Running OS X Mavericks, miss Windows??? Boot Camp to the rescue

Recently having got the Macbook, running OS X Mavericks, I've been struggling to get used to the operating system, and more importantly some of the applications I had on Windows were not available on the Mac. 


Solution

I was pleasantly surprised how easy Apple have made it to install Windows. My preference was to go with Windows 7.  At the time of writing, Windows 9 is not out and Windows 8/8.1 is only good if I had touch screen (my Macbook is a Oct 2013 model which doesn't).


1. Download Windows 7 ISO to create a Bootable pen drive...

I went for Windows 7 Ultimate. Also, my machine is the Oct 2013 version, Haswell processor which has the x64 bit architecture. I only mention this due to the link below which may not be suitable for everyone but will be fine for most.

• http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-24395.iso 2147483647 X17-24395.iso Windows 7 Ultimate x64 English
• http://www.w7forums.com/threads/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads.12325/ (other ISO versions)

I had a fair few issues (getting Boot Camp to recognise my USB, no disk found issue etc..) but after a fair few hours of investigation I finally found that the issues were due to getting the wrong ISO. It appears only the 30-day trail versions of the Windows ISO works. 

I will soon post the issues so watch this space.

2. Navigate to Boot Camp Assistant and click to 'Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk'...

This will take a while as it should download support software from Microsoft. 

3. Navigate to Boot Camp Assistant and un-tick create instal disk and tick Install Windows. 

Follow instructions and it should just create it for you. Something to note is that the install will take just under 40GB so make sure give the Windows partition enough space for everyday use. 

Or you can just watch my video...