Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

As far as Microsoft vs Apple, I'm in an awkward place. I love them both, but sadly that doesn't mean they love each other.

As some of you know, Microsoft released a developer preview of Windows 8 on Tuesday. Being an early adopter, I ran off and blew $40 on some DVD's just so I could use one of them. I got home, burned the ISO, and installed Windows 8 on my boot camp partition.

I already had Windows 7, but I figured I should just start clean. I formatted the Windows partition, and then continued on with installation. Sadly, this erased the drivers that I can't install anymore.

I booted into Windows 8, installed all the updates, and played around. Of course I immediately noticed that my scrolling, right clicking, sound, etc. weren't working.

I opened up my Time Capsule in Explorer (this is where my "WindowsSupport" folder is located) and went to run the installer, but it failed. Installing boot camp this way worked perfectly in Windows 7.

I have a 13" baseline MacBook Pro from November 2010, my Time Capsule was purchased in August after the refresh (3TB) and my boot camp files were downloaded about a week after that.

Does anyone know how I can get the drivers to install?

share|improve this question
Questions about prerelease software are off-topic for this site. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info. Thanks. – Nathan Greenstein♦ Sep 17 '11 at 4:51

closed as off topic by Nathan Greenstein♦ Sep 17 '11 at 4:51

Questions on Ask Different are expected to relate to Apple hardware or software within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Your best bet is to only use the developer preview of windows 8 in a virtual machine rather than on boot camp.

As it's only a preview I can't see you moving over to it instead of your windows 7 install anyway and it will inevitibly be buggy. Even when the full release is out you will more-than-likely have to reinstall it anyway!

I've not tried anything with the developer preview but have you tried running it in a VM with VirtualBox?

share|improve this answer
99% of my work is in Mac OS X. The boot camp parition is purely for fun. I figured I'd install it this way to get a better feel of what it will actually perform like when it comes out later. I don't remember people having to reinstall Windows 7 if they had the beta. Even if I do, again, my boot camp partition is purely to mess around with. It won't be too big of a problem. I haven't tried virtualizing it, and I don't really want to for performance reasons, but that may very well be what I have to do. – tylermwashburn Sep 17 '11 at 1:34
I was told that to upgrade from the public beta of win7 - you needed to reinstall - I don't really know though. The beta I was talking about was a very early one, which predates MS adding the squarey task bar that we all have now. The beta for this stopped on a certain date and there was no option to upgrade. Anyway, the fact that you are playing with a developer preview and not even a beta suggests that you probably wont be able to just update when it's actually released! If it's a graphics issue, try on a VM on a windows machine? It's probably not worth your time trying on boot camp! – ing0 Sep 17 '11 at 1:41
Oh no, graphics are perfect. Just no drivers. – tylermwashburn Sep 17 '11 at 2:22

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.