Apple Stops Supporting Windows 7 in Boot Camp on New MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Models
Apple's newly refreshed MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models no longer support running Windows 7 with Boot Camp, according to Apple's Boot Camp support document. Boot Camp on the new notebooks only works with Windows 8 or later, so it is impossible to use Boot Camp to install Windows 7 on the machines.
For those unfamiliar with Boot Camp, it is Apple's software designed to allow Mac users to install Microsoft Windows on their machines.
Apple also dropped Windows 7 Boot Camp support in the 2013 Mac Pro, suggesting the software would cease to be supported by future Macs, but Macs released in 2014 continued to offer Windows 7 installations. The 2014 MacBook Air and the 2014 MacBook Pro will be the last Apple notebooks that support Windows 7.
Though Boot Camp no longer supports Windows 7, the operating system can continue to be used on these newer machines with virtualization software like VMware Fusion and Parallels.
It is not surprising that Apple has opted to phase out support for Windows 7, given its advanced age. Windows 7 first became available to the public in 2009 and was followed by Windows 8 in 2012. Despite being six years old, Windows 7 continues to be the most heavily used Windows-based operating system.
Mac users were not happy with Apple's decision to cease Windows 7 support in the Mac Pro, and it's likely the dropped support in the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will also be met with resistance. Windows users have not yet embraced Windows 8 due to both its cost and its interface, which deviated significantly from the design of Windows 7.
Windows 10, coming later this year, may encourage stalwart Windows 7 users to upgrade, as it melds Windows 7 design elements with Windows 8 design elements for a happy medium that might satisfy a wide range of tastes. Windows 10 pricing has not been unveiled, but it will be a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users.
(Thanks, Daniel!)
Popular Stories
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
Here's what's supposedly coming:
An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Apple is working on a smart home hub that will rely heavily on the more capable version of Siri that's coming next year. We've heard quite a bit about the hub over the last two years, but a recent iOS 26 code leak provides additional insight into what we can expect and confirms rumored features.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Macworld claims to have access to an ...
