Apple Stops Supporting Windows 7 in Boot Camp on New MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Models

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Apple Stops Supporting Windows 7 in Boot Camp on New MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Models

 

Apple's newly refreshed MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models no longer support running Windows 7 with Boot Camp, according to Apple's Boot Camp support document. Boot Camp on the new notebooks only works with Windows 8 or later, so it is impossible to use Boot Camp to install Windows 7 on the machines. 

For those unfamiliar with Boot Camp, it is Apple's software designed to allow Mac users to install Microsoft Windows on their machines. 

Apple also dropped Windows 7 Boot Camp support in the 2013 Mac Pro, suggesting the software would cease to be supported by future Macs, but Macs released in 2014 continued to offer Windows 7 installations. The 2014 MacBook Air and the 2014 MacBook Pro will be the last Apple notebooks that support Windows 7. 

Though Boot Camp no longer supports Windows 7, the operating system can continue to be used on these newer machines with virtualization software like VMware Fusion and Parallels. 

It is not surprising that Apple has opted to phase out support for Windows 7, given its advanced age. Windows 7 first became available to the public in 2009 and was followed by Windows 8 in 2012. Despite being six years old, Windows 7 continues to be the most heavily used Windows-based operating system. 

Mac users were not happy with Apple's decision to cease Windows 7 support in the Mac Pro, and it's likely the dropped support in the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will also be met with resistance. Windows users have not yet embraced Windows 8 due to both its cost and its interface, which deviated significantly from the design of Windows 7. 

Windows 10, coming later this year, may encourage stalwart Windows 7 users to upgrade, as it melds Windows 7 design elements with Windows 8 design elements for a happy medium that might satisfy a wide range of tastes. Windows 10 pricing has not been unveiled, but it will be a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users.

Source: Mac Rumours

[+Warwagon MVC]

I think it has more to do with Windows 7 EFI support.

[Noir Angel]

It doesn't make Windows 7 dead on those machines, just makes it harder to dual boot. It's possible to fix the EFI problems with the Windows 7 DVD and make it boot properly.

[123456789A]

Did they ever improve the touchpad drivers in boot camp? They worked very poorly in Windows last time I used it, even though Windows was more than capable of doing all the gestures I tried.

[techbeck]

If you just bought a brand-new MacBook laptop, and you loathe everything about Windows 8

[singularity87]

I would expect Windows 10 using the current version of Boot Camp to be a very sketchy affair. There will no doubt be support added with either a point release of 10.10 or else in the next OS X in the Autumn but until then I'd be surprised to see it working properly.

 

It's probably more likely to work if you install it directly where you won't have the Apple software integrating itself like it does with 7 and 8.1.

[Dashel]

I'm confused as their documents still show that Boot Camp 5.1 supports Win7.  Is this then a 5.2 limitation, I don't see a release date?

[Skiver Veteran]

Threads Merged

[+Red King Subscriber²]

Is boot camp the same thing as dual booting in Windows world or is it more of an intermediary emulation layer?

[#Michael]

Did they ever improve the touchpad drivers in boot camp? They worked very poorly in Windows last time I used it, even though Windows was more than capable of doing all the gestures I tried.

 

That would be a big no.