Lack of Win 10 support for "older" MacBook Pros

Question

Level 1

8 points

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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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

180,648 points

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

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Answer 2

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Sep 13, 2016 7:45 AM in response to vieirae

have you tired the developer website for the drivers?

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Answer 3

vieirae Author

Level 1

8 points

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

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Answer 4

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

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.

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Answer 5

vieirae Author

Level 1

8 points

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.

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Answer 6

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.

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Answer 7

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

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.

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Answer 8

vieirae Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 26, 2016 4:15 AM in response to Loner T

In the meanwhile, Ive managed to solve the problem. Did a repair install on Win7 to Win7SP1 + MS convenience update so that all updates since SP1 were there. Then an upgrade install to Win10. The wifi was then working. Further upgraded the bluetooth module (BM....4AX to ...4CAX) now continuity is working with OS-Sierra and everything is also working in Windows 10/Bootcamp(mainly 5.1.5621) with a MacBookPro late 2011. For the drivers, the solution is to unpack the driver installers (e.g.Universal Extractor), examine the .inf files to see if the device ID in windows (device manager) is supported and install, sometimes in compatibility mode for Win7.

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Answer 9

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Oct 26, 2016 4:28 AM in response to vieirae

Excellent. Please create a Windows System Restore point, lest W10 'forced' updates cause havoc on your W10 installation. The reason for not supporting W10 on a 2011 Mac should now be obvious, based on the gyrations you have been through. 😉 Think of having to support such combinations.

The quest for newer, shinier objects can be very nice for Wall Street, but bad for consumers.

I am still using Snow Leopard on some 2006-2008 Macs, because none of the 'bleeding' features are important on those specific platforms. I will consider a 2016 Mac, only if I can justify the TCO and have a better RoI.

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