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Apple Updates Boot Camp With WiFi Improvements and Bug Fixes

CWallace said:
As I understand it, at the moment Qualcomm has an exclusive agreement with Microsoft ...
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sideshowuniqueuser said:
Quite dumb of MS. ...
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It is, actually -- particularly since it runs wholly counter to their own history.

As many of you no doubt will recall, the way that Microsoft became a behemoth in personal computing in the first place was by specifically negotiating a non-exclusive agreement with IBM for Microsoft's DOS software, back-in-the-day. IBM had no idea of the value of the software side of the house... but Microsoft saw an opportunity in the making, in that they realized that someone else would eventually reverse engineer what little proprietary hardware existed in IBM's PC, in order to make what eventually became commonly known as "IBM compatible" PCs. Turns out, they were right.

So really, it baffles the mind, that the current regime at Microsoft could have somehow failed so utterly to learn the lessons of their own historically profound rise to success. How does that even happen?
 
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After 2 days, I'm still not showing this update. (I'm on 6.1 according to the "About" info.) Anyone with a 2020 iMac have this new update show in the Boot Camp updater? I'm particularly interested in the wifi drivers. In Boot Camp I only connect to the .ax router at .a or .n.
 
My software still shows as Up-to-Date so nothing yet. I think the last update I saw was maybe 6.1.14 in 2021.

For me, this update is unimportant since I connect my 2020 iMac 5K via Ethernet cable directly to my router and I use wired USB keyboards and mice in Boot Camp since they are designed for Windows so if I never get it, I don't much care.

But for those who would benefit from it, I hope it either drops or hits Apple's Security Patch downloads page.
 
Yebubbleman said:
You can download Windows 11 for x86-64 legally and directly from the Microsoft website without having to pay anything. (So long as you have a valid product key.)

You CANNOT download Windows 11 for ARM64 legally and directly from the Microsoft website. At best, you can download a .vhdx of a Windows 11 for ARM64 virtual machine currently running the latest Insider Preview (read: beta release) and then convert that to run in the hypervisor of your choice so long as that hypervisor supports .vhdx files. Even this requires that you have a valid product key.
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It doesn’t require a product key.
 
Is there a fix for the OSD volume buttons, keyboard backlight and monitor brightness controls not working on MBP 2015 with a different language mutation after BootCamp update?
 
protronics said:
Running Windows 11 on a 2020 MBA. When I come out of hibernation, the KB/touchpad would not wake up unless I close and reopen the screen. Hopefully this fixes things. Rebooting now.

I would love to see the fingerprint reader work. Not likely to happen though.
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The bootcamp software update did not make a difference. Still has a hibernate issue.
 
stevenoz said:
Friendly reminder to upgrade Boot Camp only if you are having problems...
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This presumes that there is a frequent Windows-on-Mac user out there who has miraculously never once actually had any problems with Windows on their Mac. I'm somewhat skeptical that such a person exists -- and as that most certainly does not describe me...

LeonPro said:
6.1.18 states: "Updated AMD graphics driver"
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I checked again over the weekend, and (like others in this thread) I still haven't been able to obtain access to either 6.1.16 or 6.1.18. I tried checking for updates from the Apple Software Update control panel while running Windows, and I've tried downloading the latest support software from the Boot Camp application while running macOS.

Frustratingly, I've also tried researching beyond this article and thread, but have found no other references to a new Boot Camp driver update. The last update that I can find any info on is 6.1.17 from March 2022.

Am I missing something? Has anyone else successfully downloaded this on a 2019 Mac?
 
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zarmanto said:
This presumes that there is a frequent Windows-on-Mac user out there who has miraculously never once actually had any problems with Windows on their Mac. I'm somewhat skeptical that such a person exists -- and as that most certainly does not describe me...



I checked again over the weekend, and (like others in this thread) I still haven't been able to obtain access to either 6.1.16 or 6.1.18. I tried checking for updates from the Apple Software Update control panel while running Windows, and I've tried downloading the latest support software from the Boot Camp application while running macOS.

Frustratingly, I've also tried researching beyond this article and thread, but have found no other references to a new Boot Camp driver update. The last update that I can find any info on is 6.1.17 from March 2022.

Am I missing something? Has anyone else successfully downloaded this on a 2019 Mac?
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Not sure why 6.1.18 isn't showing up. Maybe it's a Mac Pro 2019 specific update. Or it was rolled into 6.1.19 knowing this would be released shortly. Not sure.
 
Not sure there was a 6.1.18.

Apple released 6.1.17 for the Apple Studio Display and Mac Studio in March. Then they released 6.1.16 a week ago. And now 6.1.19 today.
 
CWallace said:
Not sure there was a 6.1.18.

Apple released 6.1.17 for the Apple Studio Display and Mac Studio first. Then they released 6.1.16 for everything else. And now 6.1.19.
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Of course there was. I got it on my Mac Pro 2019 last week.
 
LeonPro said:
Of course there was. I got it on my Mac Pro 2019 last week.
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Sure that was not 6.1.16 (this thread's update)?

I am not seeing anything about a 6.1.18 on the web (that of course does not mean it didn't release - especially if it only went to 2019 Mac Pro owners).

EDIT: Someone mentioned in the other thread that 6.1.18 was released to address issues with the AMD MPX cards so it would have been a 2019 Mac Pro only release and that would be why there is nothing about it on the web.
 
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zarmanto said:
I'm glad to see that they haven't left BootCamp users entirely in the lurch. It would be awfully nice if Apple also addressed one or two other driver bugs -- but I'm not exactly holding my breath ...
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Yeah, I'm still a bit miffed I've literally spent weeks of my time getting BootCamp to work with my Blackmagic eGPU. I've had to keep it on specific versions of Windows, with just the right combo of tricks (and then keep everything from updating) to keep it running. It seems Apple and Microsoft could do a bit better (non-Apple users apparently also have issues). I loved the eGPU concept, but seems it all only got kind of half-baked.

I'm glad we have BootCamp, and that they keep kinda, sorta supporting it. But, they could do MUCH better!

GFLPraxis said:
Yeah, while this is true, there's still a performance overhead, and more importantly, this does not translate to graphics. CPU benchmarks do remarkably well on Parallels, but GPU benchmarks don't, and lots of DirectX calls are still pretty glitchy.
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Yes, I couldn't do crypto-mining, or play Planetside 2 on a VM. Some stuff needs direct-boot.

IamTimCook said:
There's not just one guy working at Apple, lol. Like, one day he cleans the bathrooms, one days he works on the AC units, one day he codes...

So many teams doing so many things. There's literally a full-time development team just working on the ARM version of Blender, an open source 3D program that Apple doesn't even own.
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... and every 5 to 10 years, he spends a day addressing some of the long-standing MacOS bugs. Sure seems that's how it is some days. LOL

I'm still hoping one of these decades, he'll get around to adding a 'duplicate event' functionality to Calendar on iOS. Or, does iOS get its own developer?

The Blender thing is kind of exciting, though, if only that means Apple will actually even care about 3D graphics performance. I'm still waiting to see what they plan to do to be competitive. Hopefully we'll know by year-end.


larrylaffer said:
I haven't used boot camp in years, but I found it best to just to install drivers from the various hardware vendors (Intel, NVIDIA, etc). Is that not the right thing to do anymore?
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Hmm, this is a puzzling comment. A whole bunch of stuff doesn't work at all if you don't do the BootCamp drivers install, right? I do use custom modded AMD drivers, but beyond that, I thought you have to install the BootCamp driver pack.

LeonPro said:
I don't know what improved with 6.1.18 for my AMD GPU. I wish Apple weren't cryptic with a one-liner.
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Yeah, I wish they were a lot more descriptive. If I install it, will it muck up my machine totally? Or, improve it? I need to get a good Windows image/backup type utility I guess, so I can make a working copy before I attempt anything.

stevenoz said:
Friendly reminder to upgrade Boot Camp only if you are having problems...
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Kind of like my comment above... you have to be careful, for sure! Generally, we'd want these updates, but I've had them (or the Windows updates!) render my BootCamp un-bootable. (I actually followed a process to completely disable updates, so I can keep things just as they are once I get them working.)
 
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FWIW, finally saw the updates, but I had to actually boot into Boot Camp (external 500 GB Samsung T5 SSD) on my 2017 iMac 5K (18,3), as opposed to using Parallels Desktop 18. Once booted into Boot Camp, Apple Software Update saw 6.1.14. Once installed 6.1.14 was installed (no reboot), it then saw 6.1.17. It now has to reboot...

After reboot, Apple Software Update does not see 6.1.18 or 6.1.19. And the Radeon Pro Software indicates that I'm up to date.
 
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r8ders2k said:
FWIW, finally saw the updates, but I had to actually boot into Boot Camp, as opposed to using Parallels. Once booted into Boot Camp, Apple Software Update saw 6.1.14. Once installed 6.1.14 was installed, it then saw 6.1.17. It now has to reboot...
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Let us know after restart if you see 6.1.19 as that was released 2 days ago.
 
I have to say, wow, the .19 update is significant for me. The trackpad on my ’20 MBP is sooo much better now. Previously, I had actually been using a mouse because the trackpad experience was terrible. No ability to customize at all. It was disappointing, but I figured I’d have to live with it. Not anymore. World of difference. Gesture controls on windows…. Never thought I’d see it implemented on a Mac.
 
@7thson Do you mean built-in TrackPad or the external one? If it's internal one, please elaborate if you have a slight delay when using tap to click with the new driver.
 
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iPhoneFan5349 said:
I can download windows 11 legally directly from the Microsoft website without having to pay anything.
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I can download Office 365 directly from MS without having to pay anything too. I still need to subscribe or have a license to use it. There is NOT a license for ARM Windows 11 available (out side of the insiders preview, which has its own terms for use) available.
 
thawk9455 said:
I can download Office 365 directly from MS without having to pay anything too. I still need to subscribe or have a license to use it. There is NOT a license for ARM Windows 11 available (out side of the insiders preview, which has its own terms for use) available.
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I don’t, it lets me use it. Same for 365, it lets me use it without buying a license
 
CWallace said:
As I understand it, at the moment Qualcomm has an exclusive agreement with Microsoft that effectively prevents Apple from creating a Boot Camp environment for Apple Silicon Macs.

This agreement does not apply to virtualized environments, which is why many of us are running Windows 11 as a VM under macOS on ASi Macs.
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Qualcomm seems to need getting sued badly.
 
CWallace said:
As I understand it, at the moment Qualcomm has an exclusive agreement with Microsoft that effectively prevents Apple from creating a Boot Camp environment for Apple Silicon Macs.
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You are correct in that Qualcomm has that agreement. However, there's WAY more preventing a Boot Camp type of solution to exist on Apple Silicon Macs. Apple doesn't use UEFI on Apple Silicon Macs the way they did on Intel Macs (nor the way the PC world has done with Windows 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 based PCs whether x86, x86-64, or ARM64). They use iBoot. Apple and Microsoft would need to engineer an entirely different bootloader and even then, Apple would need to provide the drivers for all of Apple's custom SoC components (the GPU, custom video engines and co-processors, the neural engine, the SSD controller, etc.). There really would be a lot more that would need to happen than happened to make Boot Camp possible on an Intel Mac.

CWallace said:
This agreement does not apply to virtualized environments, which is why many of us are running Windows 11 as a VM under macOS on ASi Macs.
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That's actually not true. The agreement is based on the licensing of Windows for ARM64 itself; not the hardware (be it physical or virtual) that it gets installed onto. Parallels has basically said "hey, we're going to make this possible, but whether or not you have blessing from Microsoft is between you and Microsoft". VMware was skittish on this, but eventually followed suit with Parallels. The tools to create and run the VM are there, but you are technically not following Microsoft's policies when running Windows for ARM64 in a VM (regardless of whether or not that VM is on an Apple Silicon Mac).

CWallace said:
I believe Microsoft has moved Windows 11 ARM64 out of "preview" and into the "general release" channel so that seems to be the ISOs that are now being made available. So it seems that you effectively are getting the "retail" version of Windows 11 ARM64 and that can be licensed + activated with any legitimate Windows 10 or 11 license key.
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Nope. The only ISO you're going to find for Windows 11 for ARM64 is going to be for Enterprise and you'll only get access to that if you have a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft. Then again, the Enterprise edition has always required that a license for Home or Pro editions be present for the machine. It's otherwise still a preview-only thing and still only able to be offered as a VHDX.
 
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