1. First and foremost, if you guys aren't paying attention to the following posts, you're missing the entire point and entirely and are thusly doing it wrong.
My guess is that this has something to do with Windows 8's EFI support so Apple could drop the Legacy BIOS mode.
Both Whogie and Blackburn gave the most plausible reason back on page 2 yet no one seems to grasp it. Apple more than likely removed CSM and are using secure boot on new hardware. This will mean that new Macs will also have the Windows 8+ bootcamp requirement, not because Apple is mean, or is too lazy, or any of the other dreamed up reasons in this thread. Windows 7 does not support secure boot, and while Windows 7 technically supports UEFI it would require Apple to both disable secure boot and develop a backwards compatible video firmware.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface
-PopinFRESH
Seriously guys, pay attention to these two (well, really three, I just forgot to quote Blackburn).
If you remember when Windows 7 support first came to Boot Camp and Apple allowed the Core Solo and first Core Duo Mac minis to run Windows 7 (despite doing so extremely slowly) but not the (faster) iMacs and MacBook Pros of the contemporary generation, let alone of the one thereafter. Hell even the first generation Mac Pro doesn't have Windows 7 support, why? Not Apple's fault NVIDIA and ATI (AMD) abandoned driver support for ALL of the video cards in those systems; but the end result was that slower machines couldn't run the newer OS. Apple is not abandoning Windows 7 support in the new Mac Pro (and presumably all future model Macs) because they're lazy or because they want you to not be tempted to use Windows or because they're in bed with Microsoft. They're doing it because, in true Apple fashion, they're discarding support for legacy technology; Legacy BIOS Mode now joins Rosetta, PowerPC, Classic, optical drives, FireWire, and so forth because that's what Apple does.
Similarly, if you're using a Mac Pro with only 256GB of storage (512GB and 1TB at an even prettier penny), odds are slim that you'll be booting into Windows to do more than run one or two apps at which point, build a bridge and get over it; Windows 8.1 isn't that bad; and yes, I use Windows 7, Mountain Lion, Windows 8.1, and Mavericks all regularly.
And this does not affect the old MacPros, right? So when 10.10 rolls out, they're not going to screw over existing bootcamp volumes on, say, a MacPro 3,1?
It'll be just like running Windows XP in Boot Camp on a drive that was updated from 10.6 to anything past 10.6; yes, you won't be able to get driver updates (as Apple won't be writing any), but you'll have no trouble using Windows 7 alongside whatever succeeds Mavericks.
The ONE good reason I was going to buy a nMP is now gone. Guess I can thank Apple for saving me $3000+.
Right because as a Windows machine, that was obviously the best bang for your buck. Seriously?!
Well, the Windows 8 drives should still work, at least mostly, right? Just in the same way my current Mac only supports 7 but I've installed 8 just fine.
And then promptly went back to 7 when I realized how poorly 8 initially was. I have t tried 8.1 yet, I may give it a chance sometime.
Windows 8.1 really isn't as bad as people are making it out to be here. My biggest complaint is that it's ugly and that I have to re-arrange tiles in the main Metro screen to match the same functionality I had with the Windows 7 start menu; but it is totally possible without add-ons and doesn't take much time. Barring that, the two OSes are far more similar than people give credit for. Also, contrary to nonsense in this thread, 8/8.1 does run faster on the same hardware than 7 (unless we're talking about gaming, in which case it runs about the same).
The one good reason that you were going to buy a $3,000+ Macintosh computer was so that you could
Your point was excellent until about here...
run a version of Windows that is going on five years and two generations old?
...then it stopped. Windows 7 being five years old really doesn't matter since it is still being supported and retrofitted to maintain relevance for anything anyone would want to do with a PC. There's no successor to it with as much acclaim and as much wide-spread support; and we all know that Apple turns over OSes and OS support faster than anyone, so this is really not a fair comparison nor does it mean much. Also 8 and 8.1 are not considered to be two different generations in the areas that really matter. 8.1 is the no-brainer update to 8.
I was planning to hold on to Win7 forever... This is bad news, Win 8 indeed sucks. It's better with 8.1 but still sucks...
It's honestly not that bad. 8 really did suck. 8.1 is perfectly usable and is more similar to 7 than people realize.
I think the issue is that windows 8 adds basically zero redeeming features while being buggier and more of a resource hog than windows 7.
Um...fact check - 8 and 8.1 actually run FASTER on the same hardware than 7 does in the same way that 7 runs faster on the same hardware than Vista did. Microsoft is actually making their OSes run FASTER than their predecessors. Every new Microsoft OS since 2009 has been faster than its immediate predecessor on the same hardware.
If you have a Mac Pro you should be using virtual machines anyway.
THIS!
Sometimes I miss the downvote button.
Virtual Machines, no matter how efficient will always have an overhead. When you are trying to milk every last mhz out of your hardware for absolute performance gain, why dump 5%-10% (estimated) away on running VM instead of on bare metal.
Because with an Ivy Bridge E flavored Xeon running up to 12 cores; you have resources to burn; otherwise there'd be no point in buying a Mac Pro for the purposes of running Windows, especially when for most tasks, you can get an Ivy Bridge E Xeon workstation for cheaper (albeit sans some of the bells and whistles that make the new Mac Pro special [but really most of those don't matter for those purposes anyway!]).
this is clever. you won't have a more polarizing experience than using mavericks and windows 8. most people exposed to both will agree that windows 8 doesn't meet the same standard
Both OSes suck compared to their respective immediate predecessors. And when it all comes down to it, the changes between old and current gen are not as stark as people may make them out to be.
There shouldn't be any silly back and forth. Multitasking on Windows 8 is not fun.
Um...Alt-Tab still works the way it has since Windows 95; don't know what you're talking about, pal.
It sucks and Win 8.1 REALLY FREAKING SUCKS I was all set to load Win 7 on the nMP but called for latest one. BS!!!! I really hate Win 8.1 and if I wasn't in to gaming I never would have loaded it.
If you bought the new Mac Pro for gaming, then you really did it wrong. First off, the Fire Pro cards are not meant for gaming. Second off, you will not see serious performance gains in most games with the new Mac Pro over a top of the line Haswell-based 27" iMac as most of them aren't optimized for (a) more than 4 cores, (b) GPU-computing, or again, (c) Fire Pro cards. Thirdly, Windows 8.1, when you really stop and think about it, isn't THAT much different than 7. Uglier, yes. But functionally, way similar; certainly more than 8 ever was to 7. Therefore; NBD!
This is 2013/2014 hardware. Windows 7 is a 5 year old OS - 7 if you consider it under it's true form of Vista 2.
Have you ever used Windows 8?
It's a monstrosity.
Yes. If you update to 8.1, it's not all that bad.
Is anyone still using Windows? Like seriously?
Everyone I know is either using mobile devices like an iPhone or iPad, Retina MacBooks, with a few iMacs thrown into the mix. Literally everyone I know who were Windows users has given up on that platform. Windows 8 was the final straw for a lot of people.
Obviously, your world is only limited to consumer technology, which is only a fraction of the hardware that is purchased on the regular. Were it not that way, Microsoft would've folded to Apple years ago.
If I understand correctly, this is just talking about the bootcamp assistant application. What's the big deal? I've never used BootCamp to install Windows. Its just x86 hardware. You can install whatever you want!
The BootCamp Assistant Application only does two things: (1) partition your drive, (2) Download the Boot Camp Drivers (as they no longer come on your OS disc as Apple no longer has an OS disc). The whole point of the article is that Apple isn't making Windows 7 drivers for the new Mac Pro. So, to answer your question, yes, the Mac Pro is just x86 hardware; but even if the hypothesis of Legacy BIOS mode going away is true and that is circumvented somehow, you will still be without drivers to make Windows 7 work on the new Mac Pro as their drivers will only work with 8 and 8.1.
Windows 7 is at End of Life (EOL) and you all know it! 5 years is an eternity in the World of cutting edge Computer Science. I bet Apple had to resort to writing new Windows drivers to get Windows 7 to work on the 2013 Mac Pro!
As for Windows 8 or 8.1, well that is why Microsoft fired their previous CEO Ballmer. And to bolster my argument Bill Gates is now having to return to Microsoft.
Apple doesn't have time to spoon feed Microsoft because of their past Mistakes!
Even if I am to take this as effort in trolling on your part, I have so many issues with this. Please just stop.
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These will use the user's existing license key.
Again, that's great and all, but if Apple is not supplying Windows 7 compatible drivers, then downgrading to Windows 7 from 8 or 8.1 is sort of moot.
