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Vista to Windows 8 in Mountain Lion

G

Ganapatiom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2009
4
0
Hello,

I hope there is some help for me, but after spending the day reading and experimententing I am doubtful. I have just recieved my 27" iMac, which I love, to replace my again MBP from 2006. I have been running Snow Leopard and years ago had purchased Window Vista (32-bit) to use in boot camp. What I would like to do us upgrade my Windows Vista to Windows 8 for use in on my iMac. I do have a exeternal disk drive. I have installed a friends version of Windows 7 that I can use or 30 days in hopes that it will help with the process. I have tried booting from my Vista disk, but can't move the curser to complete the instal on the iMac. I spent as much money as I could on the compter itself with little left over to buy new software (not realizing I couldn't keep using what I already purchased). Can I upgrade my Vista to Windows 8 and move the whole thing onto my iMac? Is there any way to get Vista onto the iMac and then upgrade to Windows 8? Can I install Snow Leopard, then install Vista, then upgrade to 8, then move back to Mountain Lion?
 
In general you cannot install a version of OS X older than what the system came with. (There are a couple of exceptions, but not recent.)

You would probably be better off doing a clean install of Windows 8 on your iMac and copying over your data from the Vista install.
 
Bear said:
In general you cannot install a version of OS X older than what the system came with. (There are a couple of exceptions, but not recent.)

You would probably be better off doing a clean install of Windows 8 on your iMac and copying over your data from the Vista install.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. Is it possible to do a clean install of Windows 8 if I buy it as an upgrade?
 
Thanks for the help. I am writing from Windows 8 on my iMac. I read on another forum that someone with a similar problem called Microsoft support, who gave him and .iso of Windows 7 to use but not activate in order to download the Windows 8. I used this method and had to first install Windows 7, with all the drivers and such, then downloaded the Windows 8 upgrade. Each time I had to burn a disk from the .iso using Disk Util as the flash drive method ran into problems related to EFI (I think). I had originally downloaded the Windows 8 upgrade on my MacBook Pro in Vista and then tried to install it on my iMac, but the updater program from Microsoft automatically gave me the 32-bit version, so that didn't work technically, though it was the legal path to take. I'm not sure that route was a dead end or helped later, but when I installed 8, and put in my the Key sent to me with my purchase, everything activated fine. It took little work to get online, but that was solved, and I even have the trackpad working. Granted all this took many hours or installing, reading posts, and trial and error, but from what I've read its getting easier. Bootcamp 4.1 seems to be on the right track.
 
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