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Anyone running Windows 7 on their Mac Pro yet?

Stonebyte said:
I tried installing the Windows 7 beta. It was the first time I'd ever tried using Boot Camp. Kind of a pain in the butt, because Boot Camp couldn't install a Windows partition... I had to do a Time Machine backup of OS X, reinstall OS X, then make a partition for Windows, installed Windows 7, then restored from Time Machine.

Several hours of waiting. Afterwards, I couldn't get the video driver to work (2600XT), and it got so annoying I dumped Windows 7. But I realized I would like to have Windows on here, just in case.

So I went to Microcenter, bought another hard drive and an OEM copy of 64-bit Vista. I moved my OS X installation from the original hard drive (the 300GB one) to the new one (1TB)... had planned to install Vista on the old one, which I put in bay 4... but during the Vista installation, it said the computer couldn't boot from that drive. I wonder if there's some limitation that the computer can't boot from a drive in bay 4.

In the end, I just split the new hard drive 50/50... OS X on one half, Vista on the other. At least the installation went smoothly.

Now if only I could get my Duet to work in Vista (not holding breath). Heheheh.
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There is no limitation with booting from a HDD installed in Bay4. My SSD with windows 7 is installed in Bay 4 and boots fine.
 
Mackilroy said:
Again, that isn't true, I had no problems installing Win7 64 bit, and I have the same generation of Mac Pro you do.
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OK, so do you run SL at 32 or 64? is your EFI at 32 or 64?

If is a 1.1, with the memory at 667 and the dual xeon 2.66 I wonder how did you installed it on your machine with the standard copy of W7 (not beta or cracked, just the regular retail one); because it doesn't let me to it with Parallels 4, bootcamp or just even booting the dvd when i reboot the mac :)

I love M$ for certain tasks, and love MacOS for others...i need both, and don't really care if one is better than the other :)
 
darshie76 said:
OK, so do you run SL at 32 or 64? is your EFI at 32 or 64?

If is a 1.1, with the memory at 667 and the dual xeon 2.66 I wonder how did you installed it on your machine with the standard copy of W7 (not beta or cracked, just the regular retail one); because it doesn't let me to it with Parallels 4, bootcamp or just even booting the dvd when i reboot the mac :)

I love M$ for certain tasks, and love MacOS for others...i need both, and don't really care if one is better than the other :)
Click to expand...

As I have the 2006 Mac Pro, EFI and Snow Leopard are 32-bit.

How'd I install? Pretty simple. I had a a 32-bit Windows XP partition, and I used my Win7 DVD to upgrade that to the new OS. I'd already used Boot Camp to install XP, but that had been some time prior and I didn't bother touching it this time around. Booted into Windows, stuck the DVD in, went through the steps, and at the end of it I had 7 installed.
 
Ok, are you sure that is a 64 bit copy of W7, or do you have a 32 bit? because from what you describe, it seems like you installed the 32 bit version (i was able to install the 32 bit version without issues yesterday, on my bootcamp partition with Vista 32), but i could be wrong of course

If you have the 64 bit installed, i would be curious to see your system profiler file and the disk that you used to install W7; because i don;t get it why you can install and many others with the same system can't :)
 
darshie76 said:
Ok, are you sure that is a 64 bit copy of W7, or do you have a 32 bit? because from what you describe, it seems like you installed the 32 bit version (i was able to install the 32 bit version without issues yesterday, on my bootcamp partition with Vista 32), but i could be wrong of course

If you have the 64 bit installed, i would be curious to see your system profiler file and the disk that you used to install W7; because i don;t get it why you can install and many others with the same system can't :)
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I'm absolutely certain. The .iso I downloaded from Microsoft was 64-bit only, and in the system profile it tells me that I'm running a 64-bit OS.

My disk wouldn't give you much info - it's a DVD I burned from the .iso MS supplied me with. I doubt it makes any difference, but I got Win7 through their student program for $30 - it's Win7 Professional.

I'll reboot into Windows and grab a shot of the system profile, and then edit this post with it shortly.

EDIT: the program I was using wouldn't capture for some reason, so I took a photo with my camera. It's still got the pertinent information. :)
 

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nigel1210 said:
Does windows 7 have to be the full version or will an upgrade work ok on bootcamp?
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Officially my disk is only an upgrade disk, and I installed it over a copy of Windows XP that I installed via Boot Camp, so you should be fine.
 
Mackilroy said:
Officially my disk is only an upgrade disk, and I installed it over a copy of Windows XP that I installed via Boot Camp, so you should be fine.
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I think that there is the key.....is an upgrade disk; so when you boot it you don't get the nasty screen like this one:

1.
2.
select an option:

Since this is what i get when i try to boot the DVD, and mine is a legit copy downloaded from the corporate site that microsoft has for their customers (is called technet o something like that); while you have an upgrade disk.

I would be curious now to find one of these disks, but i can only find the full version, and not the upgrade...anyone else has an upgrade disk of V7 64 to verify?

BTW Mackilroy i believe you; is just that it doesn't make sense that you are able to install it and others can't, so i am trying to find the gotcha here, so everybody is happy (me included lol)
 
I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on my Mac Pro 1,1 quite easily.

I didn't crack or pirate the software, but I did have to make a disk image from the retail DVD and re-burn it to get the Mac Pro to boot from it. The 64 bit Windows 7 doesn't like to boot from the official DVD on EFI32 systems.

So anyways... then I could install Windows 7 and use my activation key from the retail box I purchased.

Kinda weird, but it works fine.

By the way... Windows 7 makes my games fly!
 
darshie76 said:
I think that there is the key.....is an upgrade disk; so when you boot it you don't get the nasty screen like this one:

1.
2.
select an option:

Since this is what i get when i try to boot the DVD, and mine is a legit copy downloaded from the corporate site that microsoft has for their customers (is called technet o something like that); while you have an upgrade disk.

I would be curious now to find one of these disks, but i can only find the full version, and not the upgrade...anyone else has an upgrade disk of V7 64 to verify?

BTW Mackilroy i believe you; is just that it doesn't make sense that you are able to install it and others can't, so i am trying to find the gotcha here, so everybody is happy (me included lol)
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darshie, note that I said officially it's only an upgrade disk. It can be used to do a full install of Windows just the same as a a disk sold as a full install. In fact, I installed Win7 on one of my other hard drives yesterday just to see if I could, and it worked out effortlessly.

So yes, technically all I have is an upgrade disk, but in reality that isn't the case.

What screen is that? What you listed wasn't an option for me either installing Windows or upgrading it. There was a point when I was installing it that it asked me for my Windows key, but you can skip that.
 
Mackilroy said:
darshie, note that I said officially it's only an upgrade disk. It can be used to do a full install of Windows just the same as a a disk sold as a full install. In fact, I installed Win7 on one of my other hard drives yesterday just to see if I could, and it worked out effortlessly.

So yes, technically all I have is an upgrade disk, but in reality that isn't the case.

What screen is that? What you listed wasn't an option for me either installing Windows or upgrading it. There was a point when I was installing it that it asked me for my Windows key, but you can skip that.
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I think it's because you installed Windows from within Windows instead of starting up from the DVD.

My Mac Pro 1,1 would not boot from the 64 bit DVD because of my EFI32 problem. All I had to do was burn a new DVD.
 
TheSpaz said:
I think it's because you installed Windows from within Windows instead of starting up from the DVD.

My Mac Pro 1,1 would not boot from the 64 bit DVD because of my EFI32 problem. All I had to do was burn a new DVD.
Click to expand...

Nope. When I installed it I formatted the drive with Boot Camp, then booted from the DVD and installed it through there.

You people keep assuming things. :p
 
Mackilroy said:
Nope. When I installed it I formatted the drive with Boot Camp, then booted from the DVD and installed it through there.

You people keep assuming things. :p
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Perhaps Microsoft has fixed some of the DVD's then because my 1,1 Mac Pro refused to boot from the regular 64 bit DVD that came in the Windows 7 Ultimate box.
 
Perhaps. My copy didn't come as a DVD, though - I bought Win7 through Microsoft's student offer (Win7 Professional for $30), downloaded an .iso from the link they provided, and burned a DVD from that.

yeti5d said:
Hmmm interesting. Upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit could not be done with Vista, but apparently this is possible with windows 7:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7

Anybody else who can confirm this?

If this is the key to get pass that blasted start-up screen, I'm a happy bunny :)
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I forgot to reply to this: yes, I went from XP 32-bit to 7 64-bit. No sweat. Perhaps that's where darshie is having issues - if it can't be done with Vista, then he's out of luck trying to install 7 that way. If you have a spare drive around, darshie, see if you can install Win7 on that. Just format it with Boot Camp and then boot up off the install DVD.
 
Mackilroy said:
Perhaps. My copy didn't come as a DVD, though - I bought Win7 through Microsoft's student offer (Win7 Professional for $30), downloaded an .iso from the link they provided, and burned a DVD from that.
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That explains it then. The only way I could get my Mac to boot from the DVD is to burn my own. Since you burned your own, it worked as well.
 
when running it on bootcamp startup took like 3 mins. Currently running it through vmware fusion, speeds are extremly fast and rly easy to use and installs all drivers itself:)
 
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