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Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 20, 2010
6,056
2,648
Los Angeles, CA
I have a Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro. As some of you may know, this generation of MacBook Pro (along with its non-retina counterpart) uses Intel Ivy Bridge (3rd Generation Core i) CPUs. As was the case with Mojave, Ivy Bridge is the oldest generation of Intel CPU that is supported by macOS Catalina. Ivy Bridge is also the oldest generation of Intel CPUs that have Intel-supported drivers for Windows 10. As such, Ivy Bridge Macs are the oldest Macs that support Windows 10 via Boot Camp and aren't stuck with only being able to run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.

History lessons aside, I'm wondering if Apple has updated these drivers at all for newer versions of Windows 10 since initially rolling out Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10 (especially for these Ivy Bridge Macs). I'm pretty sure that what they have now will support the Anniversary Update (Windows 10 v1607) with no trouble. But I'm unsure as to whether the drivers they give will be 100% compatible and supported for newer versions like the October 2018 Update (Windows 10 v1809) or the May 2019 Update (Windows 10 v1903). Does anyone know the details on this?

I ask as there will surely come a time when Apple drops macOS support for this Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro of mine. If, when that time comes, the drivers for Windows 10 remain valid for newer versions of Windows 10, then hurray, this laptop will become a nice Windows 10 machine for the foreseeable future. However, I'm assuming that Apple will likely have already stopped maintaining these Windows drivers, leaving me in the cold for future Windows 10 version support as well.

THAT BEING SAID, I have access to my work's copy of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (the version of Windows 10 that doesn't change and gets Security/Stability only updates for 10 years) and I have both the 2016 version (based on Windows 10 v1607) as well as the 2019 version (based on Windows 10 v1809). If Apple's drivers support only goes so far forward, then my question becomes which LTSC version should I rock on this MacBook Pro when support for both newer macOS and SAC Windows 10 versions ends (assuming it hasn't already)? Or are the current Boot Camp drivers for Ivy Bridge Macs good through the current standard Windows 10 releases?

Sorry for the long post, but any info from someone more in the know about these things would be helpful!
 
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