Installing windows 10 on imac. Installing Windows on iMac: detailed instructions

After the presentation of the Windows operating system in its seventh and then tenth variations, many owners of Apple devices wanted to install it on the iMac. The easiest way to cope with this task is to use Boot Camp software. The application allows you to install a new operating system from “windows” as a second system.

Apple has also released drivers for quick installation of new applications. They are easy to use and even beginners can handle the installation.

However, there are users who cannot perform this operation in any way. Something happens to them all the time - the keys do not function, there is no sound and other interference. In this article, we will look at the basic steps for installing Windows on an iMac. How to carry out the process as comfortably as possible - read below.

Before moving on to the main topic of the conversation, let’s find out why one operating system is better than another. And in general, is it worth jumping from one solution to the second? Look at the differences and make the right decision for yourself.

Apple's design is second to none. And you can hardly argue with this statement. The company spends as much time and money on developing the appearance as it does on the “stuffing” of the devices. The details are treated with due attention. By the way, the hardware also looks neat, although no one sees it.

But Microsoft is not much inferior... A revolution has occurred with the Surface Studio all-in-one PC. It looks as cool as any computer from the Apple company. By the way, the tablets and laptops of this company are very impressive in terms of design. In addition, devices for Windows are created by many manufacturers. Many products with this operating room look strange or have an outdated design, but you can also find good options.

1 Gadgets on Mac operating systems are more expensive. And much more. Even if another Windows laptop has similar functionality and capabilities, the price difference will be very significant. Windows fans have nicknamed this phenomenon the “Apple” tax. The exception is anomalous variants. For example, there is the super expensive Surface Book or highly advertised products for gamers. The average solution will cost the buyer an average of $500. By comparison, the most budget laptop from the Air line costs at least $1,000. At the same time, a quite decent PC device can be purchased for $300. Here the decision is up to the individual user, or more precisely, his financial capabilities. 2 For gamers, Windows is much more comfortable. Game lovers will choose Windows, if only because it is easier to customize. Serious gamers constantly disassemble and assemble their devices to replace video cards and processors, adding RAM. Of course, they won't be satisfied with Mac black boxes. Even super cool MacBooks will become outdated in a couple of years, and you won’t be able to simply insert additional RAM into them. Many more toys do not install on Mac. This problem dates back to the 1990s and is still relevant today. When Jobs left Atari he probably lost interest in games. But in vain! 3 Mac technical support is better (of course, if it is available in your region). If your device fails, you can always go to an Apple store near your home. A specialist will diagnose and repair it. Moreover, if the problem is minor, the repair will be completely free. But again it all depends on the presence of such a point in your city. If it is missing, you will have to rack your brains or run. With a PC, everything is easier in this regard. Some things can be repaired yourself, others can be entrusted to a familiar programmer. And if that doesn’t help, spare parts are available in any store. In large cities there are official Microsoft stores with services. So residents of megacities are lucky in this regard. There are still few such outlets, but the company is actively developing in this direction. 4 It's harder to catch a virus on a Mac. There are much fewer devices on this operating system (including due to their high price), so hackers are not so interested in creating spies and viruses for them. Although in recent years such “specialists” have been increasingly pressed, and they are becoming more attentive to narrower areas. Therefore, the Apple company is also not asleep and is taking measures to get ahead of the scammers. Every year, new security systems are introduced into iOS gadgets. 5 OSes look completely different. This is immediately noticeable. In Windows 10, they combined the comfort and friendliness of the 7 with the touchscreen functionality of the 8. And this idea was a success. You can jump between the tablet and regular desktop options. And the latter looks familiar - with a start element at the bottom. The tablet displays a list of software.

So, most likely, you have decided. Now let’s take a step-by-step look at how to install Windows on an iMac.

Preparing to install Windows 7 on your iMac

Of course, we are talking not only about the seven, but also about any other version of this operating system - Windows 10 and others. Installing Windows 7 or Windows 10 is a serious operation that requires setting up the device on which it will be installed.

But first, let’s find out why the owner of an iOS device needs to install Windows 10. Especially considering that the developer deliberately moved away from “windows”. There can be a lot of reasons, for example:

Not every program that is installed on a PC has an analogue for Mac. A typical example is “1C: Enterprise”.
If you have just purchased an Apple gadget, you may be confused about its functions. Here everything is completely different. And the second operating system will return the user to a familiar environment and will not let him get confused until he gets used to the Mac.

For the operation, you will need the required distribution (a version of the version that you decided to install). You also need a disk with iMac OS X. Checking the free space on the disk is a mandatory stage of preliminary preparation. It must be at least 10 GB. Finally, the most important thing is Boot Camp.

Attention! PC installation is not possible for every model. So, nothing will work with iMac 17 and 20 inches. These are outdated products manufactured in 2006. With more modern products there should be no problems. If your model is unknown, check Apple's online resource for information.

Installing Windows 10 on iMac

From the instructions below you will learn how to install Windows on an Apple operating system. The installed PC is implemented into the iMac through Boot Camp, a set of software. This solution will be required when creating a partition for Windows and rebooting the installation system. Drivers will provide the functionality of the operating system and its interaction with the hardware component of the computer. It would be nice to automatically “refresh” the drivers.

Before installation, we update the operating system itself. For this purpose, go to the updates section on the Apple resource on the Internet. In addition, we create a backup so that if data is lost, we can restore it.

Let's launch the Boot Camp assistant.
Click on the continuation element and select the hard drive size for the “fresh” operating system. To do this, we drag the partition between the names of the operating systems.
We break it down into sections using the appropriate element. We are waiting for the operation to complete and float to the BootCamp table with the selected volume.
We insert the disk with the PC distribution kit and click on start installation.
We wait for the reboot to complete and select the previously specified disk for installation.
Click on disk properties.
Let's move on to formatting.
We observe the installation itself - at this step the process will start. Here you will need to select the language and other settings.

Note that after the appearance of the second operating system on the device, various kinds of problems often arise. And the most common one concerns sound. To correct the situation, you will need a disk with OS X. You need to place it in the drive and click on the next item in the pop-up window. The software is asked to accept the terms of the contracts, which is what needs to be done. Once the installation is complete, click on the Finish button.

This should be followed by another reboot, after which you can rest assured that your iMac has two operating systems. Before the operation, do not be lazy to think seriously and weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of such a decision. If you take hasty steps, you may lose personal information and content. And in the worst case, damage the “native” operating system. Objective arguments at the beginning of the article will help you make the right decision.

Famous Windows blogger Paul Thurot loves Microsoft - and therefore uses a computer from competing company Apple (sarcasm). But he also has Windows 10 on his Mac, and today Paul will tell us all how he managed to do it.

There are two ways to install Windows on a Mac—Apple's BootCamp software, which allows you to boot your PC into either Windows or OS X, or a virtual machine like Parallels Desktop. This article will focus on the first option.

Paul writes that his goal is to talk about how to install and configure Windows 10 on a Mac "as optimally as possible." Microsoft OS will never work perfectly on a Mac; Apple does not consider it necessary to regularly update the necessary drivers and “adjust” to someone else’s OS. But it's better than nothing.

Let's start with the minimum system requirements:

Installation file with Windows 10 in ISO format. You will need either a licensed copy, which most users probably already have, or an ISO file with the system (activation is optional for now). Attention! You only need to download the 64-bit version; 32-bit Macs are not friendly.
Mac computer - iMac, MacBook, Mac mini, Mac Pro 2012 or newer, running OS X (X, by the way, stands for “10”, not “ex”) Yosemite or El Capitan.
Flash drive 4 GB or more.
Free space - at least 20 GB.

Ready? Go to the Apple Mac App Store and install all updates.

Open Boot Camp Assistant. The easiest way to do this is to press Cmd + Spacebar and type boot camp in the Spotlight search bar that opens.

Boot Camp walks you through the process of creating a Windows partition on your Mac's drive. To do this, he will need a Windows 10 ISO file and a 4GB or larger flash drive, depending on the version of Windows. In addition, the assistant will download the latest Apple drivers from the Internet for its work.

After the flash drive is written - the Boot Camp folder with the appropriate drivers will appear on it - you will be asked to allocate space for the Windows partition. It is advisable to allocate more than the default 20 GB - after all, Windows, as you know, likes to “grow” in breadth, and even twenty gigabytes is only enough to run one or two applications the user needs. Using a special “curtain” in the BootCamp assistant, it is very easy to adjust the amount of storage allocated for Windows. If you wish, you can simply split the poppy disk in half. Paul took the latter option - his MacBook Air has 256 GB of internal memory, so there was enough space for both OS X and Windows.

If you left a checkmark next to “Install Windows 7 or later version”, Boot Camp will restart your Mac and begin installation. If you removed it, you can go back and, for example, give Windows more / less space, and only then check the box and go directly to installing Windows.

Things to keep in mind:

It is not necessary to enter a license key during installation. You can generally use the “trial” until Microsoft decides to “close up shop.”

Format the disk partition called BOOTCAMP! Then install Windows there and nowhere else.

Once the installation is complete, you will be on the Windows 10 desktop. The Boot Camp installer will immediately appear on your screen. Its task is to install the necessary drivers so that Windows “understands” what hardware it has to work with. Be sure to install them!

Next, connect to the Internet and run Windows Update. Install all updates, reboot.

Next, find the Boot Camp icon in the taskbar and review the available options for customizing your keyboard and trackpad. For the second, there are a couple of interesting settings - the ability to click with one touch or perform the same operation by clicking on the lower right corner of the touchpad.

After that, log into your Microsoft account, give yourself a convenient PIN code to log in, and open the Store. Go to the Downloads section and look for software updates. In general, that’s all, now let’s get down to the “particulars”.

The problem, Paul writes, is that out of the box Windows won't work well on a Mac. The operating time compared to the same indicator for a MacBook Air in OS X will be short, the excellent trackpad from MacOS in Windows will turn out to be just a pale shadow of itself, and problems will arise with the keyboard. In addition, “on the fly” it’s unlikely that anyone will guess how to reboot from Windows to OS X.

Battery. According to official information from Apple's website, a 13-inch MacBook Air running OS X can last up to 12 hours on battery life (Paul believes his 2014 model is perhaps 1-2 hours less). Under Windows, the laptop will not work even half of this time - this is due to the lack of software optimization for Air. A small utility called . will help partly correct this annoying flaw. The only negative is that you can say goodbye to the high-quality work of the trackpad. But if you are an active user of a familiar “mouse”, there is nothing wrong with that.

Trackpad. The Trackpad++ utility, another development from the creators of Power Plan Assistant, will help improve its performance. Third-party software is many times better than the default one from Apple, so for those who like to control an Apple laptop via the touch panel, this program is a must-have. There were some drawbacks here too - the trackpad settings panel turned out to be unnecessarily complex. As with Power Plan Assistant, you will have to disable one of the digital signatures for 64-bit systems. What's most annoying is that Trackpad++ often provokes a "blue screen of death" (Paul saw it even while installing the software).

Keyboard buttons. On the keyboard of any Windows PC, at the bottom left you can find purely “Microsoft” buttons - Ctrl, Windows key and Alt. On laptops there is also an Fn button. On Macs everything is a little different. On the left side of Paul's MacBook Air there are Fn, Ctrl, Alt/Option, and Command (Cmd) buttons. In Windows 10, the first three buttons work according to their designation, and Command replaces the Win key. You can leave everything like this - or you can use the KeyTweak utility and put the buttons in the usual Windows places. KeyTweak's capabilities allow you to do more - for example, Paul got a Delete button on his MacBook Air by entering the Fn+Delete command.

How to switch between Windows and OS X. Want to go back to OS X? There are two options - either click on the Boot Camp icon in the Taskbar and select “Reboot into OS X”, or initiate a simple reboot and immediately after the beep, hold down the Alt / Option button on the keyboard. You will be able to choose which system to run. To switch to Windows from OS X, open System Preferences, select Boot Volume and click on BOOTCAMP Windows. The computer will automatically boot into the selected system until you change the default "boot" system.

Afterword

Paul laments that the fact that Windows doesn't run perfectly on Macs is obviously Apple's fault. Cupertino residents deliberately do not want to do optimization work - suffice it to say that some drivers of the current Boot Camp 6 have not been updated for more than 3 years! The Apple company may be right in some ways - after all, most Mac and OS X lovers only need Windows for 1-2 programs that simply cannot be found under the Apple operating system. It may be better to install Windows on a virtual machine for this - but then the issue of resources may arise, because a “virtual machine” requires a lot of space, RAM and computing power to work correctly.

Boot Camp is an ideal option for those IT enthusiasts who love Apple hardware (for obvious reasons), but prefer the Microsoft platform (also for obvious reasons). Thurot admits that if he had a chance to install Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp again, he would allocate a minimum of space to OS X and would not bother with utilities like Power Plan Assistant and TrackPad++, but would simply use the mouse. Of course, it would lose one of the key advantages of an Apple laptop - a cool touchpad. But what can you do - as already mentioned, no one expects perfect work from Windows on Mac.

P.S. Are there any Mac users among our readers who work through Windows (10)?

Hello everyone who has read to this page. This is the final part of the MEGA Lesson on. Today we will look at a pressing topic, namely problems that may arise during the installation of Windows.

No matter how hard the Cupertino people try to make the process of working in OS X soft, fluffy and painless, it still doesn’t work. Some “troubles and misunderstandings” are constantly popping up. Take only one Apple ID registration! They turn to me... And I naturally help, to the best of my ability and ability.

In this article, I decided to collect all sorts of questions on our topic (installing Windows on a MAC). The article will be supplemented and updated as problems are received and analyzed. If your problem is not reflected in this article, immediately go down to the comments and write!

Failed to verify digital signature for AppleSSD.sys

The recent Boot Camp update brought not only joy, but also a couple of problems. One of them is a problem with drivers for Windows 7.

During the installation process, after the first reboot of the computer, the MacBook displays a blue screen of death, and then a screen where at the very end it says:

File:\Windows\system32\drivers\AppleSSD.sys
Status: 0x000428
Info: Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file

What literally means: “Windows could not verify the digital signature for this file”

Apparently many (if not all) MAC users have recently begun to experience difficulties installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp. This problem is buried in the drivers that Apple provides, namely the AppleSSD.sys file.

Either it’s not signed, or something else... But it doesn’t matter. After digging through the official Apple support forum threads, I found a solution and present it to you.

Here's what you'll need: Windows 7 installation image, USB flash drive, Old Boot Camp 5.1 driver package. e

The driver package is specific to each individual MacBook model and can be downloaded from the official Apple website. Read here - everything is written there.

The order of your actions:

STEP 1 - Using the utility Boot Camp Assistant Prepare a USB flash drive. Select the first two options to prepare the flash drive. Exit Boot Camp Assistant.
STEP 2 - B Finder, delete folders $WinPE$ And Boot Camp from the prepared flash drive.
STEP 3 - Unpack the zip archive with the package of old Boot Camp drivers that you downloaded from the official Apple website onto your working computer.
STEP 4 - Copy folders $WinPE$ And Boot Camp from the unpacked archive to your flash drive.
STEP 5 - Launch Boot Camp Assistant and now select only the third option “ Windows installation».
STEP 6 - Open a can of beer and enjoy the Windows 7 installation process.

Incompatibility of MBR and GPT partitions when installing Windows on MAC

This problem does not only exist among MAC users, but is also actively discussed among hardcore Windows users. I scoured a bunch of forums, but I couldn’t find any specific miracle method.

One thing helps some people, and something completely different for others. I personally tried various options for creating a GPT partition on a MAC and wrote a separate article about what actually works.

Incompatibility of MBR and GPT partitions when installing Windows on MAC -

Keyboard and mouse do not work when installing Windows

At the request of users, I answer one more question: What to do if When installing Windows, the keyboard and mouse do not work? Typically, this problem occurs after the first restart of Windows, on the screen where you are asked to give the computer a name.

I’ve never encountered this before, but I finally found a solution... again on bourgeois forums.

The whole problem is in the drivers, or rather their absence on the flash drive (disk) from which you install Windows. This is why the setup wizard can't get the mouse and keyboard to work.

Well, the solution here is simple: you need to re-create a bootable USB flash drive using the “Boot Camp Assistant” utility, but this time make sure that the first two items are checked – Create installation disk + Load the latest software.

After completing this simple step, you can reboot back into the Windows Installer, where the mouse and keyboard will work again.

Here is another solution for keyboard and mouse not working, which was suggested by graliki in the comments below:

Guys!
I found a panacea for problems with input devices. I steamed for 3 days. Obviously, the problem is that USB 3.0 drivers are not initially installed on the Windows 7 disk image. You can solve the problem by improving the disk image with the Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility program. Thus, during installation, all drivers are installed themselves. My actions. I created a bootable flash drive using the first 2 checkboxes in the bootcamp, the image was taken from the original Win7 x64 Pro disk. Then I installed the latest bootcamp upgrade downloaded from the Internet and replaced the files. After that, I upgraded the flash drive with utility 3.0. After everything, I launched the bootcamp with only the third checkbox.
Link to utility 3.0.
Everything fits perfectly!

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