Whick Mac notebook to for BootCamp?

[Frisco]

1) Can Windows 7 be installed or do I have to go with Win 8 which I hate more than Win ME? But I hear that keyboard and mouse and Wifi won't work during install because of drivers not installed so.....

2) I am not considering the new MacBook with the one USB-C port and M processor.

3) I was thinking getting the MacBook Pro, but with the upgrade "Air" I was thinking the 13" might be good. Since I will be using two OS' it looks like I would have to pay the $300 for the 512 GB upgrade. Also do I need to upgrade the i5 to i7?

4) Using Windows for heavy Excel and database work.

MacBook Pro or "Air"?

 

[ixxx69]

1) Can Windows 7 be installed or do I have to go with Win 8 which I hate more than Win ME? But I hear that keyboard and mouse and Wifi won't work during install because of drivers not installed so.....

2) I am not considering the new MacBook with the one USB-C port and M processor.

3) I was thinking getting the MacBook Pro, but with the upgrade "Air" I was thinking the 13" might be good. Since I will be using two OS' it looks like I would have to pay the $300 for the 512 GB upgrade. Also do I need to upgrade the i5 to i7?

4) Using Windows for heavy Excel and database work.

MacBook Pro or "Air"?

1. Depends on the Mac. Some of the newer Macs don't have the driver support on W7, some work just fine with W7. I agree that W8 was awful, but really, W8.1 is "fine" (still occasionally annoying, but really not that big of a deal with a few tweaks), and W10 is about six months away. If you're using a retina/4K screen, you'll definitely want W8.1 because it handles the retina screen better (though not as good as OS X).

3. You'll definitely want the 500GB SSD to have room for both OS X and Windows. The i5 vs. i7 choice doesn't have anything to do with boot camp - that's dependent on your software performance needs.

4. I don't think anyone is going to know what "heavy Excel and database work" means - one person's "heavy" is another person's "light". Can you give some examples?

How much RAM are you currently using in your workflow, what CPU do you currently have? Is performance an issue on your current system? Do you care about the retina screen? 13" vs 15"? Does portability matter?

 

[Agent-P]

Well, ixxx69 covered the majority of what I was going to say. Basically you could use any modern Mac and it would run Windows fine. I'd say you should install Windows 8.1 because it's much improved over 8 and the drivers (in my experience at least) are better than the ones for 7.

I will echo the previous sentiment and say definitely go with 500gb storage. Apart from that, choose whichever Mac would normally suit your needs regardless of ability to install Windows.