Macbook Air Dual Boot with Windows 7

[3 More Years]

Hello All,

Has anyone got any experience of installing Windows ona Macbook Air?

If so, I would like top hear your view/opinion/thoughts on it.

I have a Macbook Air 11" and I am thinking about installing Winodows 7 as a dual boot option. I also have a Sony Vaio laptop. I thought, this way I would have just the one machine.

I love my Macbook Air and I don't want to destroy it. So I want to hear from anyone who has done it. Do you have any regrets?

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks. Ryan

 

[James_S]

Using Bootcamp is simple enough, you may want to make a backup of the OS X partition just in case but I didn't run into any problems when I dual booted Windows 8 on a Mac Mini. Worst case is you screw up the partitions, I don't see how you could ruin the machine by dual-booting.

Windows 8 runs great in Boot Camp but I don't use it real often because I have to restart the computer to get into Windows. If you just need to run a particular Windows program you should look into virtualization.

 

[ac1]

Yes, Windows runs quite well on mac hardware and I have had great experiences with it. It is extremely useful to have both operating systems on the one laptop, so this way you get the best of both worlds and you can perform tests on both OS's on the one machine.

The procedure is quite straightforward, however due to the lack of the optical drive on macbook air's you would need to have your copy of the Windows setup on a USB flash drive. By the way, you also have the choice of installing Windows 8 instead of Windows 7 if you wish. It is not officially supported and I have not tried it on your particular macbook air, however it worked for me on a 15inch macbook pro. Not sure on your views on Window 8, but it would be a good idea to test it and get comfortable with it.

The next step requires you to use the 'BootCamp Assistant" which you can find using spotlight. I generally make backup my MAC data just as a precaution. If you follow the steps, you should be able to have a running copy of Windows in less that an hour. However you should download the latest bootcamp drivers for the OS.

You have not mentioned what model macbook air this is and what specs, however you should consider that because this can constraint or limit the best performance of running Windows.

So in general it is a great idea and I think there a few techs who already have this setup on TN. If you want you can also consider virtualisation, which allows quicker switching between OSX and Windows

 

[datadatau]

Search the apple support site, there are very specific directions, not hard, just follow the instructions. Works well, although I decided to keep the 2 laptop approach.

 

[paristotle]

Try this link. http://www.apple.com/ca/support/bootcamp/
Windows 7 and boot camp work great on my Macbook pro.

 

[3 More Years]

Thanks for all your help. I'll look into it.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

I assume the macbook air has the SSD and more than likely has 2GB of RAM.

Bright side - The SSD should make up for some of the performance limitations of being stuck at 2GB of RAM. But still it should run as good if not better than Windows 7 on any net book you'll find. Running Windows natively (via bootcamp) is probably going to be the best option for that amount of RAM. Should be pretty straight forward setting it up. Creating the boot camp partition is painless and installing Windows 7 is what it is. Afterwards just make sure you install the bootcamp drivers. Only other thing is I assume you have an external optical drive with the Air, right?

 

[3 More Years]

I have SSD and i7 and 8GB RAM.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

I have SSD and i7 and 8GB RAM.

You must have a brand spanking new (mid 2012), top of the line 11-inch MBAir that's has the added i7 and 8GB RAM upgrade. In that case, Windows 7 should fly.

 

[3 More Years]

Yes, I only bought it about 3 or 4 months ago. I have been going over why I would want Windows 7 on it. Come to think of it, apart from CS4, there is no other software on my PC that I need to transfer over. So I may just leave it. I have to say, I love my Macbook Air. But in my opinion it costs silly money compared to a PC laptop. I know it's better quality, even then...

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Yes, I only bought it about 3 or 4 months ago. I have been going over why I would want Windows 7 on it. Come to think of it, apart from CS4, there is no other software on my PC that I need to transfer over. So I may just leave it. I have to say, I love my Macbook Air. But in my opinion it costs silly money compared to a PC laptop. I know it's better quality, even then...

I find that just about all folks we sell Macs to that are converting from Windows never look back. Even the folks who need to use Windows for CAD and other things that aren't offered for OSX prefer OSX over Windows or like running Windows much better on Mac hardware. It's really not so much about fanboyism as many on these boards like to claim. It's just a fantastic user interface and very little maintenance. Being a tech for so many years I'm way beyond the fiddling with my own equipment faze. I'd rather not have to mess around with maintenance tasks because my Macbook Pro is in use 7 days a week. If I have to take time to do housecleaning on my own machine, it just slows me down or stops me from what i planned on doing. I'd rather only have to worry about the occasional hardware problem (if needed) and not worry about housekeeping just to make sure it's running to its full potential.