Now that we all have our beta copies of Windows 7 to play with, Ars thought it was time to take Vista's successor for a spin on the Apple side of the street. After all, it isn't every day that recent switchers and established users get to (legitimately) try out a copy of Windows for free, so we burned a couple of ISOs and got to work.
We covered all the major bases for our experiment, and just to keep things interesting, we worked on a unibody MacBook with those multi-touch trackpads that don't even play well with Vista yet. We installed both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 natively in Boot Camp, then moved on to virtualization with VMware Fusion 2 and Parallels Desktop 4 just for good measure.
Overall, things went well, but since this is a beta OS that is supported by exactly zero parties involved, there were naturally some drawbacks and a few dead-ends. We'll run through installation procedures and best practices, and share some general tips on what to look out for. Ultimately, we found that Windows 7 is definitely doable—even usable—on a Mac under the right circumstances, but "beta" definitely means beta for now.
Boot Camp
It goes without saying that Boot Camp provides the best experience for running Windows on a Mac, so we started there. Apple offers full hardware and video support for XP and Vista via prepackaged drivers, so we told both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 versions to drop and give us 20.
First up was the stable 32-bit version. Despite Apple featuring 64-bit Core 2 Duo Intel chips across its Macs, the company still recommends and only provides drivers for the 32-bit flavor of Windows, so c'est la vie. If you don't already have a Boot Camp partition set up, the Boot Camp Assistant fortunately recognizes a Windows 7 install disc (despite specifying XP SP2 or a flavor of Vista). You can use the assistant to get started and jump into rebooting from your burned Windows 7 ISO to begin the installation.
For those who are already rocking XP or Vista on a partition, like we are on our MacBook (or on a second drive for Mac Pro owners), simply booting from the Windows 7 DVD to install over that partition will work fine as well. Either way, you can proceed with installing Windows 7 like any other version of Windows. Notably, our MacBook's multi-touch trackpad that can cause trouble in Vista works surprisingly well during the Windows setup. We could even mouse with one finger, leave that finger on the pad, and use our thumb to click buttons. WiFi worked during setup, and we were able to connect to our AirPort Extreme 802.11n station running WPA2 Personal/AES encryption.
Once you are in Windows, however, a number of components, including audio and right-clicking, may not work and Windows Update will probably be powerless to help. This is where Apple's Boot Camp drivers and a little elbow grease can help turn your Device Manager's frown upside down.
Drivers
To get started, toss in the Mac OS X install disc that came with your Mac (this is the preferred option over using a retail copy of Leopard) and run the Boot Camp installer. Audio and two-finger right-clicking should work after restarting (but not control-clicking), though two components in Device Manager on our MacBook—Coprocessor and SM Bus Controller—should still be driver-less. You can run Windows Update, but as of this writing, there are just a couple of small updates for Windows Media player and other random essentials available, nothing particularly crucial. Our machine seemed to perform fine with typical tasks like installing Firefox and running WMP, but a Windows Experience Index (WEI) of 2.9 said otherwise.
To fix any driver problems and get that WEI up to snuff, dig into your MacBook's Mac OS X install disc (right-click and choose "Open in New Window"). For our MacBook's two aforementioned components, we browsed to Boot Camp\Drivers\NVidia (hat tip to this MacRumors thread). As long as you have a RAR utility installed, like WINRar, extract the NVidiaChipset.exe to a location of your choice and run the Setup.exe in that folder. After restarting, your Device Manager should report a clean set of components and your WEI should be a bit more favorable—ours is now 4.4.
Of course, we cannot account for every Mac configuration out there with this guide, but those driver folders are probably the best place to start if you have any other driver-less components or funky behavior. Audio on MacBooks and MacBook Pros has a tendency to stutter under Vista and Windows 7, for example, so manually installing RealTekSetup.exe in that \Drivers folder seemed to fix our problem. Some people recommend downloading the High Definition Audio drivers directly from Realtek's site, but that actually killed our audio, at least on this latest-generation unibody MacBook. As usual, your mileage may vary.
From there you should be set to run Windows 7 32-bit in Boot Camp. A performance review is outside the scope of this piece, though we did note a few things while doing basic, everyday stuff. On the whole, Windows 7 feels notably faster than Vista Home Premium on our MacBook, though both IE8 and Firefox got a bit crashy after installing Flash 10. Games seem to run better as well, as we installed Steam and noticed that Half Life 2 performs better at 800x600 and even 1024 resolutions. Two-finger scrolling works in most apps, but not in some areas, such as file open/save dialogs.
Unfortunately, we did not have as much luck with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 on our MacBook. The OS installs fine, but we could not fix missing driver problems for audio, Coprocessor, and SM Bus Controller components, regardless of using Boot Camp or other manual installations. The out-of-box experience was also pretty shaky, as applications were noticeably more prone to crashing, and bizarre visual artifacts like menu shadows would linger on screen.
Again, your mileage may vary on a different Mac. But considering the 64-bit-related driver and software problems of Vista, it may be better to stick with Windows 7 32-bit for now if you're going the Boot Camp route. If you have a different experience, definitely do share in the comments.
Virtualization
Windows 7 can be done in virtualization, though we'll tell you right now: neither Parallels nor VMware will announce official support until Microsoft's next OS officially ships. After all, this is a beta OS, so things can get a bit rocky for now, but Windows 7 in a VM can be done. Mostly.
We again grabbed both 32-bit and 64-bit copies of Windows 7 and fired up Parallels 4 and VMware Fusion 2. Both companies have done their small parts to help intrepid Windows 7 users to get set up, so we'll cover the fundamentals and note a few of the drawbacks that we found.
VMware Fusion
Setting up Windows 7 in VMware 2 is slightly easier than with Parallels, if only because the VM creation process supports little things like pasting in your license for the Windows installation process. Once installed, Windows also seemed to run a little better, or at least it was more stable, in VMware, though you will have to tweak some settings first.
According to the VMware folks, Windows 7 64-bit runs better as a VM than its lesser sibling, though the 32-bit version does work. Either way, when creating your VM, you will need to pick "Windows Server 2008" in order to get the best driver support once you're on the other side (be sure to chose "install other OS" if VMware detects your Windows 7 DVD or ISO as Vista). Provide at least 1GB of RAM and some storage breathing room; Windows 7 requires a minimum of 16GB of space, but we stuck with VMware's default of 40GB for this test.
There are two crucial features that you should be sure to disable before beginning the Windows 7 installation: 3D acceleration and Shared Folders, the latter of which allows Windows to access specific directories from your Mac OS X. The former is typically disabled by default, but Shared Folders is not, and a few posts in VMware's forums point out the perils of leaving this particular feature enabled. We turned it on post-installation, and Windows 7 became extremely flaky.
Once you have your VM configured properly, proceed with installation as normal. Upon your first boot into Windows 7, VMware will prompt you to install VMware Tools, which provides much of the driver support you need. Do it, restart, and you should find that, whether you went with the 64- or 32-bit version, Windows 7 should be ready to go. All drivers, including audio and networking, worked like a charm for us, though Windows 7 and its applications are a slightly different story.
In our experience it is indeed true that Windows 7 64-bit simply runs better in VMware Fusion. The OS feels snappier, most applications are pretty stable, and features like Unity (complete with a taskbar) and drag-and-drop between the OSes work as usual. We did, however, run into the occasional bizarre behavior. The entire VM locked up once when we had just a few tabs open in IE8, and multi-touch scrolling is a crapshoot. Windows 7 refused to see the driver updates on our MacBook's installation discs, and running Apple's Multi-Touch Trackpad Update (designed for XP and Vista) is met with a verbose "This update is not intended for this computer and will not be installed" error.
One could argue that Windows 7 32-bit in VMware is usable, but not without making a concession or five. The entire OS feels comparatively sluggish, and while booting the VMware window we experienced a very bizarre resizing behavior, as if someone was rapidly changing the resolution between extremes. Windows 7 32-bit is not good for much in VMware Fusion right now, but it will at least boot and run reasonably well (for an unsupported beta OS) if that's the only version you downloaded before Microsoft ended the program and you're just dying to check it out.
Parallels Desktop
Setting up Windows 7 in Parallels Desktop 4 is fairly similar to VMware Fusion, though in regard to 64- and 32-bit versions, the converse turned out to be true, at least for our MacBook. Parallels Desktop 4 offers a Windows 7 setup template, though you will have to manually type in your license during the Windows installation. 3D acceleration and Shared Folders are again recommended to be disabled, but other than that, you should be ready to go. Install Parallels Tools on first run, reboot and install a couple of minor Windows Updates, and you're set.
In our experience with installing both versions of Windows in Parallels Desktop, the 32-bit version is the way to go. With the 64-bit version, audio never worked even after installing Parallels Tools and trying various drivers, such as Realtek's Vista drivers. Networking and WiFi worked, but we saw strange and flaky behavior, such as FreeCell crashing the entire VM.
With Windows 7 32-bit, most components had drivers right out of the box, save for audio. A Windows Update supplied a generic Intel driver to fix that problem, and most features like drag-and-drop work well. Coherence model works for running Windows application without the Windows desktop, though the taskbar never shows, leaving the Start Menu and taskbar notifications hanging roughly 50 pixels above the Mac OS X Dock. Random behavior still runs amok, however, as FreeCell once again kills the 32-bit VM, so don't get ahead of yourself with any mission-critical work.
Conclusion
It ain't pretty, but Windows 7 on a Mac can be done no matter which form you need it to take. Once the new OS actually ships later this year, you can expect official and much more stable support from Parallels and VMware to follow shortly thereafter. Apple, on the other hand, has been notoriously slow at updating its Windows drivers for XP and Vista, so you will probably have to hold your breath a little longer for those.
Still, Windows 7 runs well enough on a Mac if you are not doing any crucial work, and it is definitely worth a look if you are at all interested in Microsoft's next OS. Windows 7 is a major leap past Vista, and it isn't hard to hop on the train now no matter how you roll with Windows on your Mac.
Source: arstechnica.com
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