Apple Boot Camp To Support Win 7 — Except for Some 2006 Macs

Ed Sutherland ()

windows_7_screen

Apple’s Boot Camp reportedly will support Microsoft’s newly-released Windows 7 operating system by year’s end, but Macs produced in 2006 may be out of luck. The Cupertino, Calif. company informed retailers Boot Camp for Mac OS X Snow Leopard will exclude Windows 7 support for some iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros.

In a memo, the company announced the following models “will not be supported for use with Windows 7 using Boot Camp”:

  • iMac (17-inch, Early and Late 2006)
  • iMac (20-inch, Early and Late 2006)
  • MacBook Pro (15- and 17-inch, Early and Late 2006)
  • Mac Pro (Mid-2006, Intel Xeon Dual-Core 2.66GHz and 3GHz)

    • Although Apple has yet to explain reasons for excluding 2006 Macs, speculation centers on a possible lack of drivers that could result in some devices not fully functional under Windows. Boot Camp includes a CD of drivers enabling Mac-specific features such as the built-in iSight camera, backlit keyboard and more. Additionally, Snow Leopard’s version of Boot Camp also supports reading HFS+ volumes under Windows.

    A solution may come from third-party device makers or Windows 7 which could install device drivers but not provide full support. Apple is expected to release updated support for Windows 7 drivers.

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    [Via AppleInsider and 9to5Mac]

    3 comments »

    About the author

    Ed Sutherland

    Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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    • SenatorK

      I own a 2006 Core Duo MacBook which I’ve been using Win 7 RC. Works just fine. Most Vista drivers should work well with 7.

    • dbg

      Not sure if this the only reason, but none of the systems listed supports OpenCL.

    • http://www.teenbootcamps.org kids boot camp

      “Although Apple has yet to explain reasons for excluding 2006 Macs, speculation centers on a possible lack of drivers that could result in some devices not fully functional under Windows.”
      Very intriguing post. I never knew that there are like this issues that they need to talk about.