How do you install windows on a Macbook Air?

... Just a random thought/question that came to me the other day.

Yes, I know the Macbook Air is able to install software from another PC that has a CD/DVD drive using wireless...

But this is windows we're talking about... it has to be done on boot and, yeah... streaming information through DOS blue screens= not too good.

yet interestingly enough, it is advertised in Apple's Macbook Air section... one would guess that you have to buy the USB cd/dvd drive addition.

But then again, does the windows setup support USB drives at all?... I guess its all to do with the Macbook Air's EFI...

what do you guys think?

Not that I'd want to buy a macbook air with limited HD space and install windows, but just a thought.

#488354

Windows does not support EFI at all (as far as I know), so boot camp emulates it, and uses EFI in turn for the emulation.

So it may work, it depends on boot camp.

For the USB support, yes it should support USB drives, it did support a pendrive which drove crazy to a friend and me:

We where trying to install Windows XP in a machine, and setup reported two partitions. To no avail we formatted the hard drive, repartitioned it, erased the master boot record with special tools, etc... Windows installation (the one in text mode) would still report two partitions. Finally we found the problem: it was not two partitions, it was two drives: the first one the pendrive which we forgot to unplug, and the second one the hard drive. So we unplugged the pendrive, rebooted the PC and setup shown only the hard drive

So yes, it supports at least usb disks, it then should also support cd/dvd drives connected through usb.

#488377

Windows Vista does support EFI boot.

It's the PC makers that refuse to implement it for the sake of backward compatibility with older operating systems.

This is were Apple's closed hardware design and proprietary OS comes in handy.

This is also why Apple won't allow OS X to go mainstream on regular PC's. Think of all the hardware drivers they would have to support.

#488379

Good to know Vista support EFI boot.

However I don't think drivers is why Apple wouldn't go mainstream with OS X. I think it's more business to Apple to sell hardware than to sell operative systems (selling hardware gives far more income than selling operative system for the common user).

#488391

Wtf YOu can install windows vista remote connected to the network.

If you can yous Linux terminal you can install it to to your server you can Even ad new apppligation system trawing to your system

#488405

? offtopic much

#489132

don't forget the external optical drive. i'm sure you can boot from it.

#489154