Bypass for installing Windows 8 on Mid-2009 MBPs?

[jcvlds]

I have been waiting forever for Apple to release Bootcamp drivers for Windows 8 only to realize yesterday that Mid-2009 and earlier MBPs have lost support. This is outrageous.. I cannot install Windows 8 through Bootcamp on my macbook. Is this for specific hardware reasons that it cannot actually support Windows 8 even if you try to work around it? Or is it just that Apple got lazy and did not include support for those earlier models?

Does anyone know if there is a way to bypass this or a workaround? Will support come soon, or never?

Thanks in advance.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

IOr is it just that Apple got lazy and did not include support for those earlier models?

That or something known as planned obsolescence.

 

[w0lf]

That or something known as planned obsolescence.

Yeah this.

I happen to be on a 13 inch 2010 Macbook Pro (the one 2010 model that was cut) but I've already been running Win8 on it pretty much since the beta went public over a year ago without any persistant problems so not having windows 8 bootcamp support wasn't a big deal for me (although I would like to see if there is a certain driver that I can run from the new win 8 bootcamp software that fixes volume and brightness overlay not showing when using keyboard).

There might be a few nags that you'll have to manually fix (for me I had a crash when using keyboard to adjust brightness and another random occasional crash which were both fixed pretty easily) but you should be able to install and run windows 8 on your machine.

There's a bunch of guides out there for installing windows without bootcamp but for me I removed my superdrive so I used a method that din't require a USB or DVD/CD drive.

http://blog.laaz.org/tech/2012/04/24/installing-windows-7-on-macbook-pro-without-superdrive/

^ If that doesn't work out for you there are a ton of other ways of trying to install windows/unix on macs and a little bit of google searching should provide some good methods.

Good luck installing win8.

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

Yea, the same thing with the Early 2008 Mac Pro. Apple has gone too far this time! But I am sure if you have Pacifist you might be able to modify the installer text file of eligible machines and add your model's identifier, e.g. MacPro3,1 for instance is the Early 2008 Mac Pro.

I am sure someone will come up with a workaround for this!

I have been waiting forever for Apple to release Bootcamp drivers for Windows 8 only to realize yesterday that Mid-2009 and earlier MBPs have lost support. This is outrageous.. I cannot install Windows 8 through Bootcamp on my macbook. Is this for specific hardware reasons that it cannot actually support Windows 8 even if you try to work around it? Or is it just that Apple got lazy and did not include support for those earlier models?

Does anyone know if there is a way to bypass this or a workaround? Will support come soon, or never?

Thanks in advance.

 

[jcvlds]

but you should be able to install and run windows 8 on your machine.

There's a bunch of guides out there for installing windows without bootcamp but for me I removed my superdrive so I used a method that din't require a USB or DVD/CD drive.

Good luck installing win8.

Thanks a lot mate.. do you recommend any one specific method for installing Windows 8 without using Bootcamp?

 

[w0lf]

Thanks a lot mate.. do you recommend any one specific method for installing Windows 8 without using Bootcamp?

Assuming you still have a SuperDrive and a legit copy of win 8 on a disk it should be this simple;

1. Make windows partition via disk utility and format using MS-DOS / FAT
2. Insert windows install cd and restart
3. Hold C when it's booting up
4. Install windows as normal
5. Download bootcamp drivers for your machine from the apple website probably 4.1.whatever
6. Install drivers
7. Enjoy (although you'll still probably have to troubleshoot some minor issues after you've got everything set up)

 

[jcvlds]

Assuming you still have a SuperDrive and a legit copy of win 8 on a disk it should be this simple;

1. Make windows partition via disk utility and format using MS-DOS / FAT
2. Insert windows install cd and restart
3. Hold C when it's booting up
4. Install windows as normal
5. Download bootcamp drivers for your machine from the apple website probably 4.1.whatever
6. Install drivers
7. Enjoy (although you'll still probably have to troubleshoot some minor issues after you've got everything set up)

Thank you w0lf! Sorry if this is common sense haha, I am a bit new at installing Windows on a Mac.. Do you know if I should install bootcamp drivers 4.1.x or will the newest bootcamp5 drivers work better, or fine, even if they don't "support" the mid-2009 models?

Also, does creating a Windows partition without using Bootcamp, such as just normally using disk utility have any negative side effects or consequences in the future??

Thank you so much for all your help!

 

[w0lf]

Thank you w0lf! Sorry if this is common sense haha, I am a bit new at installing Windows on a Mac.. Do you know if I should install bootcamp drivers 4.1.x or will the newest bootcamp5 drivers work better, or fine, even if they don't "support" the mid-2009 models?

Also, does creating a Windows partition without using Bootcamp, such as just normally using disk utility have any negative side effects or consequences in the future??

Thank you so much for all your help!

Well the new bootcamp drivers wont actually run unless your machine is supported so, you're pretty much forced to use the older win7 drivers which work just fine.

I'm sure bootcamp uses diskutil to partition the drive anyways. Manually partitioning drives is completely normal and wont have any negative side effects.

Here is a really short a basic example video of using disk utility to partition a drive: http://youtu.be/rzYToPKLnw4