Apple releases Boot Camp 5 for booting Macs with Windows 8
Friday, March 15, 2013
Apple yesterday released Boot Camp 5, a major new version of the software that enables users to boot a Mac with Windows. Version 5 adds support for Windows 8 (64-bit), and continues support for Windows 7. Boot Camp 5 also adds support for 3TB hard drives on new 27-inch iMacs. Not all Macs support Windows 8, however.
Boot Camp 5 drops support for 32-bit versions of Windows. Boot Camp 5 supports the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. It also supports 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Boot Camp 5 does not support the Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 8 Enterprise.
Booting your Mac with Microsoft's latest OS still requires using the Boot Camp Assistant to create a special hard drive partition, as did Boot Camp 4. That part of Boot Camp 5 that enables Windows 8 are the new Windows drivers, which Apple also refers to as the "Windows Support Software."
The Boot Camp 5 Windows drivers can be downloaded from the Boot Camp Assistant that comes with the OS X 10.8.3 update, which was also released yesterday. (See OS X 10.8.3 fixes Active Directory lockouts, login delays) Users of earlier versions of OS X can download the Boot Camp 5 Windows drivers directly from Apple's web site.
The downloaded Windows drivers need to be copied to a USB flash drive or hard drive before booting into Windows; the drivers are installed from within Windows. If youÕre upgrading from Windows 7, Apple advises that you install the new Boot Camp 5 drivers in Windows 7 before upgrading to Windows 8.
Boot Camp 5 has an incompatibility with the Windows 8 Fast Boot feature. In order to access Thunderbolt devices from Windows 8, you need to disable the this feature in the Windows 8 Control Panel.
Boot Camp 5 also drops support for some older Macs. Windows 8 with Boot Camp 5 drivers can be installed on the following Macs:
- MacBook Air, Mid 2011 or newer
- MacBook Pro, Mid 2010 except for the 13" inch model, or newer
- Mac Pro, Early 2009 or newer
- Mac Mini, Mid 2011 or newer
- iMac, 27-inch, Mid 2010 or Mid 2011 or newer (the 21" Mid 2010 does not support Windows 8)
This article was updated on March 17 to reflect that the 13" MacBook Pro, Mid 2010 doesn't support Windows 8.
Related: Running Windows on Macs -- A Comparison of Available Solutions
