Aug 31, 2017 My Mac won't boot into OS X anymore after installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp. What I've Tried: - Holding down various key combinations during start-up (Option, Option-R, Command-R, Option-Command-R, etc) does nothing. And since you’re Boot Camping into Windows on your Mac, I’m less bothered by putting you out of commission for a bit, since you’ll always have macOS to use if you absolutely need to do. Jul 14, 2006 Glad to hear that you’re having a good experience with Boot Camp.It’s pretty cool, as I explain here: Running Windows XP on your Mac with Boot Camp. I too noticed the same issue, however, and there’s a bit of a trick to getting it to boot into Mac OS X each time, rather than Windows. Install Windows on your Mac. Boot Camp is a utility that comes with your Mac and lets you switch between macOS and Windows. Download your copy of Windows 10, then let Boot Camp Assistant walk you through the installation steps.
If you own Intel-based Macs, you can run OS X and Windows on one machine. In fact, it’s been possible to run Windows on a Mac for some time — with agonizing limitations. Near-extinct Mac models were loaded with Virtual PC emulation software could do Windows, too, but the program was painfully slow. Even if you find an old copy of the software, it won’t work with any current Macs.
Boot Camp software from Apple shook up the computing public upon its apocalyptic arrival in April 2006. Boot Camp graduated from beta, or near-finished, status with the arrival of Leopard. Boot Camp Assistant software is stored in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.
Boot Camp itself is free. You have to supply your own single-disc or downloadable full-install version of Windows; an upgrade disc won’t cut it.
It’s also important to note that you can use a 64-bit version of Windows, Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Consult Apple support to see which Mac models are compatible with which versions of Windows. In its current incarnation, Boot Camp isn’t compatible with 32-bit versions of Windows.
Other requirements follow:
If you don’t run into snags, the entire installation should take about an hour.
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 are optimized for a touchscreen environment, though you can use it with a standard mouse and keyboard. For now, Macs don’t support touchscreen computing.
To install Windows 8 via Boot Camp, you still must have a legitimate Windows 8 license from Microsoft and a Win8 installation disc, assuming that you have an optical drive. If you don’t have an optical drive, you may be able to create a Windows installer from an ISO file downloaded from Microsoft on a USB flash drive that’s 8GB or larger.
Because snags are possible, back up all your important information on the Mac’s startup disk.
Basic training
Following are the basic steps to get through Boot Camp:
As with any new Windows computer, Microsoft requires that you activate your Windows software within 30 days.
Switching operating systems
You can go back and forth between OS X and Windows on your Mac, but you can’t run both operating systems simultaneously under Boot Camp. Instead, you have to boot one operating system or the other — thus, the name Boot Camp.
Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key until icons for each operating system appear onscreen. Highlight Windows or Macintosh HD, and click the arrow to launch the operating system of choice for this session.
If you want OS X or Windows to boot every time, choose app → System Preferences, click Startup Disk, and choose the OS you want to launch by default.
You can perform the same function in Windows by clicking the Boot Camp system-tray icon and selecting the Boot Camp Control Panel. Click either the Macintosh HD or Windows icon, depending on your startup preference.
Back before 2006 (which is like 100 years ago in the technology industry), there was a clear dividing line between Macintosh computers and PCs. Mac OS couldn't run on PCs, and Microsoft Windows couldn't run on Macs. This created a great rift between users of each system. It wasn't unusual to hear heated arguments between two users about which was the better system. A few brave souls tried to take an all-inclusive approach by trying try to run both using virtualization software, but even that presented limitations. If you wanted to use the full features of both operating systems, you'd have to buy both a Mac and a PC.
But in 2006, that all changed. Because in 2006, Apple began moving away from its PowerPC processors and offered Mac hardware with Intel processors like those used in PCs. This introduced the possibility that Windows and Windows-based applications could run on Mac hardware just as they run on PCs. At the same time, Apple released Mac OS X Tiger (10.4), the first Mac OS to support running on Intel processors [source: Apple, Buchanan].
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Boot Camp is software developed by Apple, in cooperation with Microsoft, designed to effectively run Windows on Mac hardware. By using Boot Camp, you don't have to choose whether to install either Mac OS or Windows. Instead, you can install both, and you can switch between them just by rebooting and selecting the other OS.
This article covers how Boot Camp works and how you can set it up on your Mac. Boot Camp has been available as part of Mac OS X since Leopard (10.5), released in 2007. The latest version of Boot Camp as of this writing, Mac OS X Lion (10.7), supports Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate editions [source: Apple].
Mac Boot Camp Switch
Before we dive into Boot Camp, let's look at how the partitions work on your Mac's hard drive, and how the Mac knows which partition to use when you boot.
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December 2020
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