Upgrading to Windows 8 on Bootcamp

Hey Louis,

I performed an installation of Windows 8 using boot camp assistant without a problem. I simply left my existing Win7 partition as-is, made a bootable flash drive from the Win8x64Pro .iso using boot camp assistant, booted to the flash drive and then wiped the Win7 partition to perform a fresh Win8 install. Works *almost* flawlessly; don't forget to get the Windows support material from boot camp assistant and run that post-install as you should have done with Windows 7. The only problem I notice with Windows 8 is that the boot camp control panel does not function properly under an administrative account, so you have to make another administrative account, give your original account standard privileges from there, log into the original account and adjust the boot camp control panel settings to your liking, and then restore administrative privileges to your original account from the secondary one; it'll retain the settings. Oh, also, be sure you get the latest nVidia drivers:
http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/50007
And it's smooth sailing after that. That is, of course, after you've familiarized yourself with Windows 8. Learn all the winkey shortcuts and you'll be navigating the OS like a pro in a matter of an hour or so, start menu be damned.

I upgraded on a MB Pro late 2011 but had trackpad problems.

I purchased the Windows 8 upgrade and downloaded the installer into my existing BootCamp Windows 7 Pro. The upgrade went smoothly (although it does take a long time) and Windows 8 came up running. However, I have no trackpad response, although a USB mouse works fine. I tried to reapply the Apple Support driver package, but it failed to run and displayed the message that it didn't support that version of windows. I also had a very dim display, but located suggestions to disable the automatic dimming which solved that problem. I ended giving up and restoring my Windows 7 Pro environment for BootCamp.

I then used the my purchased key to try the same thing in a VMware Fusion virtual machine Windows 7 Pro. The installation proceeded exactly as before and it is running fine as a Fusion VM, and as expected, the trackpad does work in this environment.

Hopefully, Apple will release a driver package for Windows 8 soon and I will try again at that time.



-howard

Upgraded a 2010 Mac mini, running windows 7 and mountain lion, to windows 8 and had keyboard (Apple USB) problems. Tried a number of things and in the end gave up and went back to windows 7.

LouisLoh said:

Hi Sesshy,

Thanks for your speedy reply.

I purchased W8 as an upgrade (MS was offering a discount), so the activation key would not work on a clean install. So I'm not sure as to how I should go about 'upgrading' from W7.

Click to expand...

It will work on a clean install, just follow these directions:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/clean-install-windows-8-upgrade.htm

Make a .iso as the directions specify, and then use that .iso with boot camp assistant to create a bootable flash drive, and voila, clean install of an upgrade version of Win8.

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hfg said:

I upgraded on a MB Pro late 2011 but had trackpad problems.

I purchased the Windows 8 upgrade and downloaded the installer into my existing BootCamp Windows 7 Pro. The upgrade went smoothly (although it does take a long time) and Windows 8 came up running. However, I have no trackpad response, although a USB mouse works fine. I tried to reapply the Apple Support driver package, but it failed to run and displayed the message that it didn't support that version of windows. I also had a very dim display, but located suggestions to disable the automatic dimming which solved that problem. I ended giving up and restoring my Windows 7 Pro environment for BootCamp.

I then used the my purchased key to try the same thing in a VMware Fusion virtual machine Windows 7 Pro. The installation proceeded exactly as before and it is running fine as a Fusion VM, and as expected, the trackpad does work in this environment.

Hopefully, Apple will release a driver package for Windows 8 soon and I will try again at that time.



-howard

Click to expand...

Howard, I don't know whether the fact that you performed an upgrade rather than a clean install had anything to do with it, or maybe it's the hardware you're on, but I performed a clean install and can assure you that everything works exactly as well as in Win7. Maybe try again using the clean install instructions I posted above? Honestly, I don't think it's really a matter of driver packages, because virtually all drivers that work for Win7 work for Win8 as well, and that's across all platforms and hardware. If anything, they need to tweak their boot camp control panel and enable boot camp to install Windows under EFI rather than an emulated BIOS so that Windows can run AHCI natively and utilize the integrated GPU as well as the dedicated.

Also, this just occurred to me: are you using x64 rather than x86? It might be that the x86 boot camp drivers don't play well with Win8 where the x64 ones do.

Thanks for the link Sesshy...

I was using the 64bit Win8-Pro upgrade on a installed 64bit Win7-Pro. When you download the drivers from the BootCamp Assistant, do you get both 32 and 64 bit drivers? If not, where are the 64 bit drivers available?

You get both; to my knowledge, it's all packaged within the one directory boot camp assistant downloads when instructed. You should simply have to copy the folder over to the new Windows installation once it's complete and run the executable.

Yep it downloads both 64 bit & 32bit drivers for your specific hardware model. Just save them to your desktop and you'll see a folder called Windows Support.

In Windows 8 make sure you right click on the setup in Windows Support folder and choose properties. Make sure compatability is set to Windows 7 and you have ticked run as administrator.

I have windows 8 running perfectly on my Mac Pro.

You may want to independently go and get the very latest graphics drivers from the vendors own site (amd / nvidia) as GPU drivers in Bootcamp tend to be out of date.

Ahhhh ... thanks for the "right click" suggestion ... I will try that.

I also purchased a DVD copy of Win8 on release day and used it to install as a upgrade to Win7-Pro on my Mac Pro and it had no problems and is running fine. However, the peripherals being used (keyboard, mouse, etc.) are a bit more standard to the Windows world and installed without any problems.


-howard

Download windows 8 upgrade assistant and run it on win7

if you had 7pro or 7ultimate it will convert to '8pro' version
it will charge you on credit card less than buying a physical disc

run bootcamp in os X and tick download driver only to get new driver for windows 8

if you upgrade from windows 7, it would be wise to run 'refresh PC' again to wipe old uncompatable drivers and programs right after u done upgrading and reinstall new bootcamp drivers
bootcamp control panel privilege problem will be resolved too without have to recreate second admin account to fix

otherwise trackpad driver will fail to recognise under win8

chons said:

Download windows 8 upgrade assistant and run it on win7

if you had 7pro or 7ultimate it will convert to '8pro' version
it will charge you on credit card less than buying a physical disc

run bootcamp in os X and tick download driver only to get new driver for windows 8

if you upgrade from windows 7, it would be wise to run 'refresh PC' again to wipe old uncompatable drivers and programs right after u done upgrading and reinstall new bootcamp drivers
bootcamp control panel privilege problem will be resolved too without have to recreate second admin account to fix

otherwise trackpad driver will fail to recognise under win8

Click to expand...

Are the Windows8 drivers included in the Bootcamp-Drivers-Download now?

I think it was a release day special, but Amazon sold me a Windows-8 physical disk copy and gave me Amazon credit for the $30, bringing the shipped disk cost down to the same price as a download from MicroSoft.