Windows 7 on first gen Macbook 1,1 using Boot Camp


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Hey all,

This is a question to those with Core Duo Macbooks that can't run the x64 version of Windows 7 on their laptops but have tried out the x86 version.

How does it run? My main concern is that the integrated graphics in the Macbook 1,1 won't be able to run Windows 7's "fancy" graphical effects (even though it runs OS X's animations perfectly).

If someone can confirm how it runs on their Core Duo Macbook 1,1 that would be great! Thanks.

Reason for my asking is because I've grown tired of running Windows XP in VMWare Fusion since I have an oracle database, IIS, and Visual Studio running almost all the time, and those three combined really bring a slowdown on my machine with the two OSes running with only 2GB total RAM available.

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IMHO, it's a perversion to run Windows on MacBook because of "fancy effects". I can understand people which require some special windows-software on Mac, but buying an expensive Mac just for Windows effects, for me it's a nonsense.

For the topic-starter - just continue to use XP. You don't need W7. It's not faster than XP.

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IMHO, it's a perversion to run Windows on MacBook because of "fancy effects". I can understand people which require some special windows-software on Mac, but buying an expensive Mac just for Windows effects, for me it's a nonsense.

For the topic-starter - just continue to use XP. You don't need W7. It's not faster than XP.

I would normally agree, as I have been running XP fine in a VM until now with no visual effects.. I just wanted to know if the graphics card could handle such effects, purely out of curiosity.

I have, however, seen benchmarks and tests that show that Windows 7 is slightly faster at certain things than XP, but obviously I have no idea how that is in real world scenarios. I'm mainly concerned about RAM usage and processing power. I have a feeling 7 is slightly more efficient than XP, so I want to make use of that since I have a legal copy with no machine except my Mac to use it on.

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For the topic-starter - just continue to use XP. You don't need W7. It's not faster than XP.

We might as well just stick with System 6, too. We don't need Mac OS X. It's not faster than System 6.

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  • 2 weeks later...
IMHO, it's a perversion to run Windows on MacBook because of "fancy effects". I can understand people which require some special windows-software on Mac, but buying an expensive Mac just for Windows effects, for me it's a nonsense.

For the topic-starter - just continue to use XP. You don't need W7. It's not faster than XP.

No one should be sticking with XP at this point. XP is old and insecure. With Windows 7 out, there is no longer any compelling reason to stick with "ol' faithful."

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I would normally agree, as I have been running XP fine in a VM until now with no visual effects.. I just wanted to know if the graphics card could handle such effects, purely out of curiosity.

I have, however, seen benchmarks and tests that show that Windows 7 is slightly faster at certain things than XP, but obviously I have no idea how that is in real world scenarios. I'm mainly concerned about RAM usage and processing power. I have a feeling 7 is slightly more efficient than XP, so I want to make use of that since I have a legal copy with no machine except my Mac to use it on.

The video card is plenty powerful enough to run Windows 7 with transparency and fancy effects. Just be wary that battery life is awful on Windows on a Mac if you have dual video cards (9400M + 9600GT or whatever it is).

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The video card is plenty powerful enough to run Windows 7 with transparency and fancy effects. Just be wary that battery life is awful on Windows on a Mac if you have dual video cards (9400M + 9600GT or whatever it is).

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I realize that battery life would suffer, though usually when I'm running Windows I'm on a power supply anyway since I'm at work at a desk. My laptop has an integrated Intel graphics card though so no trouble with dual video cards, just trouble with lack of video memory (which is where my concern for its capabilities comes from).

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Macbook 1,1 has Intel GMA950 so Windows 7 will run with Aero enabled, may be a bit slow but probably ok. Although definitely could run it with Aero turned off and get good performance.

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I can actually tell you about my experience as I just did this yesterday!

The machine I used was a 1st gen Intel iMac, not a MacBook - but i'd imagine the process would be close enough.

Also bear in mind this machine was Bootcamp'd initially, but has since become Windows only.

Obviously, since the system didn't support 64bit, I dropped the Windows 7 32 bit disc in. Machine was running XP Pro, so I hit setup, clean install, and off we went! It did the load and came up done after about 30 mins or so, I wasn't watching closely. It backed up my files to windows.old

Drivers missing for my system were the Radeon X1600, Wireless (wasn't working), sound (wrong driver), iSight camera, Remote, Bluetooth, etc.

Since I bought the OSX 10.6 upgrade disc from Apple, I dropped that in. I hit setup, let BootCamp install its files and it did so. Another 10 mins and it had all the drivers installed and working no issues!

That's basically it. Really.

Performance? SIGNIFICANTLY better than XP was - and I really love my XP too!

Happy to say it's been a smooth upgrade, no issues at all and very fast.

Btw: It has "only" 1gb of RAM.

Enjoy! :)

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Though keep in mind Radeon X1600 completely destroys Intel GMA950

The GMA950 can handle WoW fairly well (I know because my girlfriend has a BlackBook and plays WoW) so I think it can handle something as simple as some 2D shader effects.

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