Windows 7/8 on '13 Air

[pickaxe]

Some questions for current 2013 Air owners...

1) Was anyone able to get Windows 7 working on this machine? There are several comments in this forum that suggest Win 7 isn't usable on the 2013 model...

2) In general, how is performance under Windows compared to a similarly spec'd non-Apple laptops? Do benchmarks suffer? Are drivers problematic? How's the battery life?

3) Is the Air truly a good Windows ultrabook? Google yields some totally conflicting reports.

 

[Mrbobb]

From Air 2012 to Air 2013, is just better battery life, better GPU performance, faster memory storage access, that's it. You have to expect Apple didn't write special/better Windows drivers, they have no incentive.

1. Depends on your expectations. For people who runs Windows because they HAVE to, it gets the job done. If you expect Windows on Air runs as smooth as OSX, furgitabout it, Haswell or not.

2. Should see some performance improvement due to better hardware, but don't expect Windows optimization on Apple hardware. This year model, last year mode, or future models. Having said that, the Dell, Samsung, or whatever Ultrabook may not be any better either.

3. Are you buying an Air SOLELY to run Windows?

 

[dingaling007]

I read that at least 1 person on these forums has managed to get win7 working in bootcamp on the 2013 Mba. No details on how tho -

Yes mba's are superior ultrabooks for
Running windows on aswell.

 

[truciet]

Windows 7 64 Pro working 100% here. Make sure you have. 64 bit installation disc or boot camp assistant will kick it and give you an error.

 

[milhouse994]

I've been doing some reading on this myself. If you're looking to run 64 bit version of windows 8 make sure you're running Boot Camp 5. More details here:


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5639

 

[fenderbass146]

I got it working after 5 tries, able to play black ops2 at nearly high settings. Just make sure you have boot camp assistant make a flash drive and don't use your own disc, I got a iso from microsoft for 7 ultimate

 

[pickaxe]

So has any of you people been able to install Windows 7 with a flash drive (with Refit)?

 

[RowellE]

Thanks for all the great info in this thread, especially about the 64 bit part because I wasn't sure which one I was going to use.

Just got my BTO MacBook Air a couple days ago and will be installing Windows 7 Pro on it once I get my external optical drive shipped to me. I'll be using my MBA with Windows only so most of the hard drive will be partitioned to the Windows side and I'll be having it set so that when I turn on the MBA it'll go straight to the Windows login screen.

I would have gotten a PC laptop with Windows already installed, but they were all fugly. Main reason why I got the MacBook Air was because it's so damn sexy!