Windows as the primary OS on a MacBook

[Matek]

I'm getting a bit tired of OS X and would like to switch back to Windows. Now i don't want to start another flamewar, it's a decision i made and i'm sticking to it.

My question is - how do I install Windows on my MacBook without using OS X too? I don't want a dual boot. I know most people suggest you keep it for occasional firmware upgrades, but let's say I don't care about that at the moment., because the installation of OS X would take at least 10 gigabytes and that's a lot of space to give up.

 

[vandozza]

i suppose you can just boot from the xp/vista disc and use the inbuilt partition/disc tools to remove the osx partition?

i can't understand exactly why you would want to go back, but hey, thats another discussion.

have you tried doing the above?

 

[steveza]

In theory you should just be able to boot off the Vista DVD and install from there. You can delete any unwanted partitions during the install process. Click on Disk Options in the Select Partition window.

 

[Matek]

I haven't tried doing the above yet, because in case of failure I would have a non-working computer so I want to make sure before I do it 😛.

I've installed Windows on PCs countless times and I'm aware of the fact I can modify the partitions there, but my worry is EFI.

AFAIK Boot Camp does some stuff connected to EFI BIOS emulation or something like that. Will the computer work without this if i just delete everything on the drive? Has anyone tried this?

 

[richard.mac]

the Boot Camp drivers arent optimised enough for Windows yet there only at version 2. the MacBook would get much hotter than in OS X as the fan drivers arent as good in Windows. also the screen brightness is only good on the full notch in windows but in OS X its looks fine below full brightness. there are many other reasons this wouldnt be a good idea.

what exactly is it that youve had enough with in OS X? is it just the learning curve? how long ago did you switch? it usually take a couple of months to learn OS X.

read the mac rumors guides for lessons on OS X and check out the tips and tricks post in the Mac OS X thread.

 

[Matek]

I'm not sure you're right about the BootCamp drivers, most of the important stuff (graphics card, chipset, network) in the MacBook is standard stuff so the drivers used are regular drivers other laptops with same hardware use. Apple has nothing to do with this, they only make drivers for special function keys and other minor stuff.

I've been using Windows XP with BootCamp for a while and I also didn't notice any trouble whatsoever with the fans and temperatures.

As far as OS X is concerned, I'm not sure it's the learning curve, I've had this MacBook for almost a year and a half now and I've been using OS X as the primary OS all this time. It's not that bad, I actually recommend it to people a lot, especially inexperienced users, because the simplicity is great.

As an advanced user I just miss the slight edge in general performance/responsiveness that Windows have. Also many of the OS X's advertised features (security & stability) are less of a problem for me. I feel that if you know what you're doing, you can keep your Windows system clean too, the problem lies with inexperienced and reckless users who click every link, open every email and download suspicious stuff from P2P network. Most importantly - I miss a lot of great Windows applications (OS X alternatives mostly don't seem to satisfy me).

Anyway, as I said, it's not a matter of deciding wheter I want to switch or not, I've already decided on that, I need help with any installation specifics.

 

[Neil321]

Id leave a small partition for OS X as i would have thought you need that for firmware updates and just use bootcamp to partition the rest for windows

 

[Matek]

Id leave a small partition for OS X as i would have thought you need that for firmware updates and just use bootcamp to partition the rest for windows

As I said in my first post, I'm aware of that and at the moment don't really care. An installation of OS X would take at least 5-10 GB and I'm not willing to give up that much space.

 

[Neil321]

As I said in my first post, I'm aware of that and at the moment don't really care. An installation of OS X would take at least 5-10 GB and I'm not willing to give up that much space.

yep you did,but i posted my answer because thats as far as im aware the only way you would be
able to do because of the EFi etc

 

[vistafanboi]

I haven't tried doing the above yet, because in case of failure I would have a non-working computer so I want to make sure before I do it 😛.

I've installed Windows on PCs countless times and I'm aware of the fact I can modify the partitions there, but my worry is EFI.

AFAIK Boot Camp does some stuff connected to EFI BIOS emulation or something like that. Will the computer work without this if i just delete everything on the drive? Has anyone tried this?

Matek, BootCamp is not necessary to install Windows as the Primary OS on a MacBook, EXCEPT for the purpose of creating the Macintosh Drivers for Windows disk, which is absolutely necessary, unless you already have such a disk made which includes latest updates.

Once this disk is created, all you would have to do is
1) Insert Vista (Or XP) installation Media
2) Recycle power
3) At Gray Boot Screen, choose to use the drive containing the Windows installer as the boot drive
4) Proceed with Windows installation, making sure to delete ALL partitions (including the EFI partition), then create a Primary partition upon which to install Windows. I suggest a MINIMUM of 40GB for XP, or 80GB for Vista. No need to delete HFS+ DATA partitions, but do delete the system partition as well as the EFI partition before repartitioning for Windows.

Once you are dumped at the Windows Desktop, replace the installation media with the Macintosh Drivers for Windows installation media and start the installation.

Then it will probably be a very good idea to access Windows Update for the latest updates, including Service Pack 1 (Vista), or Service Pack 3 (XP).

I have done this several times on two Apple Intel iMacs, each time successfully, and without trouble. This leaves you with a stable Desktop, and is an excellent hardware base for Windows.

MacDrive is an EXCELLENT tool to obtain (and well-worth its modest price), and will enable you to access your HFS+ data partitions transparently, for writing as well as reading. (Don't forget that your Mac executables will not be usable in Windows. But the data is usually interchangeable with little trouble.

Also, DON'T FORGET to install good-quality (i.e., "commercial, NON-Microsoft") third-party Antivirus/Security software. It is easy to forget the international shame of Windows security after running OS X for a few years.


*** IMPORTANT NOTE !!! ***
Doing the above will require OS X to be reinstalled if there are important Firm-ware updates you must install after the conversion to Windows. Don't forget to keep your Windows Data backed up externally if you need to return to Windows after installing needed Firmware updates. Also, from time to time, Apple releases updates for the Macintosh Drivers for Windows (not often enough, in my opinion).

VistaFanBoi

 

[vistafanboi]

I'm not sure you're right about the BootCamp drivers, most of the important stuff (graphics card, chipset, network) in the MacBook is standard stuff so the drivers used are regular drivers other laptops with same hardware use. Apple has nothing to do with this, they only make drivers for special function keys and other minor stuff.

I've been using Windows XP with BootCamp for a while and I also didn't notice any trouble whatsoever with the fans and temperatures.

As far as OS X is concerned, I'm not sure it's the learning curve, I've had this MacBook for almost a year and a half now and I've been using OS X as the primary OS all this time. It's not that bad, I actually recommend it to people a lot, especially inexperienced users, because the simplicity is great.

As an advanced user I just miss the slight edge in general performance/responsiveness that Windows have. Also many of the OS X's advertised features (security & stability) are less of a problem for me. I feel that if you know what you're doing, you can keep your Windows system clean too, the problem lies with inexperienced and reckless users who click every link, open every email and download suspicious stuff from P2P network. Most importantly - I miss a lot of great Windows applications (OS X alternatives mostly don't seem to satisfy me).

Anyway, as I said, it's not a matter of deciding wheter I want to switch or not, I've already decided on that, I need help with any installation specifics.

Matek, The fact is, almost always, video card drivers, sound card drivers, etc, for Windows are usually not available for Apple devices on the OEMs websites, and the Windows drivers are provided by Apple only.

Ex: My last iMac had an ATI Mobile video card. Windows drivers for that card were not available on AMD/ATI's website. They were ONLY available from Apple.

See my other post for installation specifics...

 

[vistafanboi]

I haven't tried doing the above yet, because in case of failure I would have a non-working computer so I want to make sure before I do it 😛.

I've installed Windows on PCs countless times and I'm aware of the fact I can modify the partitions there, but my worry is EFI.

AFAIK Boot Camp does some stuff connected to EFI BIOS emulation or something like that. Will the computer work without this if i just delete everything on the drive? Has anyone tried this?[/QUOTE

Matek, there will be no problem with deleting the EFI partitions, since the necessary BIOS-emulation is already in the EFI chip itself. The hardware boot of an Apple Intel PC will enable one to boot to ANY BIOS-based PC OS.

IF your MacBook is a first-generation Apple Intel PC, and its firmware has NEVER been upgraded, it will need to be upgraded before attempting to remove OS X and return to Windows as the exclusive OS.

2-G and later Apple Intel PCs have the EFI extensions enabling BIOS-simulation already installed at the factory. Still, it's always a good idea to be sure to upgrade the Firmware before installing Windows.

Hope this helps...

VistaFanBoi

 

[Nitwit]

Sick and tired as well...

I want to have Windows or Linux on my Macbook pro as primary OS as well. I'm also sick and tired of this machine that cost me about 2200 euro's. For this amount of money you can buy 3 very good computers. Also any additional goodies like keyboards and mouses are very expansive.

So sum up some frustration that comes into my mind within a matter of seconds, I'm sure if I sit down to complain I got much more things that suck on the Mac for sure;

I'm not only sick and tired of the machine because it cut my wrists because of the sharp edges but also because the software you run on it is very unstable.

Switching between programs is an hell, it simply takes to much actions while it's an single click on the Windows task-bar. The most annoying thing is that you cannot find back the window you minimized. Sometimes your window is not displayed in the overview and it will not get back to the front if you click on the icon in the dock. The overview is randomized very often so you always need to read all the names under the screen shots of the programs because the are not located on the same place.

The finder is awful. The file sorting sucks and you are not able to rename file by right clicking on them, you need to click twice and wait 2 seconds in order to do it. You are not able to cut and paste files so you need to drag and drop everything which is time consuming sometimes if you destination is located in a sub folder. So you have to make an copy and delete the other files manually.

Double clicking on an file will open up the program but in lot's of cases not the file itself so you need to click on it again and since the program blocks the file you need to minimize the program again to click on it which gives you the frustration mentioned above again.

Everything is drag&drop which isn't bad, not bad at all, however when you think to drag&drop your file into a program it's simply doesn't work. You need to drag&drop it on that small icon in the dock which doesn't make any sense at all.

Setting an default application for certain file types will not always work. Specially if you want to open up an *.swf file it will open up flash each time rather than the flash player which is very odd.

The look and feel is very outdated. The last time I worked with the mac was 10 years ago and nothing as been changed in meanwhile. The round edges (excepts the machine itself) are very ugly and simply doesn't fit in the design of most programs. Especially the input fields and drop-down menu's on the websites look very bad and mess-up the style of the pages.

On the keyboard there's no home, end, page-up, page-down and especially no delete button which is very annoying because you always need to press an second key to activate these functions. If you are used to use hot keys like CTRL+C,X,V to work quickly then the CMD and FN button are located on the wrong position which gives you RSI in a few days because you need to hold you fingers in an impossible way. Also there's no CTRL key located on the right side of the keyboard.

The eject button for your cd-drive simply doesn't work sometimes.

Of course I know you need to get used to certain things, however I think if it's an good operation system you should get used to it in just a few days and not months like the mac. I never had this trouble switching from windows 3.1 to win 95, 2000NT, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux and Redhat Linux. So if you ask me, Mac has the worst OS of them all.

I love the speed of copying files though. Also connecting external hard drives works very good. The start-up and shutdown speeds are great, especially shutting down the computer in just 4 seconds is wonderful if you are very frustrated at the end of the day... 😉

 

[balamw]

I'm also sick and tired of this machine that cost me about 2200 euro's. For this amount of money you can buy 3 very good computers.

As Macs generally have good resale value, I suggest you simply sell your machine to someone who does value OS X and buy something cheaper (or 3!) that you will enjoy more.

B