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Windows 7 is still a popular desktop OS favored by millions of users across the globe. There are various reasons why users want to install Windows 7 on Mac, and since Windows and Mac are two different products from two completing companies, it is quite challenging to do such cross-platform installation due to technology barrier.
With a bootable Windows USB, you will not only have the ability to install, but also repair Windows 7 on Mac. A bootable USB will give you the speed, convenience and portability you need to make such installations, and they are also easy to take care of compared to installation discs. Whether or not you are a techie, you can use the steps outlined below to install Windows 7 on Mac without problems at all.
Honestly, Boot Camp could be our first choice for installing Windows on Mac as dual boot, but it has too issues and errors according to our testing result and user feedback. So we will pick up another method to do this to avoid wasting time on Bootcamp as it does not working in most of the times.
Part 1: Download Windows 7 ISO on Mac
Before we get started installing Windows 7 on Mac, the first step is to get or download a Windows 7 disc image. You can rip it from Windows 10 installation DVD or download the trial from Microsoft web site. Don't worry too much. This is much easier on a Mac computer.
Now click this link that leads to the Windows 7 ISO download page. And input a valid Windows 7 product key to activate the download. After that, select the lanague and Windows 7 version before the downloading process begins. However, if you didn't have a license key, you can download the ISO from other file hosting websites.
Part 2: Create Windows 7 USB Installer on Mac without Bootcamp
Once Windows 7 ISO is downloaded, the next move is to burn the ISO to USB. Since the majority of users may not have a lot of technical knowledge on how the burning works, it is highly recommended that you use third-party app like UUByte ISO Editor so that you can accomplish the installation with minimal effort. UUByte ISO Editor is one of the best applications in the world for burning ISO files to USB as well as creating bootable media for installation purposes.
It is easy to use, and it allows you to change your storage and installation preferences in a very simply manner. Additionally, it is compatible with a variety of file systems, including UEFI and legacy BIOS boot schemes. One of the things you will admire about UUByte ISO Editor is the high success rate it comes with, and with a very simple UI. Whether you are a pro or a novice, you will find using the tool quite easy and intuitive. Use the steps below to download UUByte ISO Editor to your computer and to create a bootable Windows 7 USB.
Step 1: Download and install UUByte ISO Editor in the Mac where you want to install Windows 7. You will be required to give a password before you can start the program, and once you do this, you will be taken to the screen shown below.
Step 2: Upon launching the software, choose the 'Burn' option so that you can start the process of creating a bootable USB.
Step 3: Select the Windows ISO file you had downloaded on the previous step, choose the USB option and click, 'Bun' to commence the process. In a short while, the bootable drive will be created and from this, you will have an easy way to create to proceed with the installation of Windows 7 on Mac.
Download Windows 10 Pro For Mac
With UUByte ISO Editor for Mac, you don't have to worry about using the advanced settings or even tampering with the command line. The software will do the formatting so that you don't have to worry about complex and lengthy actions. Indeed, it is a great alternative to Boot Camp app.
Part 3: Make a New Partition for Windows 7 on Mac SSD
Now you have a bootable Windows 7 USB to be used for OS installation. However, the situation is much different on a Mac because the internal drive on Mac is formated to APFS or HFS+, which is unable to hold Windows 7 partition. You have to manually create a new partition being formatted to FAT or FAT32.
To add a new partition for Windows 7 OS, please first take a full backup of your Mac internal drive. If something went wrong, you can still restore the machine from backup. This is an important step for protecting your data.
After that, run Disk Utility app and locate the internal drive from right side. Then, click the Partition tab on top menu and choose MS-DOS(FAT) in Format column. Next, set a size for Windows volume. It should be more than 50G to run Windows 7 smoothly on Mac.
Part 4: Install Windows 7 from USB on Mac without Boot Camp
At this point, you have already downloaded the Windows ISO and created a bootable Windows 7 USB with the help of the UUByte ISO Editor tool. Now, the next step is to simply boot your Mac from the USB so that you can proceed and install Windows 7on Mac. To do this, use the following step.
Boot Mac from USB: Connect the USB flash drive to an USB port and reboot Mac while holding onto the Option key. If you did everything correctly, the USB name appears on the startup screen, where you can select the device to boot from. Click the USB drive name and you should be able to see Windows 7 logo.
Install Windows 7 on Mac: From this stage, the installation process will be the normal one, and all you have to do is follow the prompts and make any adjustments on the settings as you wish. If, however, the computer doesn't booth from the USB flash drive, try to disable the SIP by attempting to boot from the recovery partition. The startup selector should come up, and this should now allow you to boot from the USB flash drive. And the most important part is to choose the newly created partition to install Windows 7 on it. Wait for about 10 minutes and the installation will be finished.
Part 5: Download Windows Support Software (Optional)
The Windows 7 installation image only ships with the minimal package of devcie drivers. Some of the new hardware may be not working when you run Windows 7 on a Mac. You have to update or install the missing drivers for certain devices. Fortunately, Apple has a solid plan for this.
To download latest Windows drivers, you have to roll back to Mac and launch Boot Camp Assistant app. Click the Action tab and open Download Windows Support Software wizard. Now select a local folder to save the drivers. Wait about 5 minutes amd copy the entire WindowsSupport folder to Windows 7 install USB.
Reboot Mac into Windows 7 and plug in the USB drive. Go to WindowsSupport folder and run setup.exe from BootCamp subfolder. This will install all necessary drivers for all hardware on this computer.
This step is mandatory only when some of the hardware are not working. If everything goes fine, then just skip this part for sure.
Conclusion
There are other methods you could use to install Windows on Mac without Bootcamp but the above suggestion is the easiest one you can go with. And it takes much less time with low risky. That's the reason we share in at here. You can also use Bootcamp or Terminal app to get the same result but it is much harder to do this without advanced computer knowledge.
Most new PCs don't come with DVD drives anymore. So it can be a pain to install Windows on a new computer.
Luckily, Microsoft makes a tool that you can use to install Windows from a USB storage drive (or 'thumbdrive' as they are often called).
But what if you don't have a second PC for setting up that USB storage drive in the first place?
Make Windows Usb On Mac
In this tutorial we'll show you how you can set this up from a Mac.
You can download the ISO file straight from Windows. That's right - everything we're going to do here is 100% legal and sanctioned by Microsoft.
If you want an English-language version of the latest update of Windows 10, you can download the ISO here.
If you have a relatively new computer, you probably want the 64-bit version. If you're not sure, go with the 32-bit version to be safe.
If you want a non-English-language version of Windows, or want to get an older update version, download the ISO here instead.
The ISO file is only about 5 gigabytes, but I recommend you use a USB drive with at least 16 gigabytes of space just in case Windows needs more space during the installation process.
I bought a 32 gigabyte USB drive at Walmart for only $3, so this shouldn't be very expensive.
Stick your USB drive into your Mac. Then open your terminal. You can do this using MacOS Spotlight by pressing both the ⌘ and Space bar at the same time, then typing 'terminal' and hitting enter.
Don't be intimidated by the command line interface. I'm going to tell you exactly which commands to enter.
Open Mac Spotlight using the ⌘ + space keyboard shortcut. Then type the word 'terminal' and select Terminal from the dropdown list.
Paste the following command into your terminal and hit enter:
diskutil list
You will see output like this (note - your Mac's terminal may be black text on a white background if you haven't customized it).
Copy the text I point to here. It will probably be something like
/dev/disk2 .
Next format your USB drive to Windows FAT32 format. This is a format that Windows 10 will recognize.
Note that you should replace the
disk2 with the name of the your drive from step 3 if it wasn't disk2 . (It may be disk3 or disk4 ).
Run this command using the correct disk number for your USB:
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS 'WIN10' GPT /dev/disk2
Then you'll see terminal output like this.
This will probably only take about 20 seconds on a newer computer, but may take longer on an older computer.
Note that for some hardware, you may instead need to run this command, which uses the MBR format for partitioning instead of GPT. Come back and try this command if step 7 fails, then redo steps 5, 6, and 7:
Now we're going to prep our downloaded ISO file so we can copy it over to our USB drive.
You will need to check where your downloaded Windows 10 ISO file is and use that. But your file is probably located in your
~/Downloads folder with a name of Win10_1903_V1_English_x64.iso .
hdiutil mount ~/Downloads/Win10_1903_V1_English_x64.iso
Update April 2020: One of the files in the Windows 10 ISO – install.wim – is now too large to copy over to a FAT-32 formatted USB drive. So I'll show you how to copy it over separately.
Thank you to @alexlubbock for coming up with this workaround.
First run this command to copy over everything but that file:
rsync -vha --exclude=sources/install.wim /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/ /Volumes/WIN10
Then run this command to install Homebrew (if you don't have it installed on your Mac yet):
/usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)'
Then use Homebrew to install a tool called wimlib with this terminal command:
brew install wimlib
Then go ahead and create the directory that you're going to write the files into:
mkdir /Volumes/WIN10/sources
Then run this command. It will use wimlib to split the install.wim file into 2 files less than 4 GB each, then copy them over to your USB:
wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/WIN10/sources/install.swm 4000
Once that's done, you can eject your USB from your Mac inside Finder.
Congratulations - your computer now should boot directly from your USB drive. If it doesn't, you may need to check your new PC's BIOS and change the boot order to boot from your USB drive.
Windows will pop up a screen and start the installation process.
Enjoy your new PC, and your newly-installed copy of Windows.
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