Installing Vista x64 on an early '08 MacBook

[UnWeave]

I know there are threads with a similar title all over the place (I think one is still on the first page at the moment) but having read through all I can find, I am still unsure as to the situation.

This article on Apple's support site would suggest that I am not able to install the 64-bit version of Vista on my (black) MacBook. However, I am aware that the MacBook C2D CPU is itself 64-bit capable, and I recently upgraded to 4GB of ram, so using x64 Vista would be preferable.

All I want to know is, will it install okay with the version of Boot Camp already on my MacBook? I don't mind hunting for drivers (in fact, the OS X install disc(s) that came in the box has an "x64" drivers' section in the Boot Camp folder) and whatever, but having not used Boot Camp before, nor previously installed Vista on any machine, I am a little worried that I may run into some issues such as installing and finding that I am unable to use the keyboard and trackpad outright, getting stuck at the initial user accounts set-up screen, etc. I'm not really prepared to deal with that level of hassle.

So basically, is there anyone that has tried this or knows the situation? I don't see any technical reason why an early 2008 MacBook shouldn't be able to run Vista x64, is it just apple being lazy and only supporting Mac Pros and MacBook Pros, or is it actually a hardware issue? (I'm relatively new to Macs so maybe I am missing something?)

 

[drFUNK]

It seems that apple only *officially* supports the boot camp drivers for the 32 bit editions of windows. There's no technical reason that the hardware would not run it though.

 

[UnWeave]

Okay, thanks. So as far as you know, I can install away? So long as I am prepared to fiddle around with it myself when/if it goes wrong (which I am)?

 

[Bengt77]

I believe you'll have to extract the MacBook Pro set of drivers from the Boot Camp package, and install those. They contain the 64-bit drivers that Vista 64 needs. I don't have any first hand experience with this, but I've seen it discussed several times.

 

[UnWeave]

Would this need to be done before or after installing Vista?

I haven't used Boot Camp before see, I'm not sure if you mean I need to update Boot Camp to the version you'd get with a Mac(Book) Pro or if you mean extract x64 drivers from the OS X disc after Vista is installed, and install them.

 

[SHADO]

Well after you install Boot Camp, you're supposed to insert the Leopard disk that came w/ur machine, so I would assume you need to extract the x64 drivers etc then, although it might be helpful if you extracted it on the mac side and put it on an external or cd or something so you can do it right away without having to wait on the Vista side.

 

[UnWeave]

Well after you install Boot Camp, you're supposed to insert the Leopard disk that came w/ur machine, so I would assume you need to extract the x64 drivers etc then, although it might be helpful if you extracted it on the mac side and put it on an external or cd or something so you can do it right away without having to wait on the Vista side.

I don't quite follow, as I understood it, Boot Camp was already installed. Or do you mean Boot Camp in Windows? Looking at the guide, I think I know the step you are referring to, and as far as I can tell there is nothing to stop me from using explorer and running the setup.exe(s) that are in the x64 folder.

But obviously I don't really want to try this if there is something stopping me.

 

[Bengt77]

Boot Camp comes with Leopard, so it will already be installed. Now, after you've created a Windows partition and have successfully installed Windows Vista 64, you'll need to install the drivers for your Windows installation. If you have followed the standard procedure on your MacBook, you probably burned a CD with the drivers. Since Leopard knows you're using a MacBook, you'll now have a CD with 32-bit MacBook drivers. That doesn't stop you from using the needed 64-bit drivers, though.

Browse to your Applications/Utilities folder. Right-click on Boot Camp Assistant and choose Show Package Contents. In the Contents/Recourses folder, there'll be a file called DiskImage.dmg. That's the image that's burned to your CD, containing all the necessary drivers for your MacBook. So, you'll need to look for that disk image for a MacBook Pro.

EDIT: Ah, isn't life beautiful? It seems Apple has released Boot Camp 2.1 some time ago, in three flavours for your Windows version of choice. And yes, there is a version for Vista 64. This version of Boot Camp seems to be the version that shipped on Mac Pro installation DVDs, so not everything might work for you on your MacBook, since a Mac Pro is obviously not a laptop.

 

[UnWeave]

Thanks Bengt77, I think that's cleared up all the concerns I had. I'll post on how it goes anyway, if I ran into any issues etc for anyone else searching with the same problem, or possibly post asking for further clarification if it doesn't go so smoothly.