# Running bootcamp to install Windows 7



## TheGift73 (Oct 17, 2006)

Hi,

In about a week or so I have been asked to install Windows 7 on a friends iMac via Bootcamp. He did inquire about using Parallels, but I thought that the Bootcamp method would be better as it would have full use of the systems resources rather that only using some of them in a virtual environment.

I have heard that the process is pretty simple, and have also seen a couple of videos of people installing this way on YouTube. However, I don't ever use Macs, so just wanted some thoughts from some people here who may have done this in the past.

Also, will it be fine to then, should he want to, upgrade that install of Windows 7 to Windows 10, followed by a Clean Install on the Bootcamp partition of Windows 10 once the upgrade install has registered on the MS servers.

I have done this plenty of times on Windows machines, but with Macs, I am very new. Also, I know that you are offered drivers during the initial Bootcamp process, but if I were to later do a Clean install on that partition, would I be able to locate drivers for Windows 10 easily via Apple?

Sorry, I should have added that the machine is pretty new so should be running the latest OS.


----------



## MartyF81 (Jan 23, 2013)

Can you please confirm what version of OS-X it is running?

If it is for sure running the latest version of OS-X, you won't be able to Bootcamp Win7. The latest version of Mac OS-X will not support bootcamping a version of Windows that old... only 8.x or newer.

That being said, if you have an already running Win 7 Bootcamp (meaning Mac OS-X is an OLDER version < 10.10) , it CAN be upgraded to Win 10 following the upgrade process. Just make sure that both OS-X and Win 7 (including the Apple Tools installed with bootcamp) have both been patched fully first.

You can use this Apple Support page to check Bootcamp Compatibility. 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204048


----------



## TheGift73 (Oct 17, 2006)

> The latest version of Mac OS-X will not support bootcamping a version of Windows that old... only 8.x or newer.


Ah, good to know. I will have to talk to him regarding getting Windows 8.1 or above then. I believe he really only needs it so he can run Sage Instant (accounting software) on it as the old machine (it was running Windows XP, SP2, and had never been online) decided to finally die, so instead of buying a new machine, wanted to see if he could use the iMac instead. It's a very well specked machine I believe, hence we thought about the BC method. Can't confirm the OS as yet as I was only asked about this yesterday morning, so will ask him later this morning. It's 03:14hrs over here at the mo.

Thanks for the link and information.


----------

