Apple releases Boot Camp 5 for booting Macs into Windows 8

“Apple yesterday released Boot Camp 5, a major new version of the software that enables users to boot a Mac with Windows,” MacWindows reports.

” 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,” MacWindows reports. “Not all Macs support Windows 8, however.”

Windows 8 with Boot Camp 5 drivers can be installed on the following Macs:

• MacBook Air, Mid 2011 or newer
• MacBook Pro, Mid 2010 or newer
• Mac Pro, Early 2009 or newer
• Mac Mini, Mid 2011 or newer
• iMac, 27-inch, Mid 2010 or Mid 2011 or newer

MacWindows reports, “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.”

Read more in the full article here.

35 Comments

      1. actually, twodales might be asking the correct question. why would Apple prioritize support for Windows 8 over, say:

        – updating iWork (Apple is STILL advertising iWork ’09 !?!?!?!?)
        – fixing Maps
        – allow users to dismiss iOS ads without delay
        – relegate GameCenter, Twitter, Facebook, Reminders, iCloud and other such fluff to the application level — NOT the OS
        – stop downgrading user interfaces (such as removal of “save as” command); restore iTunes, FCP, Quicktime X, etc functionality and interface control
        – actually display professional hardware and software on the Apple.com website instead of burying the apps you write

        moss grows fat on Cook’s stone, but somehow Apple decided that supporting Windows 8 (for free) was a high priority. I remember when Apple sold software, and it was so good people actually were happy to pay real money for it.

        1. It seems like Apple works like this:

          Everyone to the left side of the boat, everyone to the right side of the boat.

          What Apple really needs to do is spend some of that extra cash establishing development groups for each of its major products. By doing this Apple can be developing new versions of multiple products at the same time.

          Apple desperately needed to fix numerous Bootcamp problems. However, it also needs to update and improve:

          iWork – (Pages & Numbers, update Bento for use with Pages and Numbers in data analysis and selective Mail Merge)

          iLife – (iMovie still can’t work with 1080 60P video which has been standard on almost all new cameras for the last two years). This standard feature has been supported by most Windows apps now for at least a year now.

          iPhoto for the Mac is behind the iPad and iPhone editions. Customers pay $2,000 to run inferior software. Thank you Apple!

          Release a new iWeb designed from the iBook publishing software. Provide integration between Pages, Numbers & Bento for easy web updates. Integrate the software with shopping cart services. This will be big with small businesses all over the world.

          Either purchase Quicken for the Mac and update it extensively, or create a competitor or encourage a third party to create a category leading application. Provide integration with iWeb, Bento and Numbers for online sales support.

          Include this software suite with every new Mac. This is how Microsoft won the Office wars back in the 90’s. Why not turn the table on Microsoft. Provide an obviously superior value – a turn key solution right out of the box.

          We tested this proposition with MBA students who currently are not using Mac’s. Almost 90% stated that they would switch if Apple provided a turn key solution such as the one proposed above. Why? A turn key solution reduces research time involved in the purchase, learning time (similar interfaces), and incompatibilities.

          Finally, Apple needs to hold quarterly webinars with users of its software and hardware products.

          The purpose: Research. Steve Jobs informally did this when he visited with customers in the early days of the Apple stores.

          Steve Jobs gained valuable insights this way. Several of his friends have stated that he would have made a very good investigative journalist.

          Without Jobs playing the role of investigative journalist, Apple may slack off slightly and lose the creative edge.

          Ron Johnson was successful at Apple because of Steve Jobs informal yet extensive research. We have all seen how successful he has been without Jobs research.

        2. Could not agree more accept, you did not go far enough. Apple needs to get back to basics. Yes, “the next big thing” is important, but using their money to enhance and expand their own software and Mac product lines should be equally as important. They start something and they just don’t keep it up. Aperture is behind, FCP 10 still needs work, Mac Pro is far behind. It can’t even be sold in Europe any more. What is going on here? It’s not all about “i” Things. Apple use your money and get back to the basics that made the Company great! Thanks for the post.

    1. actually, I have to emphatically disagree. the only benefit is ‘natural’ scrolling, which is nothing magical that other vendors don’t or can’t do.

      very frustrating:

      — tap-to-click support. to drag using tap to click, the responsiveness is very bad. 10x worse than any other trackpad i’ve used. the amount of time/distance it takes for the driver to think you are actually dragging and didn’t just accidentally double-tap is too big. you have to move like 10-20% away from the first tap point before whatever you’re dragging starts to drag. And then once you let go, if you try to click again it might think you are dragging. happens to me all the time when moving tabs in a browser or highlighting text. you might think resorting to the full-on trackpad click and drag would help, but because of tap to click being enabled and this dragging delay, it often doesn’t respect the second-finger dragging while the first one is pressing the button.

      — no option to disable trackpad if an external mouse is connected. see next issue resulting from this

      — no palm detection. with tap-to-click enabled, a trackpad that huge and close to the keys, you’re always accidentally tapping it and losing focus to wherever the cursor is at. If you’re typing on a web form, and you tap while you’re about to hit backspace, oh magic!! you lose everything you were typing because it goes back a page. it’s so bad that i’ve developed this annoying habit of very forcefully making sure that the cursor is still where i want it before hitting the backspace key.

  1. How is Win 8 suppose to work on a Mac that has no touchscreen. Isn’t Win 8 Touchscreen Based? Anybody? I wouldn’t put windows or google on any of my Mac’s. What a waste of time.

    1. Only the metropolis layer requires touch to be truly usable (if you can call it that).

      If the win8 trackpad drivers from apple supports basic gestures and swipes the Macbook or a mac with a magic trackpad could arguably be the best windows 8 machines out there lol

      1. If that’s true, that it’ll work on Apple’s trackpad, why wont it work on a PC trackpad and if it does why the hell do you need a touchscreen except on the Surface table?

        1. I haven’t tested it on my MacBook pro yet.

          I have used win8 enough on a touch based Sony to find myself thinking “this would almost be a decent experience if I had an apple trackpad with the right drivers”

          Win8 works with a mouse, trackpad and touch screen. As for which one works best it depends on what you are doing in the OS.

          The best feel I obtained was on a Sony laptop that had a multi-touch trackpad.

          That’s why I’m thinking a MacBook pro or magic trackpad might be the best machine for windows 8 ever.

          If apple got the touchpad drivers right it will be a better experience than any win8 machine released yet hehe.

        2. Load it up and let us know how it works. Then again forget it I wouldn’t buy Win 8 anyway and I definitely wouldn’t put on my Mac. I’m just confused why PC’s need a touchscreen if win8 works with a mouse and why these OEM’s are compelled to provide a touchscreen but then again that is the windows world of confusion we used to live in.

        3. some tasks are better suited for touch. Like playing a piano app, for instance. If your laptop can function as a tablet, then why shouldn’t it? It does put a lot of competing pressure on OEMs and consumers alike, for sure with the first-gen touch-screen laptops, but in a lot of cases it’s just better-suited to be able to touch.

          You can blame the popularity & surge of touch-based apps that were essentially reinventing the wheel for why laptops now need touch.

          Just like there is little reason a tablet shouldn’t /be able to/ work with a mouse and keyboard and run software designed for it, there is little reason a laptop shouldn’t /be able to/ run touch-based software.

      2. Not even. The full-screen UI is not antithetical to mouse & keyboard.

        You don’t have to ‘simulate’ gestures with the mouse – the only exception being click+drag-down to close an app (but it you really don’t like that, the left-side app-switcher has a right click menu)

        Right-click works like swipe up from the bottom. Scrolling in left-right panes scrolls left-right (just like scrolling up/down on horizontal scrollbars for the past 10 years did the same). And ‘natural’ scrolling works both left-right and up-down in these cases as well.

        Hot corners work well also, just takes a tiny bit of practice to keep them open when you want (I found the habit was to move the mouse away from the corner the same way I moved it to it, rather than move it directly up or down like you have to). I am never accidentally engaging the hot corners. And, if you don’t like slinging the mouse, you can use command+C.

        I’ve heard people complain that they don’t want to have to move their mouse all over the screen like that. I don’t understand this one bit, since you’ve always had to move your mouse around the screen, right? So what if you have a 24″ monitor and an app takes up the whole screen, or you have to move your mouse to the corners. Didn’t you always have to do that? Where is the Start/OSX menu? Where are the close buttons? Where is the un-maximize button in OSX? If your monitor is ‘too big’ to use with a mouse and keyboard now that this thing called Metro is there, doesn’t that mean it’s /always/ been too big?

        All that said, I would like to see the gestures supported by the trackpad.. Why they aren’t simply baffles me. My suspicion is it probably interferes with the natural scrolling and mouse movement heuristics, in the same way that tap-to-click support is sub-par (see my comment above re: trackpad == best win8 trackpad)

      1. Exactly.

        If you swipe around metro with a trackpad on a MacBook then you pretty much have the best windows 8 experience possible in my opinion.

        Swipe around in metro and use your keyboard to type.

        I bet win8 on the mbp is everything MS and its partners failed to deliver. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit lol

        1. You’ve said that already. You’ve said that already. You’ve said that already. 100 times in 100 different posts. What? You think Apple is reading these posts or something? By the way, have you seen Groundhog Day?

  2. When I saw this I thought; Hey I could install W8 on my mac
    But sometimes I also think; hey I should try crystal meth… and then I think naaaaa…. better not. 😉

    —Fat Amy

    Has anyone else noticed that when you say the acronym “W8” it sounds wait?
    Coincidence?
    I think not!

  3. Dammit, Windows update just broke my bootcamp 4, and I’m on Windows 8 (MacBook Air), and it won’t let me run bootcamp 5 since it says I need to downgrade to Windows 7. Also dropped my iPhone 5 and it costs $270 to replace the screen. As a hardcore Apple lover (buying many $.99 songs on iTunes), I am seriously looking at Samsung Ultrabooks and HTC One and may have to abandon ship.

    Apple needs to get it together, this is why they are losing market share, stock price, etc. The effects of loss of Steve Jobs definitely is starting to kick in.

    1. I never had any Win updates break my BC4. MBP 15″ here.

      BC5 did however break my clock, and still didn’t fix my gigabit ethernet adapter to be hot-swappable (it’s lightning bolt), which means I have to plug it in before I boot, and if it wiggles just the slightest bit (aka, often) I have to reboot.

  4. I am not certain if I agree with all of this. However, your article is very informative, and many people will leave from this post feeling more informed than when they arrived. Overall, you have done a superb job.

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