"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
02/04/2016 at 16:38 • Filed to: None
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"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
02/04/2016 at 16:38 • Filed to: None | 0
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My Mac Mini, the computer my kids use, is currently running Windows XP on a Bootcamp partition. I’d like to upgrade to something like Win 7 that is still supported. I can get a Win 7 upgrade from the university where Mrs. Ttyymmnn works, but will installing that obliterate all the files and apps on my Win partition? Any suggestions on how to proceed? Bueller?
BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 16:44 |
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Xp to 7 is quite a jump. Many programs that work on xp won’t work on 7. Also, being a Mac mini, I’m not sure how well 7 will perform on it.
KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 16:46 |
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This depends on the version of Boot Camp you have. What is the Mac OS X version installed?
Chariotoflove
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 16:46 |
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Hey Man, you can update your Windows install without hurting any of your files. It’s just like anytime you do an OS update or install on your Mac partition. Buuuut, as an IT friend of mine says in his sig line: “it’s Windows; so, I expect problems”. So, do a backup before the install.
You didn’t ask, but I have a Windows virtual machine on my iMac using VMWare Fusion for my wife’s business. It’s far more convenient than using boot camp partitions. You can transfer files back and forth, etc. I highly recommend it. I recently did a Windows 7 install without problems.
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ttyymmnn
> BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
02/04/2016 at 16:47 |
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It’s an early 2009 Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz with (I think) 4GB of RAM.
R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet
> Chariotoflove
02/04/2016 at 16:47 |
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Came here to say use VMWare instead of bootcamp
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ttyymmnn
> Chariotoflove
02/04/2016 at 16:49 |
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But how well does VMWare work with games and things like Steam? Since my boys use it, it’s really only used for gaming.
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ttyymmnn
> KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
02/04/2016 at 16:53 |
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10.8.5 with 4GB of RAM.
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Chariotoflove
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 16:54 |
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I won’t lie. Going through a virtual machine slows things down. If it’s for gaming, and it’s an old Mini, then Fusion might piss them off. Depends on how fast the computer is and how demanding the game. Now, if you had a newer Mac, especially with a fusion drive, I’d say the VM would handle it no problem.
Just when you install, remember the backup.
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ttyymmnn
> Chariotoflove
02/04/2016 at 16:57 |
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Just when you install, remember the backup.
I used to work as a proctor in the college computer lab. We had a saying: “There are two kinds of computer users—those who
have
lost data, and those who
will
lose data.”
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Chariotoflove
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:00 |
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Amen to that. I have watched a colleague twice since I’ve been in this department suffer hard drive failures on cheap Dells and lose critical data. Wanna watch frantic grad students scramble to reconstruct experimental findings from emails and USB sticks? Not a pretty sight. My entire workgroup is on automatic hourly backup.
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ttyymmnn
> Chariotoflove
02/04/2016 at 17:02 |
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When I was working on my doctoral thesis, I kept a copy of it (remember Zip drives) with me, a copy at home, and a copy in my wife’s desk at her office. And about a year ago, I had a 3TB external backup drive start eating itself and I lost many, many photographs. So, yeah. It’s a bitch, but it happens.
skinnyrook
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:07 |
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I had 7 installed on a 2009 Macbook with 2.0 GHz and only 2GB of RAM, and it ran decently ok.
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ttyymmnn
> skinnyrook
02/04/2016 at 17:09 |
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Good to know. The Mini is of a simlar vintage and power. I’m more wondering about what would be involved with an upgrade. I’m seriously considering just getting a PC for the boys.
BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:21 |
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Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Mac data and Win data. All data you don’t mind losing.
That being said, if you do it right, it shouldn’t erase your existing data. It may set it aside, though.
If it has a CD Drive, use the boot disk.
If it does not have a CD drive, you’ll need an 8GB or larger USB drive that you don’t mind being erased. (copy the data elsewhere)
If the distribution of Windows 7 only comes on a disk image .ISO, save it and burn it to a disk, or use the BootCamp assistant just as if you don’t have a CD drive.
For a USB boot drive, have the .ISO image downloaded to a known directory location on the MAC side. Yup. Mac side. DO NOT mount the ISO image to the desktop, if it is, eject it, but don’t remove the .iso disk image file.
Use the BootCamp Assistant to gather the information from the ISO image, and the Apple Drivers from Apple’s update servers.
***IMPORTANT*** UNCHECK the “Remove Windows partition.” the last check mark on the BCA action page. You have a windows partition, the only option will be to remove it. If you didn’t already have a windows partition, that option would change to allow it to be created.
You ONLY want to create the bootable USB drive.
Once that is complete, and the Wininstall USB Drive is done, or you have a bootable CD ready to go (you may still need the Apple Drivers loaded on a USB flash drive anyway)
Reboot the Mac Mini, and hold down the option key to get the boot disk menu. Boot from the USB key or bootable CD. If it gives you an option, do not use EFI boot, use the *other* Windows installer image, not your internal existing Windows XP disk partition, or Mac OS, or any recovery partition you may have. [If your computer is old enough to run Windows XP, then it is not going to want to run Windows in EFI-boot mode. Newer (2014 and newer Haswell processors) Macs prefer EFI-boot to GPT/MBR hybrid.]
When booted from the non-EFI-Boot windows installer, proceed through the process to install Windows 7 by choosing the language, and accepting the licensing terms. It will ask where you want to install Windows 7.
***You must choose the drive that has your Windows XP installation*** Choosing any other partition on your internal hard drive will corrupt the system by erasing either the Mac OS partition, or the EFI partition, or other protected segments.
DO NOT re-format the Windows XP partition, just choose it for the destination. Windows Setup should recognize the earlier OS on that partition and notify you of what it will do. It will either upgrade in place, keeping as much of your previous information in play as possible, otherwise it may say that it will set aside the previous installation into a folder called Windows.old.
The installation will proceed, copy data, re-boot to the windows partition and finalize the setup. It may ask for the Windows Serial code. In upgrade mode over Windows XP, the educational upgrade serial code should work. (a new clean installation would require a second install run in upgrade mode, basically windows 7 upgrading itself.)
Once up to the login and then desktop, either your data will still be intact (upgraded in place), or it will look like a clean installation. (set-aside as Windows.old)
If you need to do so, open Windows Explorer, and find Windows.old on the root level of the C drive, and dig into it. /
Windows.old/Users/
If Windows did not upgrade in place, and asked you to generate a fresh user profile, and it is not the one you wish to migrate the old data into, use the Users control panel to generate a new user with the username and password you intend for it to use, then log into that account.
You may wish to view hidden files and folders to make sure everything applicable is migrated. In Windows Explorer, go to the View menu, under Folder Options, and check “show hidden files and folders”. Undo that checkmark to re-hide them later.
The previous user profile data (the contents of the
Hopefully that should work. If it doesn’t, you should still have your backed up data that can be restored in the event of an upgrade failure.
You did backup your data, right?
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BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:23 |
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That might be a good learning opportunity as well. Teaching them about pc parts, and what they do.
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Chariotoflove
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:27 |
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Oh the Zip, I remember! Even older, I used to store stuff in those spinning disk cartridges. I can’t even remember their name right now, but they stored 135 MB/cartridge. So much expensive, obsolete stuff I’ve thrown out over the years!
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ttyymmnn
> Chariotoflove
02/04/2016 at 17:29 |
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And the “click of death” that killed many a Zip disk. I had students who lost their dissertations because they had the whole thing stored on a single disk. “There are two kinds of computer users.....”
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BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:30 |
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VMware Fusion or Parallels run Windows OS in virtual mode inside Mac OS.
It divides the processor time, RAM, and other resources according to the VM settings, but neither system gets 100% of the resources.
BootCamp is dual-boot. You have to re-start, but when Windows is running, it is running directly on the hardware, with all of the processor time, all of the RAM, and runs just like an intel PC, because aside from an Apple trademarked EFI rather than some other EFI or BIOS, it absolutely is an intel PC.
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ttyymmnn
> BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
02/04/2016 at 17:33 |
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Exactly. I’ve been running Bootcamp for years, I just want to get a newer version of Win on it, if possible. Rebooting is not an issue. There’s no need to switch back and from from Mac to PC in the same session.
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Chariotoflove
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 17:38 |
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And somebody’s cloud does not qualify for my backup (not the sole one, anyway).
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 18:55 |
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I would expect Win7 to run fine on that spec.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 18:57 |
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I had a copy of Parallels floating around. Might still...
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ttyymmnn
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/04/2016 at 18:58 |
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I tried Parallels a while ago. I wasn’t thrilled with it. It worked, but I think gaming, which is what the boys use the computer for, will suffer.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
02/04/2016 at 19:14 |
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Hard to say. The little bit I know about Parallels is that since it’s virtual, Windows is very fast.
Nauraushaun
> ttyymmnn
02/05/2016 at 03:20 |
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I went from 8 to 10. It made my Mac OSX unable to boot, I had to reformat it. Careful with that.
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ttyymmnn
> Nauraushaun
02/05/2016 at 08:21 |
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Windows 10 screwed up your Mac partition? Yikes.
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Nauraushaun
> ttyymmnn
02/05/2016 at 08:30 |
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To be fair, I think it was resizing the partition that Mac was installed on when I had a dual-boot setup. It did warn me too. But it always warns you!
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ttyymmnn
> Nauraushaun
02/05/2016 at 08:46 |
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That’s not possible with Disk Utility, is it? Or were you using a third party app?
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KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
> ttyymmnn
02/05/2016 at 12:09 |
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You should be able to get it to support a Boot Camp install of Windows 10. Your best bet from a data migration perspective would be to either have a nice big external drive to put everything on, and do that, or possibly use Google Drive or MS OneDrive.
That is, if you can find all your installation disks for programs. I have a 2.6GHz C2D MacBook Pro (Before the unibody!) with 4GB of RAM and it’s doing just fine with Windows 10 and Steam.
Granted I’m just playing SimCity 4 and RollerCoaster Tycoon...
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ttyymmnn
> KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
02/05/2016 at 12:16 |
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It’s purely the kids’ computer, and pretty much all they play is Minecraft and Steam games, so install disks aren’t an issue. Just their worlds and other game progress.
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KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
> ttyymmnn
02/05/2016 at 12:48 |
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You should be able to back up the Steam folder with the games and the saves to an external disk, and then when you reinstall Steam, you should be able to get it to recognize the saved games, by copying them back to the save folder.
I don’t know how Minecraft stores its saves, but I suspect you could do something similar.
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ttyymmnn
> KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
02/05/2016 at 12:55 |
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Good to know about Steam. Though I don’t play, I’ve become well-versed in Minecraft and its folder structure. “Dad, can you put this world on my computer?” “Dad, can we get a new world?” “Dad, can you move this world over to the other computer?”
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Nauraushaun
> ttyymmnn
02/05/2016 at 17:30 |
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I think I was doing it with disk utility on Mac OSX, but I’m not sure.