How to Dual Boot Windows 7 & Mountain Lion on Mac
I have purchased my iMac for more than two month but to find that it’s hard to familiarize myself with a operating system totally new to me. While most of the time, I may need to utilize the software application in Windows for my daily activities as blogging is one of them. Due to this reason, I am using the Parallel Desktop application to run Windows 7 within my Mac system which totally drain out the memory and eventually result in laggy condition.
As Apple already prepare a hard disk drive called Boot Camp, it is meant to install Windows 7 on this drive. In order to dual boot with Windows 7 and Mac OS, you might need to have a Intel-base Mac machine. It is a default application in Mac OS called Boot Camp Assistant which can assist the installation of Windows 7 without any 3rd party application.
How to Install Windows 7 on Mac:
1. First of all, make sure you have the latest version of Boot Camp. Simply click on the Apple icon on the top left on your desktop followed by the “Software Update”.
2. After updated to the latest version, start up the Boot Camp Assistant. Go to “Application” –> “Utilities” –> “Boot Camp Assistant”
3. Next, to prepare a MS-DOS formatted external drive – thumb drive or external hard disk. You can easily complete the formatting by using ” Disk Utility”. Go to Application –> Utilities –> Disk Utility.
4. After prepared the MS-DOS formatted external drive, continue with Boot Camp Assistant. Check “Download the latest Windows support software from Apple” and “Remove Windows 7″ if you already have a 2nd drive: Boot Camp in your Mac. Download may take up to 30 minute depends on your download speed.
5. In the meanwhile, you can insert the Windows 7 installation disk into SuperDrive. As the download completed, you will be directed to restore Macintosh HD drive back to one partition. Next, you can decide on the disk space allocation for Windows 7 installation. I choose 100GB for my case.
6. Once the partitioning completed, the machine will restart automatically and proceed to the Windows 7 installation UI. For the latest part of installation, it would exactly the same as normal Windows 7 installation.
7. During the installation, several boot up will be experienced and it’s extremely normal. After the last reboot, you will finally booted Windows 7 on Mac.
8. Still remember with your downloaded Windows Support Software? Plug in the external drive where the support software stored, execute the setup exe file to install boot camp in Windows 7. This shall prepare the compatibility of Apple mouse and keyboard on Windows 7.
Ricky Chew is the founder AppleiMac27. blog all about Apple iMac since August 2012. He is also web owner of Ricky Chew Dot Com. You can find him in twitter or contact him @ rickychew87@gmail.com.
