Apple likely to delay rollout of Windows 7 support
Apple is likely to miss a self-imposed deadline for delivering support for Microsoft's latest operating system to Mac users running its Boot Camp dual booting software.
In October, the Cupertino-based Mac maker said it planned to deliver support for Windows 7 through an update to Boot Camp that would arrive be year's end.
"Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year," the company wrote in a support document. "This support will require a software update to Boot Camp."
Asked whether Apple still planned to make good on that promise, a company support representative fielding Boot Camp-related questions said his division has received no update on the matter and his belief was that the update was still undergoing tests.
The representative said it was very unlikely that the update would surface in the next 24 hours, adding that a release sometime early next year would be a safer bet.
In October, the Cupertino-based Mac maker said it planned to deliver support for Windows 7 through an update to Boot Camp that would arrive be year's end.
"Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year," the company wrote in a support document. "This support will require a software update to Boot Camp."
Asked whether Apple still planned to make good on that promise, a company support representative fielding Boot Camp-related questions said his division has received no update on the matter and his belief was that the update was still undergoing tests.
The representative said it was very unlikely that the update would surface in the next 24 hours, adding that a release sometime early next year would be a safer bet.
Comments
Windows 7 is running beautifully on my Mac already. What the heck do I need Apple for?
Please take you time, test it, and get it working right Apple before it is publicly released.
You mean I'm not supposed to be already running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro? Oops? Should I uninstall it and wait for Apple to support it?
Windows 7 is running beautifully on my Mac already. What the heck do I need Apple for?
What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.
What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.
Performance. It's always faster to run an OS natively than in a virtual machine running on top of another OS.
What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.
On my MP? Gaming on windows and performance on linux. On windows I want DX10 (though I dont honestly game all that often).
When I boot to debian I want the OS to see all 8 cores - there's many scientific apps I run that work *far* better on linux. Usually I run them on one of several clusters available to me, but sometimes I need to test things locally.
You mean I'm not supposed to be already running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro? Oops? Should I uninstall it and wait for Apple to support it?
Windows 7 is running beautifully on my Mac already. What the heck do I need Apple for?
Not supported does not mean it?s not possible, obviously. The article should have mentioned that it?s easy to run Win7 natively on a Mac.
Not supported does not mean it?s not possible, obviously. The article should have mentioned that it?s easy to run Win7 natively on a Mac.
Win7 Home Premium is working fine for me on my 2007 iMac running Snow Leopard. Huge improvements over Vista Home Premium in terms of speed and performance.
What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine?
In my experience, both Fusion and Parallels are slow, buggy, take up a lot of space, and cause all kinds of shut-down problems (even on my new machines). I have Bootcamp running XP on a 3+ year-old machine, and it is vastly superior -- simply no comparison.
You mean I'm not supposed to be already running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro? Oops? Should I uninstall it and wait for Apple to support it?
Windows 7 is running beautifully on my Mac already. What the heck do I need Apple for?
What the heck do I need Apple for?
uh...you need it to run windows on your mac. maybe.
With Boot Camp, I'd have to start up the Mac every time I wanted to switch OSes. I like Fusion a lot, and it is a far better solution then the old Virtual PC. For processor intensive applications there is a speed hit, but I do not notice it. This probably is because at work I use an old PC running the same Windows software I use on my Mac with Fusion. At home, my Mac is brand new and puts the old Windows machine to shame.
When I want to play a Windows game, I usually use Boot Camp because I do not need to switch between Mac and Windows programs and the performance is better.
What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.
Are you running it in Boot Camp or in Virtualization software like Fusion? If in Boot Camp, that is interesting.
Pretty straightforward. Anyone who wants to run it natively doesn?t need to wait for Apple. Pretty much all the Vista drivers work with Win7. The only caveat is the touchpad driver, as mentioned above by Tcrown, but in all honesty I haven?t heard of a multi-touch trackpad that works great under any other vendor with Windows running.
In my experience, both Fusion and Parallels are slow, buggy, take up a lot of space, and cause all kinds of shut-down problems
http://www.virtualbox.org/
uh...you need it to run windows on your mac. maybe.
Nope. You don't need Apple or Boot Camp for that.
http://www.virtualbox.org/
What is the purpose of this link? Are you saying it's better than (or as good as) Bootcamp? If so, I would love to see some proof, or at least, additional data (instead of just a link).
What is the purpose of this link? Are you saying it's better than (or as good as) Bootcamp?
Bootcamp requires your Mac boot as a Windows machine.
Virtual Box runs Windows in an app on your Mac OS.
You mean I'm not supposed to be already running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro? Oops? Should I uninstall it and wait for Apple to support it?
Windows 7 is running beautifully on my Mac already. What the heck do I need Apple for?
Your Mac may be fine. Newer Macs with more Multi Touch trackpad features or a Magic Mouse, maybe not so much.
one of the best ways of installing Win 7 (now or when it's officially supported with complete drivers, etc.) is to use Bootcamp in the standard manner to allocate an independent partition for Win 7. This of course will allow you to boot the computer into Win 7 natively. If you have Parallels 5 (not sure about Fusion or earlier versions) you can then create a virtual machine (inside of Mac OS X obviously) that can boot your bootcamp partition. It's really easy, just use the Parallels new virtual machine wizard. This will allow you to use the same Win 7 setup running natively by booting into it, or if you don't need the higher performance, you can also boot into the virtual version via Parallels at any time. Note, when I did this, Win 7 did ask me to re-activate Win 7 - I did this with no trouble though.
I'm guessing that the virtual machine will probably perform a bit better when running Win 7 out of its own partition rather than a file within a Mac OS X partition.
Enjoy,
K
PS. I don't work for Parallels - just a relatively happy user...