Windows only macbook pro 2015

[m.fuller]

Hi,

I am purchasing a new laptop and would love the new 15" Macbook pro. However my home computer and work computers are both PC because of the software I use daily. (Revit) I find aesthetically apple products are far superior to windows based laptops and desktops so I would really love to have a macbook pro and run windows only on it.

I have had a few iMac's in the past an love OSX however I dont want to have to deal with two o/s systems with different programs, file managing and any other annoyances that come with using two o/s daily, when 80% of my time is spent on my work PC or home PC.

I know i can run bootcamp or a VM to use Revit on the macbook pro however since i would never use the OSX I would much prefer to remove the mac OS and install windows 8.1 or windows 10 natively. I have read about many issues with driver updates caused by bootcamp and performance loss via the use of VM's such a parallels which I do not want to deal with, especially because Revit is an extremely resource intense program, I can not afford to take any performance loss or have driver issues.

My research did't turn up a whole lot, a few people have done this with mixed success, people suggest that bootcamp also has issues with Revit and graphic driver updates/compatibility and then difficulties installing the latest AMD or NVIDA drivers directly into windows.

From my research it seems these questions questions seem to come up quite often and the answers are never usually complete or scattered through various websites/forums and blogs. I'm hoping we can come together and create a more comprehensive list of questions and answers relating to this so that other people with similar questions can use this as a point of reference.

I will update this post with the best answers for each question for easier referencing, much better than reading through pages of posts to find the one answer you are looking for. Also if anyone has further questions to add please do and i can also add those to this post.

1. Can I remove the OSX and preform a clean install of Windows onto a macbook/ macbook pro? If not what's stopping this from happening?

2. How will the trackpad/ force trackpad work in a windows environment, be it via boot camp or a native windows installation as suggest above.

3. If bootcamp is the best option for performance then what are the best practices for using Windows OS as the primary working environment and leaving OSX on a small partition for firmware updates.

4. How much if any of a performance loss would windows take from using Bootcamp?

5. How does DPI scaling work with the Retina screens, if i lower the resolution of my 4K work monitor everything is much less sharp and almost has a blur to it. What are the best practices for running windows on a Retina display whilst retaining sharpness and avoiding blur?

 

[snipper]

1. Not sure about the Windows-only installation options, but
2. the trackpad works as it would in Windows, afaik this is not different on a Macbook Pro from other laptops. Anyway, you can adjust some trackpad settings in Windows, like turning on 'touch clicking'.
3. Only thing I can think of is the size of the partition. You want to make the Windows part as large as possible. I'd recommend doing this as early as possible, possibly even before installing OS X for the first time.
4. I'm not sure why there would be a performance loss because of Bootcamp. Bootcamp just helps facilitating, but once started up on Windows, your Apple computer is running Windows. Of course, drivers can have a lot of influence on performance, like on any computer. The drivers provided might not be the best for your situation that might not be the case on another machine either. Personally, I have the impression that Windows already has a lot more overhead to begin with. For example, I worked with a freshly installed Windows laptop this week and just idling, it still becomes so warm that the fans turn on. Apple can optimize overhead much more because they only have half a dozen models that their OS has to run on, instead of a zillion combinations of drivers/hardware.
5. I've installed Windows 8.1 on my rMBP 15' late 2013 and I can only say that I'd expected a better way of handeling high resolutions. There is no real fix, this has to come from Microsoft and sometimes others, like Wacom who has a driver panel that doesn't scale for high resolution screens at all… Unbelievable, considering this is a company that markets itself as state of the art hardware for premium prices.

 

[m.fuller]

Thanks for the reply snipper.

2. I'm curious about the new force touch trackpad, as I understand it these new ones do not have any travel, the click you feel is from haptic feedback. If that is not supported (AFAIK its not) by windows then the trackpad can only tap click.

4. You're right about that, drivers cause a lot of headaches for me with my windows machines, If only Autodesk would develop a mac version for Revit I would love to be working in OSX. Also this might be related to the poor battery performance the macbooks get when running windows.

5. Looks like DPI scaling is the best option at the moment, has anyone heard anything regarding windows 10 and improvements regarding HDPI panels? Surely with the flood of Ultra HD monitors hitting the market developers will be getting their ass into gear to develop more scalable software.

 

[campyguy]

IMHO, give up that dream. I've been trying to get Revit to run reliably on a Mac for going-on 7 years now - it's more trouble than its worth. Between license authentication failures, OS issues, and problems with graphics it just wasn't worth it to me. The only NVIDIA cards they support are Quadro cards and there's no AMD support whatsoever relevant to Macs. I've had better luck with Parallels Desktop, but by the time you've loaded the OS and PD, there's not a whole lot of RAM dedicated to Revit, and AutoDesk is only certifying 64-bit Win OS installations which require about 1/3 more RAM than 32-bit Win OSes.

When Revit works on a Mac, it's glorious - until it isn't working. I've had to call in to reactivate my license too many times to recall . Gawd, I wish AutoDesk would just rewrite the Revit engine and move on.............