Boot Camp (software)

Boot Camp is a multi-boot feature supported by Apple for their macOS operating system to assist users in installing, managing, and booting into Microsoft Windows on Intel-based Macintosh computers. The Boot Camp Assistant utility guides users through non-destructive disk partitioning, including resizing of an existing HFS+ or APFS partition, if necessary, of their hard disk drive or solid-state drive and installation of Windows device drivers for the Apple hardware. Boot Camp Assistant also handles the installation of a Windows Control Panel applet to control the selection of the default boot operating system.

Initially an unsupported beta for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Boot Camp was introduced with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and has been included in subsequent versions of the operating system. Previous versions of Boot Camp supported Windows XP and Windows Vista. Boot Camp 4.0 for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 up to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion version 10.8.2 supported only Windows 7. With the release of Boot Camp 5.0 for Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in version 10.8.3, only 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 are supported.

Boot Camp 6.0 added support for 64-bit versions of Windows 10. Boot Camp 6.1, available on macOS 10.12 Sierra and later, will accept only new installations of Windows 7 and later. This requirement was upgraded to requiring Windows 10 for macOS 10.14 Mojave.

Boot Camp is not supported on Apple silicon Macs, though it is possible to run ARM-based Windows 10 or Windows 11 via virtualization.

Overview

Installation

Installing Windows 10 on a Mac requires an ISO image of Windows 10 provided by Microsoft. Boot Camp combines Windows 10 with install scripts to load hardware drivers for the targeted Mac computer.

Boot Camp supports Windows 10 on Macs dated mid-2012 or newer. Apple silicon is not supported due to being ARM-based; although Windows 11 is able to run on ARM64, Microsoft only licenses Windows releases for ARM64 to original equipment manufacturers, and there are no drivers for the Apple silicon SoCs, so Windows cannot run on Apple silicon Macs natively.

Start-up Disk

A Mac boots from the last-used start-up disk. Holding down the option key (⌥) at startup brings up the boot manager which allows users to choose in which operating system to start the device. When using a non-Apple keyboard, the alt key performs the same action. The boot manager can also be launched by pressing the menu button on the Apple Remote at startup.

On older Macs, its functionality relies on BIOS emulation through EFI and a partition table information synchronization mechanism between GPT and MBR combined.

On newer Macs, Boot Camp keeps the hard disk as a GPT so that Windows is installed and booted in UEFI mode.

Requirements

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Apple's Boot Camp system requirements lists the following requirements for Mac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion:

• 8 GB USB storage device, or external drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) for installation of Windows drivers for Mac hardware
• 20 GB free hard disk space for a first-time installation or 40 GB for an upgrade from a previous version of Windows
• A full version of one of the following operating systems: Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate (64-bit editions only) Windows 8 and Windows 8 Professional (64-bit editions only) Windows 10 Home, Pro, Pro for Workstation, Education or Enterprise (64-bit editions only)

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Apple lists the following requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:

• An Intel-based Macintosh computer with the latest firmware. Early Intel-based Mac computers require an EFI firmware update for BIOS compatibility.
• A Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard installation disc or Mac OS X Disc 1 included with Macs that have Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard preinstalled. The disc is needed for installation of Windows drivers for Mac hardware.
• 10 GB free hard disk space (16 GB is recommended for Windows 7)
• A full version of one of the following operating systems: Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 or higher (32-bit editions only) Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit editions) Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit editions)

Supported Mac computers with Windows 8

The earliest Macs that support Windows 8 are the mid-2011 MacBook Air, 13" mid-2011 or 15" and 17" mid-2010 MacBook Pro, except the mid-2010 13" computers, mid-2011 Mac Mini, 21" mid-2011 or 27" mid-2010 iMac, except the 21.5" mid-2010, and early 2009 Mac Pro.

Limitations

• Boot Camp will only help a user partition their disk if the user has only a primary HFS+ or APFS partition, an EFI system partition, and a macOS Recovery partition.
• Boot Camp does not help users install Linux. Most methods for dual booting with Linux on Mac rely on manual disk partitioning, and the use of an EFI boot manager such as rEFInd.
• Macs transitioned to Thunderbolt 3 in 2016 and Boot Camp does not support running Windows with a Thunderbolt 3-powered External GPU (eGPU) unit under macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina.

Boot Camp version history

Boot Camp support software (for Windows) version history

See also

• Parallels Desktop for Mac
• rEFIt and rEFInd
• VMware Fusion
• VirtualBox

External links

• Apple unveils "Boot Camp" allowing Windows to work on Macs

• July 10, 2017, at the Wayback Machine