Apple in the box: Why and How to put Windows 7 on Apple MacBook Air 13 "2014
Not long ago, Apple has released a new version of the MacBook Air laptop 13. Contrary to the usual difference in the year, the novelty came just six months later, however, small changes in it: a little more powerful processor and all. So, in order not to write the second time the same thing, we decided to experiment and ... establish this MacBook Windows 7 operating system. Why did we do and what the results of the experiment - read our review.
As can be seen from the table, the standard configuration of the new MacBook Air 13 default is processor Intel Core i5-4260U clocked at 1.4 GHz instead of Intel Core i5-4250U with a 1.3 GHz model in half a year ago. This gives a very small performance gain, it can only be seen in benchmarks, however, the novelty offered to customers for the same money, and the previous model - cheaper.
Adequate MacBook Air competitors to pick up, as always, difficult. More or less comparable in price models usually have lower performance (despite the higher clock speed itself Intel Core i5-4200U less productive than i5-4250U/4260U).
On the other hand, you can find similar in size and performance of Windows-notebooks, but they will cost is much more expensive - it will be a different price category, and some features will be noticeably better (screen resolution, for example), which is not always justified in such laptops.
Well, all the more impossible to find Windows-laptop that would run on battery as much as MacBook Air. This is due, inter alia, energy efficiency of the operating system OS X (below, in this article, we clearly demonstrate this is a known fact).
Appearance
Traditionally, apparently no change in the MacBook Air 13 no. Great design does not have to change, and there was no such purpose: it is only a minor update model. However, MBA from the 13 of 2012 looked exactly the same. In short, MacBook - this is not the case when you can buy appliances for some status or, as they say, "boast" - say, look what I'm modern, bought the latest model. Nobody will notice as you do not tell.
Put Windows on a Mac
Well, just about 13 MBA from the 2013th year, we detail already wrote , we turn to our experiments with Windows.
OS X operating system on a typical Windows-based computer to establish a very difficult, and it is not certain that it will work. In most cases, so-called "Hackintosh" (from the word "hacker" and "Mac") - a special assembly of OS X, which, after special ceremonies "with tambourines and dancing," the ability to run on a standard PC. However, if the user is lucky with the motherboard, after flashing BIOS loader and substitution can be installed even quite a regular distribution of OS X, which will even receive regular updates from Apple. Some, however, this method is also called Hackintosh.
But to put Windows on any Mac a piece of cake. No more difficult than to put Windows on any "normal" computer, perhaps, a little longer. The simplest method to install Windows on Mac - using built-in OS X Utilities "Assistant Boot Camp», which will help break up the drive and configure the boot loader to prepare bootable USB flash drive with driver and image distribution (or without it, if at hand is DVD).
Note that even if you install multiple operating systems on your computer prefer virtualization in OS X this is not a problem: the most popular virtual machine for Mac Parallels Desktop (in which you can work with Windows-based applications and windows as well as with OS X - which on most Windows, by the way, did not happen), you can work with the established in Boot Camp Windows and does not require additional manipulation: ie you can use Windows in virtualization mode and uploaded it separately. But in this article we will only work with Boot Camp.
So stocking external USB-DVD-drive, license way 64-bit Windows 7 "Home Premium" and the 8-gigabyte memory stick. Now it's small - run Boot Camp.
First, the utility will ask you what we're going to do at all. Top tick "Create a Windows 7 installation disc or later" you can just remove - we do not need, because Disc already have (DVD). Click "Next".
Because USB flash drive we have already inserted, Boot Camp offers used to store other drivers and utilities that can come in handy when working in Windows. The next stage - split disk.
Usually programs dealing marking disk rather complicated for beginners, but here all elementary - will not have anything to do with his hands. Is that, pull the slider, choosing how much space on the built-in storage (in our test was 13 MBA 256 GB SSD-drive) will be set aside for OS X, as well as under Windows. We were too lazy to choose, so we just clicked on the "Divide into equal parts." To be honest, so to speak.
In principle, that's all. After clicking "Install», Boot Camp will start preparing a USB-stick. At this time, you can go to drink tea after connecting USB-DVD-drive and inserting the distribution of Windows. Boot Camp will run about half an hour, it all depends on - how many have to download from the Internet. Remember to tick the first step: "Download the latest software from the Windows Support Apple»? That's what it is. It was possible to turn off, but we prefer the fresh creams.
After Boot Camp is finished, the computer will restart and begin installing Windows the usual scenario. Select your country, keyboard, kick back, enter the product code again kick back - and so on. Does that have to manually format the newly created partition (it will be called BOOTCAMP) to NTFS. But Windows will warn you about this.
When Windows is established and finally loaded, it is found that most software support for Windows from Apple, it includes - see later.
Overall, Windows 7 via Boot Camp was set a little more than an hour with minimal user interaction. Handle even a child, we guarantee it.
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