How to install Windows 10 on your Mac using Boot Camp

If you’re looking to install Windows on your Mac, Boot Camp is the best way to go. Whether it’s for a great gaming experience or you just want to try out Windows 10 on Apple’s svelte hardware, here’s how to get it all set up.

What you’ll need before you install Windows 10 on your Mac

Before starting anything else, be sure you have a Mac that supports Windows 10. Straight from Apple, these are the compatible models:

• MacBook Pro (2012 and later)
• MacBook Air (2012 and later)
• MacBook (2015 and later)
• iMac Pro (2017)
• iMac (2012 and later)*
• Mac mini (2012 and later)
• Mac mini Server (Late 2012)
• Mac Pro (Late 2013)

If you own an iMac with 3TB or more, check out this Apple Support document for more information on installing Windows 10 on your machine through Boot Camp.

Do you have a Mac that can run Windows 10? Good! Make sure you have at least 64GB of free space on your hard drive for the Windows installation. During the installation process, you can set the Windows partition to whatever size you want, as long as the drive has enough storage.

Finally, update your Mac’s OS to ensure there are no compatibility problems. You’ll also want to perform a backup of your Mac in the (rare) case that something goes wrong.

How to download the Windows 10 ISO file

To start, we need to grab a Windows 10 ISO file from the Microsoft website. You can download it straight to your internal hard drive.

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Windows 10 ISO download page.
2. Click the dropdown menu below Select edition.

Click Windows 10 in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update section. You can download the Creators Update through Windows once it is installed.

Click the dropdown menu below Select the product language.

Click Confirm.

Click Save. The ISO file will now be downloaded.

Once the file has finished downloading, continue on to the next set of steps.

How to install Windows 10 with Boot Camp

Once you’ve downloaded a Windows 10 ISO, you can complete the following steps.

Launch Boot Camp Assistant from the Utilities folder in Applications.

Click Continue. Boot Camp should automatically locate the ISO file on your system.

Click Install. Windows support software will now be downloaded.

Click OK. Your Mac will restart and you will see the Windows 10 setup screen.

Choose your language.

Click Install Now.

Type your product key or click I don’t have a key. You can enter it after the installation.

Click either Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Pro based on your preference.

Click Next.

Click Custom: Install Windows Only.

Click Drive 0 Partition X: BOOTCAMP. Do not choose anything else.

Click Next. Windows 10 will now be installed. Your Mac will restart several times during the process.

Click Use Express Settings or Customize Your Installation when the Windows 10 setup screen appears. In this case, we use express settings, as all can be changed after the installation.

Type a username. You can also add a password.

Click Next.

Choose to use or not to use Cortana.

Windows 10 will now boot fully, and you’ll be able to use Windows normally.

How to install Boot Camp software on your Windows 10 partition

When Windows 10 loads for the first time on your Mac, a Boot Camp software installer will automatically pop up.

1. Click Install.
2. Click I accept the terms in the license agreement.
3. Click Install.
4. Click Finish when the installation is complete.

This is an important process, as it installs a bunch of drivers and software that will help make your Windows 10 experience as good as possible on your Mac.

How to return to macOS from Windows 10

One of the best parts of Boot Camp is how easy it is to switch back and forth between operating systems.

1. Click the Show hidden icons button in the Windows 10 taskbar.
2. Click the Boot Camp button.

Click Restart in OS X.

Your Mac will now restart, and you’ll be brought right back to macOS. To get back to Windows 10, and indeed another way to switch from Windows 10 to macOS, is to restart your Mac and hold down the Option key on your keyboard until a boot menu appears. From here, you can choose which OS to load.

Updating Windows 10 and more

Now that you have Windows 10 installed on your Mac, you can update it to the Creators Update.

The easiest way to do so is to use Windows Update.

Click the Start button.

Click the Settings button. It looks like a gear.

Click Check for updates.

The Creators Update should begin downloading and will install. Follow the steps on screen, and you’ll be up to date in no time.

Looking for more Windows 10 Creators Update help? Check out the ultimate guide over on Windows Central.

Updated March 22, 2019: Updated for macOS Mojave.

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Installing Windows 10 on a Mac without Bootcamp

Installing Windows on a Mac should be a piece of cake with Bootcamp, but that rarely is the case. In fact, I would personally say that Boot Camp Assistant is one of the worst apps that comes with OS X and unlike the rest, it doesn’t work seamlessly.

A few of its drawbacks:

• It only supports a drive with a single partition.
• It often throws very obscure error messages with limited detail.
• It re-downloads 1.6 GB Windows drivers every single time it runs. These are placed under /Library/Application Support/BootCamp/WindowsSupport.dmg and deleted and re-downloaded each time Boot Camp Assistant starts processing.

This post did take a lot of work to complie and I did bone my hard drive a few times while trying certain ideas, so please throw out a thanks if it helped you out 🙂

Disclaimer: This guide below contains procedures which can potentially destroy your partitions and data. I accept no responsibility for such loss so please proceed at your own risk.

Update (2016-07-20): I have updated this post with further improvements relating to downloading of Boot Camp drivers and ensuring that a Hybrid MBR is not used (which would cause issues when installing Windows).

What You Will Need

• An 8 GB or larger USB stick
• A copy of the Windows 10 ISO
• A valid Windows 10 license
• A downloaded copy of unetbootin

Downloading Boot Camp Drivers

1. Start Boot Camp Assistant
2. Select Action / Download Windows Support Software
3. Choose your Downloads directory, enter your password and then click Save

This will be the only step that we will use Boot Camp Assistant for.

Creating a Bootable USB Windows 10 Installer

Formatting Your USB Stick

Attach your USB stick and start Disk Utility, select your USB drive in the left panel under External, click Erase and set the options as follows (exactly) and click Erase:

Name: FAT32
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
Scheme: Master Boot Record

Turning Your USB Stick into a Windows Installer

Open unetbootin, enter your password, set the options as follows and click OK:

Diskimage: checked, set to ISO and browse to your Windows 10 ISO
Type: USB Drive
Drive: Your USB drive (you should only see one entry here)

If you see more than one drive listed, you may confirm which is your USB drive by opening the Terminal and typing:

You’ll see your USB drive in the output and it should look something like this:

Once you have kicked off unetbootin, grab a snack while the Windows ISO is copied to the USB stick. This process takes around 15 minutes to complete.

Finishing Up

When this has completed, you may right click on the USB stick in Finder, select Rename “FAT32” and rename it as you like (I’ll call mine “WINDOWS 10”).

Finally, copy the WindowsSupport in your Downloads directory to the Windows 10 USB stick so it’s easy to get to after our installation.

Partitioning Your Drive

In Disk Utility, select your internal hard drive on the left panel, and click on Partition.

Click the + button and create a new partition of your desired size for your Windows installation and name it as you wish (I’ll call mine “BOOTCAMP”). Ensure that the Format is set to MS-DOS (FAT) and click on Apply.

Ensuring that a Hybrid MBR is not used

Huge thanks to Rod’s post from the superuser post titled Windows detects GPT disk as MBR in EFI boot.

Once you add a FAT32 partition with either Boot Camp Assistant or Disk Utility, your disk is converted into a hybrid GPT / MBR disk which is actually not supported by newer versions of Windows. In this step, we revert this additional change made by Disk Utility by switching back to a pure GPT partition table.

1. Dowload the latest version of GPT fdisk by browsing to the version, then gdisk-binaries and clicking the file with the *.pkg extension (e.g. gdisk-1.0.1.pkg).
2. Install GPT fdisk by running the installer you downloaded

Open a Terminal and check the state of your MBR

If your MBR partition is set to hybrid, please continue with step 4, otherwise if it is set to protective, you may skip the rest of this section. Simply type q and hit return to exit GPT fdisk.

Type p to view the existing partition table and verify you’re working on the correct disk

Type x to enter the expert menu

Type n to create a fresh protective MBR

Type w to save your changes and confirm the change when asked

Type q to exit GPT fdisk

Run GPT fdisk to show your disk layout:

Your partition table should look something like this:

Installing Windows

Disconnecting All Devices From USB Ports

This step is critical as I have had rather serious problems during Windows installation when certain external drives are connected.

Unplug everything from your Mac except your keyboard (if wired) and your bootable Windows USB stick (which we prepared earlier).

If your Mac contains multiple physical drives, you will need to disconnect all disks except the one which you intend to install Windows on or you may encounter the following error:

Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation. To install Windows, restart the installation.

Booting From the USB Stick

Ensure that the USB stick containing the Windows installer is inserted and then restart your Mac while holding down the option (alt) key.

You should now be presented with a list of bootable drives. Select the USB drive (usually titled “EFI Boot”) to begin installing Windows.

Correcting Your Windows Hard Disk Partition

When you are asked Where do you want to install Windows?, select the Windows partition created earlier (which I called “BOOTCAMP”) and click Delete.

Next, select the chunk of Unallocated Space and click on New to create a proper Windows NTFS partition.

Note: OS X only supports creation of FAT filesystems, so this is why we need to re-create the partition ourselves during install.

Completing the Installation

Allow the installer to complete and boot into Windows.

Installing Boot Camp Support Software

Once Windows is up and running, install the Boot Camp Support software running WindowsSupport/BootCamp/Setup.exe on your USB stick.

Note: The installer takes a little while to show up, so please be patient.

You may encounter a known issue whereby the Boot Camp Support Software installer locks up while installing Realtek audio.

If this occurs, you will need to open Task Manager and kill the RealtekSetup.exe process.

After the installer has completed, answer No when prompted to reboot and install the Realtek drivers manually by running %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp\RarSFX0\BootCamp\Drivers\RealTek\RealtekSetup.exe. If you can’t find this file, check any other directories starting with RARSFX under %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp.

Once complete, reboot Windows.

What You Will Need to Configure Windows

• The latest version of SharpKeys
• The flipflop-windows-sheel binary (see README for a download link)

Configuring Windows

Mapping Your Mac Keyboard

Install and run SharpKeys and then configure the following mappings to correct your Mac keyboard so that it behaves like a regular Windows keyboard:

Function: F13 -> Special: PrtSc
Special: Left Alt => Special: Left Windows
Special: Left Windows => Special: Left Alt
Special: Right Alt => Special: Right Windows
Special: Right Windows => Special: Right Alt

Note: for F13, you’ll need to select Press a key and click F13 on your keyboard.

Switching to Natural Scrolling

If you wish to flip scrolling direction to match that on OS X, run FlipWheel.exe and then click on Flip All.

Enabling Num Lock on Boot

Paste the following into a file named Enable NumLock on Boot.reg then import this into the registry to enable NumLock when Windows boots up (it doesn’t by default).

Completing Configuration

That’s it, give your machine one last reboot and you’ll have a fully working Windows 10 installation.

Note: I have found Apple’s Magic Mouse to be extremely unreliable using the Boot Camp drivers from Apple. As such, I recommend purchasing a Logitech (or similar) mouse for use in Windows. I have no trouble plugging the wireless receiver for my Logitech mouse into one of the USB ports of my wired Apple Keyboard and it’s so tiny that you can’t see it at all.

Cleaning up a Windows Installation

Removing the Windows Partitions

If you decide to remove Windows, you may find that Disk Utility doesn’t allow you to delete the two partitions that have been created by the Windows installer.

This happens due to the fact that the first small partition created is of a type called Microsoft Reserved which OS X’s Disk Utility doesn’t support.

The safest way to delete these partitions is through the Windows installer. So simply boot from your USB stick as we did before and when you reach the Where do you want to install Windows? question, you may delete your “BOOTCAMP” partition and the small 16 MB partition of type MSR (Reserved) just above the BOOTCAMP partition.

Once done, simply quit the installer by clicking the X in the top right corner of each Window and reboot back into OS X.

Removing the Boot Entry

Even though we have removed the Windows partition, a boot entry will still be present when holding down option (alt) during boot.

You may remove these items by running the following in your Terminal: