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Can & How Can I Install Windows 7 x64 on a MacBook Air?

Can & How Can I Install Windows 7 x64 on a MacBook Air?

Is it possible ?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 249
Total answers/comments: 2
Guest [Entry]

"EDIT: You don't need a SuperDrive, any
External Optical Drive will do. I
have a SuperDrive and a Buffalo
External Drive. I do not recommend
buying a SuperDrive EVER; as other
drives suffice, and if you ever have
issues with a bad boot sector (as I
have) you cannot boot from the drive
and use an external HDD to copy your
data off the internal HDD.

Apple does not support x64 on a MacBook Air, but you can, and I have installed Windows 7 x64 Home Premium.

You will be asked to install a 32bit Version of Windows; which I ignored, following Gizmodo's Install Guide

Upon a subsequent install, running setup.exe directly will not work because Apple has disabled it for the MacBook Air, running it results in ...

""Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this
computer model""

... but being unsupported doesn't mean it doesn't work! :)

Issues to resolve are that you will require a two button mouse or keyboard with a right click equivalent, the latter being my solution to get to the menus.

Use ""Compatibility Mode"" to install:

<optical-drive-letter>:\Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple\BootCamp64.msi."
Guest [Entry]

It's possible using boot camp. The hard part is the lack of CD drive. If you have an external CD drive, it's just like installing anything else with Boot Camp. Apparently network installs don't work, and neither do USB installs. The best idea I heard was to buy a superdrive, install Windows 7, then return the drive (or borrow one from a friend if you're that lucky)..