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On my MacBook Pro (Mid 2014), it seems that Apple has stopped support for installation of Windows 7 via Boot Camp on my Mac. I am currently trying to edit the info.plist to attempt to find a way to allow Boot Camp to run Windows 7, but I can't figure it out. Is there any way to get this to work?

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  • MS does not support W7 either
    – Ruskes
    Oct 10, 2018 at 1:27
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    Could you be a little bit more specific. Exactly where does the Boot Camp installation of Windows 7 fail? Is this a 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7. Does the Windows 7 installation ISO include SP1? I probably could post a procedure where the Boot Camp Assistant is not used. The only problem is that I do not know if Windows 7 should be a BIOS or EFI booting installation. Have you installed Windows 7 on this Mac before. If so, which version of macOS were you using?
    – David Anderson
    Oct 10, 2018 at 1:27
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    Boot Camp only supports Windows 10 and later for my Mac. I originally had Windows 7 Ultimate, but did a full system reset and also removed my Windows partition from my device.
    – strugglingatinstallation
    Oct 10, 2018 at 1:35
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    Can I assume from your comment that at some point you had Mojave and Windows 7 Ultimate installed and working? If so, I would you happen to know if Windows was using the BIOS or EFI boot method?
    – David Anderson
    Oct 10, 2018 at 3:27
  • I did have both installed at the same time working. Windows 7 was installed when I had High Sierra or the OS prior though. I am not sure what boot method was used though.
    – strugglingatinstallation
    Oct 10, 2018 at 4:39

3 Answers 3

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What I would suggest is getting old bootcamp files and going the manual route, that is, without using Bootcamp assistant. You would create an exFat partition, get a bootable Win7 installer disk and boot into the disk to install Win7 on the exFat partition. Booting into Windows 7, you can then manually install the Bootcamp drivers.
The latest Bootcamp drivers, that is Bootcamp 6 don't support windows 7/8 installation as far as I know, so you'll have to get older drivers. Here's the link for Bootcamp 5.1.5722: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1836?locale=en_US
According to them:

• The download file is a .zip file. Double click it to uncompress it, if it is not automatically uncompressed.
• Double-click the Boot Camp5 folder.
• Copy the entire contents of the .zip file to the root level of a USB flash drive or hard drive that is formatted with the FAT file system
• When running Windows, locate the Boot Camp folder on the USB media you created in Step 3 and double click to open it.
• Double click on setup to start installing the Boot Camp Support Software.
• When prompted to allow changes, click on Yes and follow the onscreen instructions.
• Installation can take a few minutes. Don't interrupt the installation process. When installation is complete, click Finish in the dialog that appears.
• A system restart dialog box appears. Click Yes to complete the installation.

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    You age getting warm. In other words, you are close to the correct answer. Let me point out a few possible errors. First, if you read the link you posted, you will learn that that Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5722 is for a iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2014). The MacBook Pro(15-inch, Mid2014) should use Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5640. Next, using Mojave to create an ExFat partition will no longer automatically create a a hybrid partitioned disk. This is a requirement if Windows 7 needs to BIOS boot.
    – David Anderson
    Oct 10, 2018 at 8:03
  • Interesting. I didn't know that. My bad. After some search, I found out that GPT fdisk download | SourceForge.net can help with creating hybrid GPT/MBR disk.
    – ViaxCo
    Oct 10, 2018 at 11:20
  • Hmm, I've downloaded the proper Boot Camp Support software and partitioned my SSD (ExFat). Now I have to use the GPT fdisk to change the disk type or? Thanks for all the help!
    – strugglingatinstallation
    Oct 10, 2018 at 18:20
  • This article gives extensive detail on how to create Hybrid MBR partition: Hybrid MBRs
    – ViaxCo
    Oct 11, 2018 at 1:12
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The only way I know how to solve your problem is to get an older version of osx. I used mavericks. Use bootcamp on an older version to get your windows 7 under boot camp and then upgrade to mojave.

That means using recovery to install whatever the base version of osx your mac uses and then using boot camp under that OS to install win 7.

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  • I'll look into that since my OS is pretty new still. Would I be able to go back to the the older OS (most likely Mavericks) then install Windows 7 then recover my backup (Mojave) via Time Machine?
    – strugglingatinstallation
    Oct 10, 2018 at 4:40
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What I usually do is the following:

  1. First to use a MacOs software called Diskmaker to downgrade your OSX to the earliest version possible. For my 2014 15 MBPR this is Mavericks.

  2. Then use Bootcamp to install your Windows 7 as normal.

  3. Upgrade OSX if you like.

Problem Solved.

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