El Capitan boot camp assistant will fail to remove your Windows partition if you don't want that Windows installation. And you will likely end up with backing up your Mac OS X and format the whole. Question: Q: Bootcamp windows 7 el capitan. Hi there, I was trying to install windows 7 on my 15' late 2011 MBpro. I am using a usb stick with an.ISO file. El Cap seems to have nuked my Bootcamp created Windows 10 partition and it won't let me install one outright. I get the 'This is GPT partition style' error, and I'm not sure how to fix it under El Capitan.

What you need to install Windows 10 on Mac

• MacBook introduced in 2015 or later
• MacBook Air introduced in 2012 or later
• MacBook Pro introduced in 2012 or later
• Mac mini introduced in 2012 or later
  

• iMac introduced in 2012 or later¹
• iMac Pro (all models)
• Mac Pro introduced in 2013 or later
  

The latest macOS updates, which can include updates to Boot Camp Assistant. You will use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10.

64GB or more free storage space on your Mac startup disk:

• Your Mac can have as little as 64GB of free storage space, but at least 128GB of free storage space provides the best experience. Automatic Windows updates require that much space or more.
• If you have an iMac Pro or Mac Pro with 128GB of memory (RAM) or more, your startup disk needs at least as much free storage space as your Mac has memory.²

An external USB flash drive with a storage capacity of 16GB or more, unless you're using a Mac that doesn't need a flash drive to install Windows.

A 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro on a disk image (ISO) or other installation media. If installing Windows on your Mac for the first time, this must be a full version of Windows, not an upgrade.

• If your copy of Windows came on a USB flash drive, or you have a Windows product key and no installation disc, download a Windows 10 disk image from Microsoft.
• If your copy of Windows came on a DVD, you might need to create a disk image of that DVD.
  

How to install Windows 10 on Mac

To install Windows, use Boot Camp Assistant, which is included with your Mac.

1. Check your Secure Boot setting

Learn how to check your Secure Boot setting. The default Secure Boot setting is Full Security. If you changed it to No Security, change it back to Full Security before installing Windows. After installing Windows, you can use any Secure Boot setting without affecting your ability to start up from Windows.

2. Use Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition

Open Boot Camp Assistant, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. Follow the onscreen instructions.

• If you're asked to insert a USB drive, plug your USB flash drive into your Mac. Boot Camp Assistant will use it to create a bootable USB drive for Windows installation.
• When Boot Camp Assistant asks you to set the size of the Windows partition, remember the minimum storage-space requirements in the previous section. Set a partition size that meets your needs, because you can't change its size later.

3. Format the Windows (BOOTCAMP) partition

When Boot Camp Assistant finishes, your Mac restarts to the Windows installer. If the installer asks where to install Windows, select the BOOTCAMP partition and click Format. In most cases, the installer selects and formats the BOOTCAMP partition automatically.

4. Install Windows

Unplug any external devices that aren't necessary during installation. Then click Next and follow the onscreen instructions to begin installing Windows.

5. Use the Boot Camp installer in Windows

After Windows installation completes, your Mac starts up in Windows and opens a ”Welcome to the Boot Camp installer” window. Follow the onscreen instructions to install Boot Camp and Windows support software (drivers). You will be asked to restart when done.

• If the Boot Camp installer never opens, open the Boot Camp installer manually and use it to complete Boot Camp installation.
• If you have an external display connected to a Thunderbolt 3 port on your Mac, the display will be blank (black, gray, or blue) for up to 2 minutes during installation.

How to switch between Windows and macOS

Restart, then press and hold the Option (or Alt) ⌥ key during startup to switch between Windows and macOS.

Learn more

If you have one of these Intel-based Mac models using OS X El Capitan or later, you don't need a USB flash drive to install Windows:

• MacBook introduced in 2015 or later
• MacBook Air introduced in 2017 or later³
• MacBook Pro introduced in 2015 or later³

• iMac introduced in 2015 or later
• iMac Pro (all models)
• Mac Pro introduced in late 2013 or later
  

To remove Windows from your Mac, use Boot Camp Assistant, not any other utility.

For more information about using Windows on your Mac, open Boot Camp Assistant and click the Open Boot Camp Help button.

El Capitan Boot Camp Windows 10

1. If you're using an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) or iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) or iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) with a 3TB hard drive and macOS Mojave or later, learn about an alert you might see during installation.

2. For example, if your Mac has 128GB of memory, its startup disk must have at least 128GB of storage space available for Windows. To see how much memory your Mac has, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac. To see how much storage space is available, click the Storage tab in the same window.

3. These Mac models were offered with 128GB hard drives as an option. Apple recommends 256GB or larger hard drives so that you can create a Boot Camp partition of at least 128GB.

El Capitan Boot Camp Win 10

It can’t be done.

Update: It seems that it really can’t be done now, if you’re running a later version of macOS. I’ve had reports of Boot Camp crashing if you try to amend the Boot Camp Assistant software as outlined in Step 2 below.

Well, not if you take Apple’s Boot Camp software at face value. It suggests that only Windows 7 can be installed, and (by implication) anything newer should be left to newer Macs. But having seen the specifications of some modern Windows PCs I was fairly confident that it would run. Possibly even quite well. So I persevered.

There is a lot of advice about how to get later versions of Windows running on older Macs. Much of it is very complicated and quite possibly works if you know exactly what you are doing and the wind is behind you.

I tried some of these more complicated solutions without any success. I spent several hours over a number of days disabling system integrity protection (which doesn’t sound like a good idea), manually blessing disks (really), and creating special versions of the Windows 10 installer DVDs, which ultimately told me to press any key and then proceeded to ignore that key press and do nothing.

The wind has been very swirly recently.

In the end I decided to adopt a more basic approach: I simply overrode the Boot Camp setting that said it couldn’t be done.

And it was simple – changing one number in the appropriate info.plist file.

Then I ran Boot Camp again and was told that of course my 2008 MacBook Pro was more than capable of running any version of Windows and when would I like to begin? I’m paraphrasing slightly. So I put in my Windows DVD and ran through the process of selecting a partition size and installing the operating system – all without any issues.

Then, when Windows 10 was successfully installed, I ran the Windows Boot Camp support software – and was told that it wasn’t compatible. Having heard that before, I ignored it and instead of running the main setup executable, installed the drivers via the Windows driver package that was also available with the support software (BootCamp.msi). Once that had crashed (oh) and I’d rebooted the computer I found that nearly everything was working as expected, with a crisp looking display and basic touchpad support.

There are one or two issues that I still need to look at – such as getting two finger scrolling working – but nothing that you don’t get with most new PCs (don’t ask my girlfriend about her oversensitive ASUS touchpad if you value your life). And the whole process was a lot simpler and quicker than trying to install Windows manually.

Now I have to remember why I started this process in the first place.

Steps for installing Windows 10 on your old MacBook Pro

Bootcamp Drivers Windows 10

If you follow these steps you do so at your own risk and with no guarantee that things will work out. I used a late-2008 MacBook Pro. Others of a similar vintage might well work.

Step 1

Get a copy of Windows 10. Fairly obvious but worth mentioning. You can download a copy of the Windows installer DVD in iso format from here:

You will need the 64 bit version.

To keep things simple you will need to create an actual DVD from this file, but in El Capitan that is very easy. Once the file is downloaded, insert a blank DVD (we all have those still lying around don’t we?), right-click on the iso file and select Burn to Disc.

Step 2

This is the important bit. Find the Boot Camp Assistant software in the Applications > Utilities folder on your Mac, right-click and select ’Show Package Contents’. That should open up the software package to show a Contents folder. Open that and you’ll see a list of files including one called info.plist, which is the main configuration file for the Boot Camp Assistant software.

Open that file in a text editor (I use the excellent TextWrangler) and look for this block of text:

We are interested in the MacBookPro entry. This part of this configuration file says that anything before the MacBook Pro 5,5 should only have Windows 7 installed. You can find out the version of your MacBook Pro in El Capitan by selecting ‘About This Mac’ from the Apple menu and then System Report. All you need to do is make sure that the number in the info.plist file is earlier than the MacBook Pro you are attempting to install the Windows operating system on. I changed it to MacBookPro4,5 to be on the safe side.

Save the file.

Step 3

Os X El Capitan Boot Camp Windows 10

Run the Boot Camp Assistant software, tick both boxes when prompted to do so and follow the on screen instructions.

You will need a USB flash drive to install the Apple support software for Windows (this includes all of the drivers required to get the screen, keyboard, trackpad etc working).

Step 4

When the whole process is over and Windows has installed, make sure the USB flash drive is attached.

Unfortunately the main setup.exe file on the USB flash drive won’t run properly. It will tell you that you can’t install the drivers for this Mac. Fortunately, you can ignore this and install the drivers manually by navigating to BootCamp > Drivers > Apple on the USB flash drive and running BootCamp.msi by double-clicking on it. This process may hang – it did for me when attempting to install some audio drivers.

Mac Os El Capitan Bootcamp Windows 10

Whether it does or not, once it has finished you should reboot. Windows should restart with most of the relevant drivers in place. Or you might end up with no sound like me. Fortunately I was able to resolve that by diving back into the BootCamp > Drivers folder and then into the RealTek folder to install the audio drivers by running RealtekSetup.exe. After another reboot the audio was fine.

So far, I haven’t come across any major problems other than the audio. I’ve installed Visual Studio and tried a few other things and it has all worked as expected. Obviously your mileage may vary and there are no guarantees, but it certainly works well enough for what I need.

It can be done.