Installing Vista on my IMac

I'm new to Mac and I'm trying to install Vista on to my Imac. I'm using Boot Camp and am able to partition my drive but when I try to install Vista the computer doesn't seem to recognize my installation disk. I should say that I purchased Vista directly for Microsoft and downloaded it using the Digital Locker. I don't know if this matters or not. What can I do to get Vista added and running on my partitioned drive? Please Help I kind of need MS Office to bring work home...

I bought that when I first l purchased the computer. I still seem to have some compatibility issues. I'm not sure if it's because my laptop has the old MS Office (O3 or O4 I think) and my IMac has the equivalent of Office 2007. I tried to test it and create something in Word on the IMac then email it to myself and open it with my PC laptop. It just looked like a bunch of gibberish no matter what I did to it. Is there some conversion or something I needed to do and didn't know? As always, thanks for the help. This is really helping me learn my way around the Mac.

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Bootcamp Question? Should I update bootcamp before installing Vista SP1

Hi,
I am about to install Vista SP1 on iMac, Leopard 10.5.4.
About a month back, there was a bootcamp update that had been posted on support download website. The question is; Do I need to install the Update before installing Vista or is that needs to be done after the installation of Vista?
Thanks for the help,

The update is consists only of new device drivers for Windows XP and Vista. There are different updates depending upon whether you install 32-bit XP, 32-bit Vista, or 64-bit Vista. So Windows must be installed first, the original drivers included on the Leopard DVD should be installed, then you can install the update in Windows.

Failed to install Windows Vista SP2 on iMac

I was trying to install Windows Vista on my iMac. In fact, I have successfully installed before but I deleted it because something wrong with it. However, the second time I installed was failed (Stuck at "Completing Installation") I tried 4 times and they were all the same. But the weirdest thing was I could install Windows Vista through Parallels Desktop. (but can't install it through boot camp)
I just thought of one problem
-I plugged in an external hard disk
Would it be the problem?
Is there any method that can solve this problem?

Hi,
I just thought of one problem
-I plugged in an external hard disk
Would it be the problem?
It is most likely the cause of your problem.
During installation of Vista (and personally I do this with OSX system upgrades as well) it is advisable to disconnect all non-essential external devices, leaving only mouse, keyboard and, if neccessary, display connected.
SO, disconnected your external HD, use the BootCamp Assistant to revert the partitioning back to a single-OSX volume and start again.
After reverting back you should restart your Mac.
Hope it helps
Stefan
Is there any method that can solve this problem?

Black/Blank Screen with Boot Camp Win 7 Install on new 27" iMac

I'm having a problem getting Windows 7 on a new 27" iMac and am familiar with the Boot Camp Windows installation process. Here's what I've done...
1. Run Boot Camp from OSX, partition the drive.
2. Insert Win 7 cd, proceed with installation.
3. Computer restarts and the 'preparing for initial setup' message displays with the Win 7 splash screen. When it switches to where it should be displaying the Win 7 desktop, the screen is black.
I can hear the Mac still running, but there's no display. It's like it's waiting for some type of user input for the intial Windows setup (haven't yet entered the key).
I've done a hard shutdown and restarted Windows with the exact same result. After reboot, I get the 'Windows was not shut down properly' message with the 3 safe mode options, where choosing either gets me the 'Windows cannot complete setup in safe mode'. And any key reboots it.
The Mac side still runs fine and holding the option key at start up gives the Mac/Win boot options.
I'm inclined to think that it's a video driver issue since the 27" is brand new. Maybe Apple used a new video card for the larger screen and haven't updated the Boot Camp drivers. I checked on ATI's site for an updated driver for the Radeon HD 4670 they say is in the new 27" model that's currently available. (not the quad core)
Is there any workaround for this? I was thinking of installing Vista instead, and upgrading to Win7 once installed, but if it's a driver thing, it would just be a long way to the same result and could have the same problem with Vista as well.
Any ideas?

I think I figured out what is happening here with the video drivers on the new iMac's and Win7. I believe it's re-directing the video to the mini display-port output when you see the screen go blank. I installed my Win7 x64 with no issues but I had an external monitor hooked up at the time and while it was installing the O/S my iMac went black but everything moved over to my external screen. Once it finished installing then everything went back to normal after a reboot.
Not sure if that helps anyone but pretty sure that's what is going on. So if you have another monitor handy, get the mini display-port adaptor from Apple and connect your external screen before you install Win7. Cheers!
P.S. If you have one of the new iMac's and want to install the latest Radeon drivers (after you have installed Win7 on your iMac), try the following. Download and install the drivers from ATI/AMD directly. They'll try to install and fail (no worries) but now the driver/install files will be unzipped into an ATI folder on your main Windows hard drive.
Now go to this site: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php and download the tool and use the Vista instructions listed on the main page of the URL above. You shouldn't need to download the MSXML 6.0 and I don't think you need to disable the UAC stuff like they suggest for Vista (I didn't) and it works fine. UAC is not nearly as intrusive on Win7 as it is in Vista so I think that's why it worked for me and pretty sure the MSXML 6.0 is already in Win7. Once the program has modified the mobile Radeon drivers then you can run "setup" from your ATI directory and the new drivers will finally install correctly including the Catalyst Control Center. Voila! I now have 9.10 drivers up and running on my new 27" iMac and working perfectly so far.
James
Message was edited by: joudbren

To install Vista (64 bit) do you have to install 64 bit XP??

I've tried and failed at a fresh install of Vista (on a separate HD) WITHOUT Boot Bamp. It crashes...
So I tried using Boot Camp and XP but only have the 32 bit version of XP.
Is the key to instally Vista using a 64 bit XP first??
I have a brand new MacPro 3gig with a fresh, second 500gb HD that I'd like to put Vista on....
Thanks

There are many users who have had success in installing Vista onto their Intel Macs although I believe there's a small trick to it. So, what you might want to do is search some other forums. I would start with the Boot Camp forums and then move onto other Intel Mac forums such as the iMac, MacBook or MacBook Pro forums.
By the way, you should not need a 64-bit version to work with the Mac Pro. A 32-bit version should be just fine.

Losing the will - Bay 2 1TB Hard Drive can't install Vista AT ALL!

I have a new Mac Pro and installed a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB hard drive in bay 2, solely for a Vista install (for editing AVCHD in Sony Vegas) but I cannot under any circumstances, install Vista on any partition, be it the full, halved, any combination at all - you name it, I can't install.
I get as far as the partition screen in Vista and his is where things slip up - I have had the Boot Camp partition (only on a split, never on the single partition) and it just will not let me install. Not under any circumstance.
This is appalling, I have been onto Apple who have escelated it to one of their engineers, he did not have a clue. Way to go.
So, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas or has experienced this?
BTW, I have not tried to install to the OS hard drive yet - don't really want to mess with it.
TIA

There are a number of things you can do, but in every case, you have to delete any FAT partition, create NTFS before you can install. In some cases, a restart from Vista DVD is required before it proceeds.
In one instance, I had to remove the OS X drive, but that may be why some jump to wrong conclusion about drive bays making a difference - they don't.
You got it installed so you must have been at least somewhat successful.
I use Disk Utility to create and format the drive 99% of the time. If you are going to dedicate a drive to Vista, even multiple FAT/NTFS partitions, I would set the partition table (Partition: Options.... in Disk Utility) to Master Boot Record rather than GUID.
Let Windows do all the updates through multiple reboots before you insert the Leopard DVD to add Apple setup.exe services often called "BootCamp drivers."
BootCamp Assistant is unnecessary and I don't think well designed even yet for use on Mac Pro UNLESS you need to install Windows on the same drive as OS X, such as you find on iMac/MacBook series.
Vista DVDs are now available with SP1 already, which is what I would buy today if I was buying Vista.
say "had" because a couple of days down the line when I tried to boot into Vista, I was met with a black screen and flashing cursor.
Any hardware changes? installed drivers?
When you say you looked far and wide... I have been active here and on Mac Pro discussion and Vista issue.
There are also some good threads on MacRumors:
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

Unable to install Vista OR XP (SP2)

Any help is appreciated here.
I've been running this Imac for months with dual boot via boot camp and have had no issues. Suddenly, last week, Vista will not boot. Missing file boot/bcd error
Due to my frustration, I figured I'd wipe Vista and reinstall (I use windows for gaming only).
I deleted that partition, created a new one and since have been unable to install Vista OR XP (which I tried as an alternative). I can create a 90 GB partition and Vista begins to install but it sees ONLY my Macintosh HD as a whole and can't see the partition. XP on the other hand can see the partition and installs but very slowly. The installed result is too slow for web browsing in fact.
This tells me that something is going on with the boot sector possibly in the files under bootcamp that allow you do choose the OS at startup.
So I then booted to my OSX install disk and did an install and archive thinking I would get a fresh copy of OSX and clean out any offending files. This proved to be the same result.
Does anyone have any ideas that may help? I would prefer not to wipe the HDD and begin from scratch as that means recreating profiles and importing photos, music and bookmarks for 4 users in the family on Leopard.
Thoughts?

I was able to recreate all the issues using both XP and Vista install discs this evening for tech support.
Next steps after several this evening will be the following:
1. Run the OSX Utilities from the OSX Install disc
2. reformat the entire hard drive (low level format)
3. Clean install of OSX
4. Run all updates
5. Install Vista with Boot camp
If that all works, I'll restore the MacHD from time machine.
If anyone has any other suggestions as well, I'd welcome them!

Any way to install Vista in 10.4 other than Boot Camp?

Since Boot Camp for Tiger went to the chopping block, is there any way to install Vista on my old-ish iMac? My brother's a gamer....

I don't think so.
The closest thing you can do would be getting VMware Fusion
It's a parallel so it runs right on your mac side
It's not quite as fast as native speed, but it's about 90%-95% and works really well for everything except gaming
There's a free beta out now, so you might wanna try that

Boot Camp Problem Installing Vista

I decided to install Windows vista on my iMac via Boot Camp. I start the application choose 20GB partition then when I put the disc in (Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 32BIT) and click Start Installation it starts up the disc but I get this black screen with a white underscore like this _ in the top left corner. I can't exit unless I restart hold down the option button and click my Mac partition. And when I do that I see a disc labeled Windows rather then a hard drive icon. I really need Windows for a lot of applications. If someone knows what I'm doing wrong please let me know. I have Mac OS X v10.5.6.
In short:
I start my Windows OS Disc via Boot Camp and I get black screen with a white underscore in the top left. My settings from Boot Camp are 20GB Windows partition. I don't know if thats too small for Vista or what please let me know. Thanks!

Since t his forum is for troubleshooting the installation of OS X, you should probably post your question in the Boot Camp forums:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=237

Installing vista from 5 Cd's

hi
i tried to install vista on iMac the vista i have is 5 Cd's but in installation process i cant change the Cd's it dont eject, even with f12 or key next to it(the eject key) i called support they said i can install vista just from dvd not cd is that true ?

i have a bigger problem, after i use bootcamp and made windows partition and the windows etup failed cuz the vista was on cd i restarted pressed alt and chosed macintosh and the system worked fine, then i used bootcamp again to remove the windows partition, every thing went ok, i came next day and ran the iMac to get a message "No Bootable device or some thing like that" so what happened ?
i inserted the leopard DVD that i got with the iMac and restarted i got the same messahe it didnt boot from dvd so what to do to restore my system ?

Cannot install Bootcamp Drivers from imac disk #1?

Installed 10.5 on new imac 2.4 GHZ with no problems. Updated to 10.5.1. Started Boot Camp install. When directed Installed Vista Ultimate with no problem. When directed Inserted imac disk #1 to install Drivers - showed zero(0) on disk. Inserted another CD and it loaded as normal. Re-inserted imac disk 1, still 0 on disk. Disk shows up on drive. Click on disk to open - 0 on disk. Set auto run - 0 on disk. No warning notices from Vista. Vista boots normal. 10.5 boots normal. Reinserted disk in Vista - no drivers - 0 on disk. Inserted disk #1 with 10.5 running - disk has normal install applications for imac(10.4). While in Mac OS did a search on disk # 1 for "setup.exe" - nothing found. Has anyone come across anything like this??

you can use your 10.6.x DVD for your Mac Pro.
There is no direct 3.04 installer, that is needed to be installed first.
Installation Guide Instructions for all features and settings.
Boot Camp 4.0 FAQ Get answers to commonly asked Boot Camp questions.
Windows 7 FAQ Answers to commonly asked Windows 7 questions.

Putting vista on a imac

hi,
just tried putting a original copy of vista on my imac with bootcamp. it gets to a point and said
I cant put windows on this drive because its not NTFS??
and there was no option to put it in NTFS, and i cant go any further
anyone help please
thanks

Select the BOOTCAMP partition. Selecting anything else is going to force you to re-install OS X, and unless you have a recent Time Machine backup, you’ll lose all of your data.
Now click the Drive options (advanced) link/button. Click Format and once it’s done, click OK. Now you can click Next.
see here - http://www.simplehelp.net/images/bootcamp/format.jpg
And here - http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/05/28/using-boot-camp-to-install-vista-on-your-ma c-the-complete-walkthrough/
Message was edited by: NA Smith
Message was edited by: NA Smith

Installing Vista on 2nd computer

I have just purchased a desktop iMac, and would like to install Windows Vista through Boot Camp. The trouble is I already have this copy of Vista on my MacBook Pro. Can I install it onto a second computer (legally) if I am only using it for myself? I really need it on both computers for critical software (Dragon Naturally Speaking) not available on Mac.

Hi,
you are legally allowed to install Vista on one computer only.
Microsoft verifies this through their Activation Process and prevents the activation of the second installation.
Sorry to say but you need a second license.
Stefan

Tecra M7 DVD: CD/DVD RAM drive does not work since installing Vista

I did a clean installation on my Vista Ready new M7. It had XP tablet to begin with and the DVD drive worked fine. Indeed I used it to install Vista (Home Premium).
Now it does not work at all. It spins but does not read. Device Manager tells me device cannot start. Tried to update driver and it told me that it has the most uptodate driver.
Downloaded all the drivers from Tosh download centre for Vista upgrade of M7 (which got bluetooth, screen rotation etc to work fine). But none of the downloads seemed to be a driver for the DVD-Ram drive. Can not find a driver anywhere else (including Panasonic site).
DVD drive is Mat****a DVD-RAM UJ-841s
Any suggestions?

Hi
On the Toshiba driver page you can find the DLA for Tecra m7.
Did you try to install the XP DVD-RAM driver from the Toshiba page on the Vista OS?
Maybe it will works
But listen the CD/DVD drive uses the common Microsoft drivers which are included into Vista or XP.
Therefore an additional driver should be not needed!
One additional proposal;
Remove the CD/DVD drive from the device manager and reboot the notebook.
After new reboot the OS should install the drive again and should renew the software.
Other hint:
- Start the registry
- Choose the registry key;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
- In the right pane, right-click UpperFilters and LowerFilters then click Delete.
- and restart the notebook

Installing vista 64 on a MacBook Pro (early 2008)

I hope this will save someone some time.
Leopard is the world’s most advanced operating system.
So advanced, it even lets you run Windows if there’s a PC
application you need to use. Just get a copy of Windows
and start up Boot Camp, now included with Leopard. Setup
is simple and straightforward — just as you’d expect with a
Mac.
Marketing hype.
Set up is nowhere as simple as with a DIY intel motherboard, a Dell or HP, Asus ...
If you follow the "instructions" trying to get vista64 up on a macbook pro you'll spend literally hours and end up with a half working system. I have a retail copy of Leopard 10.5, installing the drivers from that resulted in non functional:
802.11
Ethernet
Audio
No Graphics acceleration
No iSight
If you are installing vista on a modern computer (a core 2 duo processor and better) then you really want to install vista 64, it runs faster and it addresses more ram. I'm sure the situation for vista32 is better, I was just astounded at the virtual lack of support for 64 bit.
The boot camp fiasco was install vista, install the drivers from the leopard disk and try to install the 2.1 boot camp update. Installing vista from the os x boot camp (ie put the vista media in the drive, run boot camp and in theory Windows installs) resulted in a freeze on restart, a black screen with a frozen underbar cursor.
So I just booted from the vista dvd (64 bit media with sp1) worked like a charm. To do this hold the option key down as the machine is restarting, and choose the vista dvd as the boot disk in the boot picker. That worked nicely. Another point is that boot camp will make a partition for you, but it will be a DOS FAT-32 partition. This makes a certain amount of sense since it allows both Vista and OS X to read and write the windows partition, however vista will probably be happier with an ntfs partition, and in the vista installer you can select this option and reformat the partition.
Vista installed with no hitches (though it will restart a few times, it might be worth setting the default boot volume to the vestigial vista install using the OS X sys prefs after the first restart to avoid needing to stand over the install to hit the option key. Once vista was up I made the next boot camp discovery.
The BC 2.1 update will not run on my install. This seems like a very common thing for the 64 bit version. The web has speculation that you need to install the Mac Pro drivers on the MacBook and mostly the 2.1 64 nit BC update is reported to install. I don't really want to deal with bit torrent, and that seems to fly in the face of Apple's interests so it's odd the drivers are just not on Apples site in seperate install packages for each device.
It's possible I need a newer retail leopard, but even so a "real" hardware company would provide individual driver installers on their site. After futzing around every which way with boot camp trying to get net and other things working, I had a realization.
Forget boot camp.
It's probably a waste of time.
The four things I care about are net (wired and 802.11, display drivers, audio).
A troll around the net dug up Marvell Yukon drivers for Vista64 (Marvell's site), Broadcom 43xx drivers (in an asus package from a random site), Realtek ALC885 drivers (from realtek's site). Video I've not got to yet, I booted into OS X to look at "about this mac" to see what kind of hardware is in this puppy. And while I was here I thought I'd write this up in case it saves anyone else some pain.
You'll need to do a manual install of the realtek and broadcom drivers, the marvel installer did the right thing. To do that, bring up the start menu (bottom LH corner), find computer on the right hand side of this. Right click that and choose "Manage". Click devices and then navigate to the device for which you want to reinstall the drivers, double click to get the properties dialog, hit the drivers tab and click the reinstall button, manually install the drivers, navigating to the folder you unzipped the driver files to.
I now have networking and sound, display is up next. I deinstalled Apple's software update stuff and boot camp. Vista 64 works quite well once you get the non apple supplied drivers on there.
-- Nick

Poetsave wrote:
I just bought my first Mac, Macbook Pro 15in 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 320GB Serial ATA; 5400 rpm.
I installed XP of a disk I had then used a Vista upgrade disk i had to install Vista. I noticed quickly that it was a 32bit version since it only recognized 3gb ram. I have been trolling the forums here and still have yet to get a straight answer on how to install vista 64 and have it actually work. So when what you are saying is I need a Mac Pro disk? Not the disk that came with my Macbook Pro to install all the drivers I need?
James
So it really depends. If you have an "early 2008" MBP as follows:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.27f1
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxx
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
Then the disk from an equivalent Mac Pro (needs to be of similar vintage) may help you. But if you have once of the newer models ("late 2008") this has an nVidia chipset in it and the drivers for that may not be on the Mac Pro.
You'll need 64bit drivers for the nVidia chipset for this to work.
A side note is that the EFI implementation on the "Early 2008" MPB might well be 32 bit, so it's debatable if you get the full advantage of 64bit Vista in terms of performance. It worked for me, but YMMV. In any case when Windows 7 ships, my Macs will mostly be in "Legacy" mode.
-- Nick

Installing Vista on my IMac

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