Run Windows on Your Mac – Without Boot Camp Downloads: First, grab an ISO of Gparted. The Windows 7 installer will not install on the Mac hard drive – it does not like Apple’s GPT format, and the installer will try to format it and in the end does nothing, so you will need this application/program to delete the Mac hard drive format. Then grab a copy of the Boot Camp 4 drivers. You will need the drivers for Windows to use. You will run Windows Update later to update the drivers anyway. I did not try Boot Camp 5 – perhaps someone else can and will let us know if it works. Now burn GParted and the Boot Camp 4 applications to a blank DVD. You might be able to fit them on a CD-R by removing the drivers out of the Boot Camp folder you do not need, but DVDs are cheap these days, so save yourself that extra step. Installing: Now do an Option key reboot – restart the computer holding down the Option key. Select the GParted disc you just created. Gparted will automatically launch and has an interactive menu. The goal is to just delete the Mac hard drive from the list that is presented. Then reboot and hold the mouse button down – this will eject your DVD. Put in the Windows 7 disc and restart the Mac using the Option key again. Select the Windows 7 disc, then sit back and wait for the installer to come up. When you get to the disk selection, you will see the former Mac drive as “unallocated” space. Select it and select Format. That will format the drive NTFS, and Windows 7 will now install. After you boot to the Windows Desktop, browse to the DVD drive. There you will see the Boot Camp folder on the DVD. Open it. Now you have two options: Install the actual drivers you need: Open each folder and launch the installer for that driver. Launch Boot Camp and let it install all your drivers. The downside to Boot Camp doing it is you will have to remove it later on – you will not use the Boot Camp software for anything except this one action. That can be done through the Windows control panel Programs and Features. Now use Windows Update to update the software and the hardware drivers. This will take some time to do – and a few reboots and rechecks for updates.
