Windows 7 beta and Alum Macbook (bootcamp)

[eyephone]

As I have bot seen any real topics about this, I figured that I would post my experience with the new windows 7 beta on my aluminum macbook 2.0ghz, in bootcamp.

Process is simple if you sign up for the beta, just download the 32 or 64 bit versions of Windows 7 beta, build 7000, and burn the iso to a single layer dvd using Disk Utility. Forget what apple says about 64bit windows OS's and the macbook, as you can follow one simple step to enable the boot camp assistant to install the 64bit macbook drivers.

After burning the w7 dvd, open boot camp, and follow the instructions as you would with Xp or Vista. The installer works the same as vista, so no surprises there. Immediately after Windows 7 installs, insert your OEM leopard OS disk and run the setup file that you are prompted if you are using the 32 bit Beta. If you are running the 64 bit beta, then follow this simple step:

In the Windows 7 Start Menu Type “cmd”, then right-click on the program that appears and choose “Run As Administrator”.

Then enter;

D:
cd "Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple"
msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

This will bypass the apple lame-brain that says that the new fully capable Macbook cannot run a windows 64 bit OS. (not true)

Once the boot camp assistant installs all the drivers for your system, then you are up and ready to go. All components seem to work fine, with no driver issues, and no yellow flags in the device manager.

Running Windows 7 on my Macbook with the 2.0 processor and 2gb of ram on a 32gb partition, is extremely smooth and responsive. I can attest to the fact that this OS is faster than vista, even after all my programs have been loaded. I really believe after playing with the beta that MS is on the right track with this, as i have had no compatibility issues. Of course my right click option on my glass track pad does not function, just as it was broken in vista. I really believe that this is an apple driver issue.


Just thought I would share my experience.

[Buskape]

Thanks for sharing, looks like Microsoft did a very good job with their new Windows,
i was about to try it out on my macbook but i heard their were alot of driver issues, which is kind of annoying,
but after reading your post i might give it a try tommorow, im really curious to see what windows 7 looks like.

[manuel.mx]

I installed it today, but for some reason i cant get the bluetooth devices to work right. What about you? I have the x64 version aswell and everything is working great but that.

Have u tried adding and using bluetooth devices? It seems to detect them, but not to be able to connect to them, at least for me.

[dinaluvsApple]

how is the battery management so far?

xp and vista both kill my battery life compared to osx.

ive read on the hp forums that windows 7 is going to be released along with hp laptops giving it 24hours battery life.

[powerbook911]

I installed it, and I have no sound in boot camp with Windows 7. Anyone else?

[manuel.mx]

i havent tried on battery yet. I did get sound after installing the boot camp stuff from the leopard disc, i didnt try it intensively like on itunes or something as i dont have such content there, but it does emit sounds when rising the volume and system notifications.

I read of some people saying that, not sure what their specs are.

Did you override the apple thing to install the 64 bit drivers?

[jonbravo77]

Not to be a jerk but are we going to have another 100 threads about issues ppl are having with Windows 7? Can no one search for this and just use the main big thread located here?

[eyephone]

Originally Posted by jonbravo77

Not to be a jerk but are we going to have another 100 threads about issues ppl are having with Windows 7? Can no one search for this and just use the main big thread located here?

Sorry, I just figured that I would share a positive experience, and keep it Macbook specific.

[eyephone]

Originally Posted by manuel.mx

I installed it today, but for some reason i cant get the bluetooth devices to work right. What about you? I have the x64 version aswell and everything is working great but that.

Have u tried adding and using bluetooth devices? It seems to detect them, but not to be able to connect to them, at least for me.

It seems that Windows 7 sees the bluetooth macbook hardware, but I have not test it functionality.

As for battery, I can say that there is a slight improvement over Vista in bootcamp. One thing I noticed was that I would get about 2 hours of battery life in Vista in performance mode, just the same if I was doing hard core mulit-tasking or just browsing the web.

With Windows 7 I can get the same 2 solid hours in performance mode running some intensive programs, and a good bit longer if I am just browsing the web or typing in word. Seems that they worked on power management a little more in this version.

And for the other question, I am pretty sure that I had sound before and after I installed the bootcamp drivers.

[jonbravo77]

Originally Posted by eyephone

Sorry, I just figured that I would share a positive experience, and keep it Macbook specific.

I understand your intentions but it doesn't work out that way, unfortunately..

[fuzzycuffs]

I installed it the other day too, and it was awesome on a 2.0ghz stock macbook (with 2gb of ram). Vista runs like a champ with 4gb, but sometimes sluggish with 2. Windows 7 however ran great.

HOWEVER, the multitouch trackpad still sucks in Windows. Right click doesn't work (maybe I could fix that at least with the hardware right click, but tap-to-click and double-finger tap to right click/scroll definitely doesn't work). And scrolling, even with a mouse, sucks. I guess Apple needs to get on the ball and fix that.

Regardless, I liked Win7 a lot.

[tubbymac]

Originally Posted by eyephone

This will bypass the apple lame-brain that says that the new fully capable Macbook cannot run a windows 64 bit OS. (not true)

Thanks for that tip. It's annoying that Apple put in the arbitrary block on bootcamp for 64 bit systems. That's the shortest way around the block I've seen, nice!

Originally Posted by dinaluvsApple

ive read on the hp forums that windows 7 is going to be released along with hp laptops giving it 24hours battery life.

There's already an HP notebook with 24 hour battery life but it looks like a tank and is ugly. Windows 7 gets a bit better battery life on Apple machines but OSX still is better for battery life on the same Apple machine. Notice I said Apple as other machines like Sony Vaios have had 8-11 hour battery life years before Macs.

Originally Posted by powerbook911

I installed it, and I have no sound in boot camp with Windows 7. Anyone else?

The default Windows 7 driver seems to be confused and tries to send an optical sound signal out of the headphone jack instead of through the speakers. The bootcamp drivers will fix this if you have your Leopard Install DVD handy. Otherwise google for the 2.13 or 2.14 version of the Realtek Vista Audio drivers which will fix the problem too.

Originally Posted by fuzzycuffs

HOWEVER, the multitouch trackpad still sucks in Windows.

Yeah this one is annoying. No known fix until/if Apple releases yet another multitouch driver update.

Not sure if this thread should belong in this forum or the Windows Bootcamp forum, honestly. Probably the Windows forum.

If any of you can figure out how to get better than a 2.0 experience score on Windows 7, let us know. The primary drive score seems to be very low on my Macbook 2.0 Aluminum for some reason.

[Jpoon]

It probably isn't detecting your HDD because it's partitioned, so it defaults to the lowest subscore allowed for an unrecognized drive.
Also, Windows Experience scores mean absolutely nothing. You might want to run some benchmarks to see
any sort of performance differences between that and Vista / XP / OS X.

either way, I've had pretty good experiences so far with Windows seven on my Macbook and PC tower.

What Vista should have been.

[morphalex]

i installed the 32bit version, but I noticed nothing different about Win7, same exact thing with very small extra eye candy added. Didn't detect my bluetooth mouse either, so I uninstalled it, Mac OS still rocks Win7 IMO

[acfusion29]

I partitioned 50GB for Windows 7 and got a rating of 4.3

Runs better than Vista and XP.

[Jpoon]

Originally Posted by morphalex

i installed the 32bit version, but I noticed nothing different about Win7, same exact thing with very small extra eye candy added. Didn't detect my bluetooth mouse either, so I uninstalled it, Mac OS still rocks Win7 IMO

Hehe, well, on a Macbook, I'd HOPE OS X still outperforms its Windows Counterpart.

Especially on a BETA copy of a new Windows OS with basically limited to no driver support.

[tubbymac]

Originally Posted by Jpoon

It probably isn't detecting your HDD because it's partitioned, so it defaults to the lowest subscore allowed for an unrecognized drive.

I wonder if there's a way around this. I have no choice really but to keep it partitioned using bootcamp because I like both OSX and Windows on this thing.

Originally Posted by acfusion29

I partitioned 50GB for Windows 7 and got a rating of 4.3

I noticed you have a 500 gig drive on your Macbook. Is it a 7200 rpm or a 5400 rpm one? I still have the factory stock 160 gig 5400 rpm one on mine and only partitioned 32 gigs of space for it.

[acfusion29]

Originally Posted by tubbymac

I noticed you have a 500 gig drive on your Macbook. Is it a 7200 rpm or a 5400 rpm one? I still have the factory stock 160 gig 5400 rpm one on mine and only partitioned 32 gigs of space for it.

It's 5400RPM. I originally got a 320GB 7200RPM, however there was excessive vibrating coming from the entire bottom case. I could not deal with it and so I got a 5400RPM Seagate drive. Works great!

[tubbymac]

Originally Posted by acfusion29

It's 5400RPM. I originally got a 320GB 7200RPM, however there was excessive vibrating coming from the entire bottom case.

Wait a sec. There were excessive vibrations when it was on your lap. And you replaced it? Some would have seen that as a desired "feature"

[acfusion29]

Originally Posted by tubbymac

Wait a sec. There were excessive vibrations when it was on your lap. And you replaced it? Some would have seen that as a desired "feature"

LOL to some I guess however, my laptop spends most of it's life on a desk either at school or at home.

But it was annoying when I was typing because my palms would vibrate, and ugh..

[jav6454]

Finally an easy way to bypass Apple's pesky x64 block for MacBooks.

[mmoran27]

I just ran the setup.exe off the bootcamp CD and it was fine. I had to run the nvidia chipset driver to get rid of the unknown hardware after bootcamp installed (smbus driver I think)

Other than that everything worked without block. Bluetooth can seem to pair with logitech mouse though.

[mackerman93]

would the x64 drivers work in a late 2006 white iMac?

[jav6454]

Originally Posted by mackerman93

would the x64 drivers work in a late 2006 white iMac?

Probably. Depends. Post screen shot of your Mac's info. The processor will determine if you can actually run x64.

Core Duo - 32-bit only
Core 2 Duo - 32-bit and 64-bit

[Jeremy08]

anyone have problems getting their backlit keyboard to turn all the way off on your 2.4Ghz alum macbook?