#Can i run windows 7 on macbook air windows 7

OK, now that we have just made ourselves a Windows 7 Installation USB thumbdrive, let's move to the MacBook Air.ī. With some systems, you can temporarily force the computer to display the boot menu by pressing one of the F keys, such as F12, during the BIOS message. Make sure you change the boot priority to boot from an USB device first.

#Can i run windows 7 on macbook air install

After that, the thumbdrive can now be used to install the OS onto any PCs.

This will take another 5 or 10 minutes depending on how fast your DVD and the thumbdrive are. Copy the entire contents of the Windows 7 installation DVD onto the thumbdrive by selecting all items in the E: drive and dragging them over to the H: drive. Go Back to the command prompt window (if you have closed it by accident, you can redo step 1 to open it again), execute the following commands:Īgain e: is the drive letter of the DVD drive and h: is the drive letter of the thumbdrive.Īfter that, the command window will show a message similar to the screenshot below. Again, for this guide, this is the E: drive of the computer. Insert the DVD into the computer's DVD drive. We need to make the thumbdrive bootable by transferring boot information over from the Windows 7 installation DVD. However, this letter is likely different in other cases, depending on how many storage devices the computer currently has.Ĥ. Without closing the command prompt window, you can open the 'Computer' to see what the drive letter of the thumbdrive is. This is because the thumbdrive has just been assigned a drive letter. Note: after the command assign is executed, Windows will indicate (likely via a pop-up message) that a new drive has just been plugged in. This is what you should see if you have typed in all the commands correctly. During this time you will see an indicator of the formatting process.Īgain, if you have done the steps correctly, the command prompt window will look like the screenshot below. Note that format fs=ntfs will take about 5 to 10 minutes to finish depending on how large the thumbdrive is. Remember to press Enter after each of them. Now we'll need to further prepare the thumbdrive by executing another handful of commands, one after the next. If you have done everything correctly, the command prompt window should be displaying something like this: Run command prompt with admin rights and use Diskpart to select the current thumbdrive.ģ. Note: In case you mistype a command (and then will be greeted with an error message), you can always redo it. So far we have used the following commands: Now you want Diskpart to select this drive by typing command select disk 3 then pressing Enter. For this guide, as seen in the screenshot below, the thumbdrive is Disk 3. A 4GB thumbdrive will show as around 3856MB. You can easily figure out which one the thumbdrive is by looking at the amount of storage. Now the screen will show a list of storage drives currently connected to the computer, starting with Disk 0. You can do this by typing command list disk then pressing Enter. As Diskpart doesn't see storage devices on your computer as drive letters, but rather as a list of disks, you'll need to identify the thumbdrive. Now that the command prompt has opened, you'll want to use a tool called Diskpart to prepare the thumbdrive by typing in diskpart and then pressing Enter. Click on Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.Ģ.

Click on Start, type cmd in the search area, then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter. On the Windows 7 computer, plug the thumbdrive into a USB port, then start the command prompt with administrator rights. Getting Windows installation on the thumbdrive.ġ. Also, the actual work is a lot shorter and less intimidating than the look of this article.Ī. Note: make sure you back up the contents of the thumbdrive as they will be completely erased during this process.

#Can i run windows 7 on macbook air free

All you'll need is a computer running Windows 7 (that has a DVD drive), a 4GB or larger USB thumbdrive, a Windows 7 installation DVD, and about an hour of free time. Yes, it's totally possible to install Windows 7 (or Vista) on the MacBook Air without a DVD drive. The problem is the laptop has no optical drive, meaning you'll probably have to buy an accessory that costs around $80 to do the job. So you've gotten yourself the sleek new MacBook Air and your first thought is to install Windows 7 on it. Note: it's not a requirement that the thumbdrive is pink. This is Windows 7 being installed on a MacBook Air from a USB thumbdrive.