Apple: Official Boot Camp Support for Windows 7 Coming Later This Year

With the release of Windows 7 today, Apple has posted a new support article announcing that official support for running Windows 7 on Macs using Apple's Boot Camp solution will be coming later this year.

Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.

The document also notes that a number of early Intel-based Macintosh computers will not support Windows 7 running in Boot Camp.

Note: The following models will not be supported for use with Windows 7 using Boot Camp.

- iMac (17-inch, Early 2006)
- iMac (17-inch, Late 2006)
- iMac (20-inch, Early 2006)
- iMac (20-inch, Late 2006)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2006)
- MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2006)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2006)
- MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2006)
- Mac Pro (Mid 2006, Intel Xeon Dual-core 2.66GHz or 3GHz)

While Boot Camp currently officially supports only Windows XP and Vista, many users have had success installing and running Windows 7 already, but official support from Apple should streamline the process and provide consumers with resources to assist them with setup and use.

Many users also prefer to run Windows virtually rather than turning to the Boot Camp dual-boot solution. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac already includes support for 32-bit Windows 7, and VMware Fusion 3, scheduled to launch next week, will offer full 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 support for virtualization under Mac OS X.