I don't for a minute think that Apple is obligated to do so or that they have to provide ongoing support for older hardware to run new versions of Windows.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Sep 16, 2016 9:19 AM in response to vieirae
    Level 7 (23,828 points)
    Safari
    Sep 16, 2016 9:19 AM in response to vieirae

    Bad business practice is not necessarily the case. Despite the fact that I can run Sierra and W10 on a 2013 rMBP, I have chosen to stay with Mavericks and W7.  I use a 2012 MBP to experiment and keep all critical Macs far away from unnecessary upgrades to avoid such issues.

     

    W10 is good in some ways, but the driver management on W10 is horrendous.