Is there any way windows 8.1 can be installed on an early 2008 iMac?

Question

     Hello apple community! I've had various desktop maps since the mid-90's, but over the past 6 years I have found myself limited many times due to my computer being incompatible with many third party programs and various games that are only supported by windows. Therefore, I have finally gone out and purchased windows 8.1 from my local best buy to be run alongside Yosemite. I brought in all of my computer specifications and was told that I would be able to run the operating system.
The minimum requirements are as follows:
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
My specs are as follows:
iMac (20-inch, Early 2008)
OS X Yosemite (Version 10.10)
Processor: 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 4 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (just updated)
Hard disk space: 332.3 GB free of 639.28 GB (plus a new 1 TB external drive that is in the process of being filled)
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
Apparently my computer can only run bootcamp 4 and not bootcamp 5. Therefore, windows 8 is not supported for it can only be installed with bootcamp 5.
Sources: 1.Boot Camp 4, OS X Lion and Mountain Lion: Frequently asked questions - Apple Support
               2. Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems - Apple Support
However, I've read articles about people possibly getting past these limitations, but they don't exactly follow my issue and may be outdate. Such as, http://www.videograndpa.com/?p=2628. I've seen posts from people in the forms saying that they are running windows 8 on their early 2008 mac, but they are from over a year ago. I've also read that apple may have had support for these operating systems, but dropped them, but the links to this information were broken. Best Buy has agreed to let me return Windows 8.1, but only for store credit. That is not fair if it turns out that I can not install it operating system when I was told I could by their employee.
     So, in conclusion, I'm wondering if anyone knows if I can install Windows 8.1 on my iMac from early 2008 with Yosemite and if they could walk me through it or link me somewhere that can. Thank you for your time.
William

Answer 1

Don't use a virtual machine, it's kinda cpu intensive. You CAN install windows 8.1 on your 2008 iMac. I know this because just a couple weeks ago I installed an official windows 8.1 disk on my 2009 iMac. You do NOT need to use bootcamp for it although you WILL need the boot camp drivers. Just put the drivers onto a thumb drive. You will need to install them manually, it's really easy though, so don't get discouraged. The only thing you need bootcamp for is to download the drivers onto the thumb drive. You can also download drivers for bootcamp version 5 from the apple website.
Here is how you do it: Go to disk utility inside applications folder and then utilities folder. Add a second partition to your mac and format it as FAT32.
Put the windows disk in your computer and reboot your computer. Hold down the OPTION key and then choose the "windows" disk then hit enter. Follow the instructions.
In the beginning there will be a screen asking you to select which partition you want to install windows on, highlight it, and then click on "format" because it is then going to reformat the partition as NTFS. It only takes a second. Just follow the installation instructions, it's pretty straight forward from there. And just to forewarn you, apple doesn't care to update the drivers for SOUND, people with iMac's running windows don't have sound so you will need a third party sound card adapter with a headphone and microphone jack and use either headphones or an external speaker. I got a cheap one from ebay for just a few bucks. I use the "Syba" brand and it works, it even plays that pretty windows startup sound. All sounds work, even youtube.
Thank me later! By the way, I think you will find that windows 8.1 runs way faster and smoother than mavericks or yosemite. The mac os's have gotten pretty buggy and bloated over the years and so I think we are making a switch to windows at the right time. Everyone is saying how much better microsoft has gotten and I can tell. I have everything pretty much set up how I like it in my windows 8.1 partition and it's pretty fast. Also, it is WORTH IT to pay for the MacDrive software. Just google it. It will enable you to view and change any apple formatted disk/drive, including your mac osx partition on your internal hard drive. This is important for me because all of my music is on my mac partition in itunes and I need it to add music to my iPod classic 160gb but with macdrive I can listen to the music in vlc player or windows media player. I don't think I will install itunes on windows because everyone says the windows version is buggy.