If you have a 32-bit version of Windows 7 or 8.1 installed, you'll need to install the 32-bit version first to take advantage of the free upgrade. If you're upgrading an existing Windows system, you'll have to upgrade from the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 or 8.1. If you're installing Windows 10 from scratch, you'll need the 64-bit edition of Windows 10.
If you'd like to perform a clean install of Windows 10, you can do that in the future after taking advantage of the free upgrade once. Just ensure you've updated your Apple software first. If you have Windows 7 or 8.1 installed on a Mac, you can take advantage of the free upgrade offer and get Windows 10. Once you've finished installing Windows through Boot Camp Assistant, you can't go back and change the partition size when you add more storage to your Mac.Apple now supports Windows 10 in Boot Camp. You Can't Change the Partition Size After Installation Regardless of how much space you choose to allocate, it's clear that you have to give up a huge chunk of your hard drive if you want to get the best performance while using Windows. As mentioned above, the partition size should be at least 64 GB, though Apple recommends 128 GB. Boot Camp Takes Up A Lot of Space You must create a partition to install a second OS on your Mac. You can still easily share files between Mac and Windows using a USB or a cloud service. This lack of interoperability means any file you save on Windows will not show up in macOS likewise, you won't be able to access any of your macOS files on Windows. Since you're not using the two operating systems simultaneously, there's no way to transfer files from one OS to another. This is perhaps the biggest disadvantage of Boot Camp Assistant. To switch between the different operating systems, you have to reset your Mac and choose which OS you want to run on the startup screen. You Can't Use Two Operating Systems at the Same Timeīoot Camp doesn't allow you to run two operating systems at the same time. You can find Boot Camp Assistant either in Applications > Utilities or the Launchpad on your Mac.ġ. Even then, you'd only be able to run ARM-based Windows, so you'll be restricted in terms of what programs you can run. Unfortunately, Boot Camp Assistant isn't available on Apple silicon Macs, so if you have an M1 or M2 Mac, your only option is to use virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop to run Windows. Later versions of Boot Camp allowed the installation of Windows 7, 8, and above on Intel Macs. Initially, it only supported Windows XP and Windows Vista, but the release of Boot Camp 5.0 also brought Windows 7 support.
Apple introduced it alongside Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in 2007. Boot Camp Assistant is a tool that's built into every Intel-based Mac. What Is Boot Camp Assistant?īoot Camp Assistant is one of the ways to run Windows on your Mac. Mac's built-in Boot Camp Assistant is what makes the process easy, but should you use it? Learn the pros and cons to decide for yourself. Some users may want to test programs on different operating systems, whereas others like to play games that only run on Windows. There are many reasons someone would want to run Windows on a Mac.