Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

USB Drives No Longer Required to Install Windows with Boot Camp in OS X El Capitan

Icaras said:
Oh come on! Why only these models? :mad:
Click to expand...
I suspect it has to do with the EFI. At least on my '08 Mac Pro, you can't use Boot Camp on a hard drive that has more than one partition (besides the Boot Camp partition). So that extra partition it uses might be an issue.

mariusignorello said:
I will say that there's one application that requires a Windows environment, which is for a universal home theater remote. Running it in WINE doesn't work, VMware/VirtualBox doesn't work, and there will never be a Mac version.
Click to expand...
Also any high-graphics game that doesn't have a good Mac version, if you're into that. Those are decreasing in number, it seems. I occasionally want to play CS:GO when I'm really bored and can't deal with the horrible lag spikes in the Mac version of the game.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Doubting it's the case but any chance this enables one to encrypt the Windows/bootcamp partition?

Last I checked the only way to encrypt Windows on a Mac after Yosemite was released was to use VMware or parallels.
If im wrong and there is a away I'd love to know it.

Thanks
 
mariusignorello said:
I would never put my Mac through the agonizing pain that is installing and running Windows.
Click to expand...
Want a cookie?

Windows runs amazingly well on a Mac. And there's nothing agonizing about it. Apple gives you all the drivers ... so it's just a matter of installing it and that's it.

This is fantastic news.
 
  • Like
Reactions: satcomer and laurihoefs
This is good, but will it allow you to install Windows 10 on an external hard drive? Since Windows 10 now officially supports that. I went through that agonizing torture of a process yesterday, and it's horrid. It requires a PC in the first place, so I had to dig out some old netbook that has missing keys and a faulty battery and charger, and install Windows 10 on that FIRST, then use that to install it on an external drive. That's two Windows installations in one day. No amount of alcohol will cure that. At least now it works, it was worth it but holy hell!
 
  • Like
Reactions: friedmud and Jamalien
realeric said:
Seriously why would you install Windows on Mac?
Click to expand...

As an electrical engineering student studying in a non-english, right to left language speaking country (Israel-Hebrew), there are some things you just can't do with your mac.

I had to install Windows for 2 main reasons:
1. Professional software for analog and digital electronic circuits that don't have a mac version
2. Office For Mac still does not support right to left languages, and although I used iWork as a very good replacment for MS Office and almost all of my lecture notes and other documents are from Pages, when I worked in groups or had to write a very serious paper, iWork just couldn't handle it properly.

Believe me I tried every workaround around the Windows instalation, but unfortunately i had to install it.
I think that I couldv'e handled the missing professional software, but Pages is just not enough, not to mention after I did all my lecture notes in the past three years in Pages, experiencing working in Word was just a lot more professional.

In my opinion, Pages is much more light, easy and intuitive. Also, in general, I think that documents are much more beautiful in Pages and everything just feels a lot smother.
When it comes to professional work, i hate to say it but MS Office is much more capable and suitable for it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Night Spring
MLJH said:
I need to use ArcGIS it's Windows only.
Click to expand...
Admittedly that would be indeed the only valid good reason to do so. I don't understand why it's not available for Mac. We use QGIS and it suits us well - even with exported data from ArcGIS, but there's tons of reasons this might not work for you.
 
Pakaku said:
I suppose with some clever partitioning, you could do the same thing manually through Disk Utility.

Bootcamp is nothing more than a glorified Disk Utility anyways.
Click to expand...

I've never understood the partitioning restrictions with Bootcamp. That said, Bootcamp makes getting Windows drivers matched up to the Mac's hardware far more straight forward than anything Disk Utility provides (especially the neutered Disk Utility in El Capitan).
 
realeric said:
Seriously why would you install Windows on Mac?
Click to expand...
There are software titles that are not available on the Mac platform. I know one embedded systems developer who has his Mac Book Pro partitioned running several embedded development tools as needed.
 
Doesn't work on mid-2014 retina 13" MacBook Pro. So it's probably only for 2015 models.
 
realeric said:
Seriously why would you install Windows on Mac?
Click to expand...
Like posted above, for getting through any compatibility bugs concerning software, or if you are like me - a casual gamer - for playing games unavailable in os x.
 
macs4nw said:
Certain countries' languages don't have 'articles', and people from those countries tend to also not use them in English. Annoys me too, but it's becoming so pervasive now, that it'll probably become mainstream sooner or later. :(
Click to expand...

It's already become mainstream. Likely the language spoken in North America in 150 years will be unrecognizable.
 
I do it so I can successfully do firmware updates to products that require running Windows software to upgrade them via USB connections.

For example, I have a Radio Shack police scanner that can grab regular database updates of scanner frequencies, sorted by zip code, via some Windows management software. I tried using it from inside a Windows 7 session in VMWare but it had communications issues over the USB cable. Only thing that works is Boot Camp actually running the machine in Windows.

Another example like this is a device called the TrailDash I have for my Jeep Wrangler. It, too, receives any software updates via software made for Windows only. And again, I tried to use it inside a virtual machine on my Mac but it would get checksum errors at the end of transferring data to the device. Apparently, Windows inside a VM creates small timing issues over USB that cause these types of updates to be unreliable.


realeric said:
Seriously why would you install Windows on Mac?
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back