Here’s how and why I installed what some would say is pointless, But I feel is a must. I’ve been using my Macbook for a while and dont get me wrong its great but I’ve not used Mac OS since 2001… Thats 9 years ago! Needless to say I’ve been trying to get to grips with Mac OSx but as much as i try to get along with OSx I can’t seem to work fast enough, and what would take me an hour worth of web development to do in Windows would take me 2 hours or more to pull off inside OSx.
Now I don’t want to sell the Mac as I love the look and build quality, and in all honesty I will still use OSx for the iPhone Development that I’m doing. So I decided to install XP via Boot Camp.
Now after using xp for a while I decided it was way to old, and grabbed Windows 7 from my Desktop PC. I’ve now installed this upon the MacBook and it run faster than than my PC which is spec’d the same as my Macbook!
Just incase Windows 7 doesnt run fast upon your Macbook it might be due to my MacBook Spec not being the standard run of the mill entry level. I have a 2.4Ghz, 4Gig of 800Mhz Ram and a 250Gig Harddrive inside my Macbook and this might help with the performance of Windows 7.
So this what I did to install 64 Bit Windows 7 even though Boot Camp told me 64bit wasn’t supported for the Macbook.
1. Load up Snow Leopard (Or Leopard if thats your OS)
2. Run Boot Camp (Im running verison 3.1)
3. Follow the wizard and insert your 64bit Windows 7 CD.
4. Macbook restarts, and will boot up the CD, (Press any key to boot from CD/DVD….)
5. Install Windows upon the Boot Camp Partition that you made in the previous wizard.
6. Follow the Windows 7 installer, (should take about an hour to install Windows)
7. Boot into Windows and setup the Wifi etc, Disable Windows updates as Im not positive that these will work correctly upon a MacBook. (I wanted to play it safe)
8. Once installed you need to install the MacBook drivers, although most things will already work. This is the step that will initally give you an issue. The MacBook wasnt supposed to run a 64Bit Windows OS and this means you cant install the software easily. So we have to do the following.
9. Insert the Snow Leopard (Or Leopard) DVD, and explore the DVD to the run the following installer.
(CDRom Drive):\Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple\BootCamp64.msi
10. Follow the instsller, and it should ask you to restart after.
That should be it and all should run fine. Unless your sound isnt working, (Apple have a cool way of telling if your sound isn’t working, Look down the whole of the Headphone Jack if you see a red light, then you have a sound issue), If this is the case, follow the next few steps.
1. Navigate to the Apple DVD again, and run (CDRom Drive):\Boot Camp\Drivers\RealTekSetup.exe
2. Now once installed you need to restart, and you should now have working sound, If you don’t have sound or you got an error upon insrall you you need to do the following.
1. Right click the (CDRom Drive):\Boot Camp\Drivers\RealTekSetup.exe and select “Troubleshoot compatability”
2. Click “Troubleshoot Program” and wait for it to detect the issues.
3. Select “this program worked on an earlier version of Windows, but won’t install or display correctly now” (Top option)
4. Select Windows Vista or Windows XP (I chose Vista, Not SP1 or SP2, just “Vista”)
5. Now wait for it to finish “resolving issues”, the installer will start. This time it will won’t fail!
Once this is done, the Macbook will need another restart, After that you won’t have a red light in the headphone jack port and you will successfully have sound!
I hope this helps user also having issues with Macbooks and Windows.
Edit: If you want to know how to Print Screen but for obivous reason cant find the PrintScr Button on your macbook laptop then try this: Shift + Fn + F11
This will copy the screen to click board for use in Photoshop or Paint etc.
Joe says:
This is an awesome post, Life saver! I’ve had no sound on my Macbook for ages now, but never looked into fixing it until now.
Now its working great!
Thankyou!
Mar 17, 2010, 12:43 amArnold says:
great post!!! I’m totally looking forward to reading more!!!
Mar 28, 2010, 2:43 amPaulo says:
Good post, I didnt know you could get Windows 7 running on an ordinary macbook if you hadn’t posted this!
Especially since you like me also have upgraded the macbooks hardware, So there is no reason for the macbook to support Windows 7 64bit!
I shall follow these steps and see how I get along, Thanks Dan!
Paul.
Apr 06, 2010, 1:05 pmBurton Haynes says:
You know this is a very good post i hadent thought about this for quite a while and you have like sparked me to look into it further and re-educate my self in the subject….thanks,hope to see more of your posts soon
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Jun 03, 2010, 6:43 amcomputer technology information says:
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Jun 03, 2010, 7:38 amShan3K says:
This is brilliant. I wanted to install 64bit version of Windows 7 on my Macbook, but had this exact problem. I hate it when apple tell you that you can and cannot to certain things!
I’ve also got 4GB of memory in my macbook so its quite capable of running x64.
Thanks for the how to!
Shane.
Jun 03, 2010, 6:00 pmDan Cunningham says:
Sure thing Kayce, Certainly by all means you may use this content as long as you kindly link back to here as the source!
Jun 03, 2010, 6:04 pmDan Cunningham says:
Glad I could help you out Shane, 64Bit windows is the future
I now love my Mac even more! 
Dan.
Jun 03, 2010, 6:06 pmBurma Shreffler says:
It was a great read while I waited on the my macbook format. Awesome post. Cheers! Just going to go install 7 64bit upon the macbook now!
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Jun 07, 2010, 7:40 amErnesto Christianson says:
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Jun 14, 2010, 4:43 pmDan Cunningham says:
Created by myself for myself
Im glad you found it interesting if not infomational and educational.
Jun 14, 2010, 4:55 pmKaitlyn Crumly says:
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Jun 17, 2010, 4:04 pmJavier Wintle says:
Vry useful
Jun 17, 2010, 4:08 pmAfrodan says:
any reason all these posts show as being on march 17th? does no one seem to find it after the day it was published? If so you need to get them out at a quicker rate mate coz 30 comments in day is pretty good but if you get that per post and get more then your sorted
Aug 05, 2010, 4:45 pmDan Cunningham says:
Na they’ve been posted over the last 3 or 4 months, I didnt really notice that! You’ve just spotted a new bug mate cheers!
Aug 05, 2010, 8:57 pmI didnt notice that the dates where all the dates of the post submit date. I’ll fix that now. Cheers!