So I finally caved and installed Boot Camp over the weekend...yeah I know, funny that one of the first things a Windows user wants to do when they get a Mac is something like this, but I couldn't resist. The fact is that although Tetris Friends is my favorite game (EVAR) I can only play so much of it. Let's face it, I don't plan on buying an XBOX or PS3 anytime soon and people probably consider gaming on OS X using Photoshop or something. I've tried VMWare Fusion but it isn't that great for newer games (if they even work all) considering that the iMac is a pretty decent machine why not use it to game.
Boot Camp is easy, all I did was fire up Boot Camp Setup Assistant, create a new partition and then insert the Windows 7 DVD and run the install. But before you start, there's a few things they don't tell you: yourr fancy Bluetooth keyboard and mouse won't work until Windows is fully installed and your monitor may fail at some point during the process as well. Well, they might mention it if you read the setup guides or something but I'm a pro and jumped in head first and decided to face the consequences later (which most of the time leads to epic fail).
In the end things went down without any major problems but only because I have a secondary external monitor.
So why is that? Well I believe they don't actually have a supported driver for the 27" iMac monitor in Windows 7 out of the box. So on the final steps of the installation when you're ready to window it up Windows style your iMac goes black and stays that way. Luckily if you have a secondary monitor installed it clones the primary one so you can see what's going on (it works!) and only after running Windows update will the primary monitor come into action. But what if you don't have an external one.
Well, the way I see it there are 2 ways to get out of this sticky situation:
1. Boot up in safe mode then run Windows update - the monitor should work with a lower ridiculous resolution until you can run the updater
2. Get an external monitor (lame I know)
Just don't panic and try to re-install the thing, it's there.
Another thing they don't tell you is that after you install Windows 7 it will become your default OS on boot up. Don't poop your pants yet, OS X wasn't uninstalled, it's just that the boot up menu doesn't appear by default. If you press and hold the Option (alt) button when you heard the startup sound you'll see the nice little Boot Camp startup selection screen come on, but if not then it's Windows.
There are 3 ways to change the default boot os:
1. Start up in OS X, go to System Preferences and change the Startup Disk to select the OS X HD.
2. Start up in Windows, install the Boot Camp Utility (instruction below) and change the Startup Disk in the app located in the system tray.
3. Install some sort of 3rd party app (like I did).
They don't tell you this, but on your OS X install DVD there is a folder named Boot Camp with the app you need in there. So instead of running setup when you insert the DVD, Open folder to view files, go to the Boot Camp folder and run the setup file located there. That tool will enable a lot of things like your Apple keyboard controls and Magic Mouse support (if not just to remind you that you are using a Mac anyway).
Turns out there are lots of guides for this kind of thing like the Apple Support one or the Simple Help one: Using Boot Camp to install Windows 7. Neither of them seem mention the monitor driver problems though so it might just be with late model iMacs.
On a side note I had a pretty good streak going while it lasted, but those days will soon be over with this dual booting...17 days!
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