Installing Windows 10 on old MacBook

Installing Windows 10 on old MacBook? Despite Apple does not support it, you may still able to install latest Windows version on your old MacBook laptop.

First step is to install Windows to your Apple laptop, second find right drivers. Some people prefer use only Windows operating system, in this case, if you are in a hurry, you could just take out the MacBook’s hard disk, connect it to your desktop PC, begin install then shut down after first setup restart. Put it back to the MacBook and finish the installation. If you want to do it “the right way”, you need to prepare your USB drive with BootCamp support from your current Mac OS X system. Read here more about it on official Apple website: Install Windows on your Mac using a USB hard drive or flash drive.

After the Windows installation you have to find your drivers. Apple provides Boot Camp Support Software. You may also use: Free driver installation tools.

In our case we installed Windows 10 to MacBook A1181 late 2007. We tried both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 10 and for some reason 64-bit performance was slower than the 32-bit version. Probably it has to do with automatic Windows 10 video drivers update. After the installation download Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033 and extract it. Navigate to BootCamp\Drivers\Apple, then right click BootCamp.msi and select “Properties”. Now you have to enable “Run this program in compatibility mode for” a “Previous version of Windows”. You will need to use cmd (commander) with administrative rights in order to install it.

  • Press Windows key + X and select “Command Prompt (Admin)“.
  • Navigate to your BootCamp directory with cd command, for example: “cd C:\Users\Winpro\Downloads\BootCamp4.0.4033\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple”  and press “Enter“.
  • Now type “BootCamp.msi” and again press “Enter“.
  • Follow onscreen instructions and finish installation.
  • You may still be missing some drivers, navigate other directories in the BootCamp\Drivers\ and install missing audio for example which in our case was in RealTek directory.

For never MacBooks you may need to use 64-bit version and never Boot Camp Software versions.

 

This should help installing Windows 10 on old MacBook. Have some suggestions? Leave a comment below.

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