Boot Camp and Windows 7 Support: Where is It?

I was thinking a bit earlier how Windows 7 has been out since October 22nd, and at that time Apple stated that they would release an update to Bootcamp before the ‘end of the year’. This is according to their knowledge base article HT3920. See the image below.

It’s still entirely possible that they will reach this goal, but there are only 10 days left in the year, as of this writing, so it does not seem as though they will make it.

If you were planning on installing Windows 7 on your Mac, you might want to check the About Boot Camp and Windows 7 support article to see if you have an Intel Mac that is supported.

The basics are this: if you have an Intel iMac that has a white-bezel your computer will not be supported with Windows 7. This is not to say that the computer cannot handle Windows 7, it’s just that if you have any issues with it, Apple will not assist you with any problems. The exclusion to this is the 24 inch models, these will be supported.

On the portal end, the MacBook Pro line is the only ones affected, thus far. They include the Early and Late 2006 Models of the 15″ and 17″ Mac Book Pros.

My iMac falls into this category, it’s a ‘Late 2006′ model. I believe as though I have determined the reasoning behind the few models not being supported. The ATI Radeon x1600 Mobility chipset. All of the models that will not be supported are because they all have the ATI x1600 video chipset.

The Mid-2006 Mac Pro is also affected, although it has the X1900 ATI video card, which does have drivers, as well as the Nvidia GeForce 7300 graphics card, so I’m not entirely sure why this model is affected.

The 24-inch White models are not affected because they have the nVidia GeForce 7300GT video cards embedded within the system.

The thing that bothers me is not that this is Apple’s doing, but AMD/ATI’s doing. They have chosen to not release drivers that support Windows 7. Now, the machines that are affected are three years old, so they may not be the fastest machines nor the best for supporting Windows 7.

With these machines not being the newest, my 13″ Black MacBook will be supported, only because it has an Intel GMA 950 chipset. This only has 64MB of video memory, while the iMacs have at least 128MB.

This is just something to be cognizant about if you are going, or are planning, to upgrade your iMac’s BootCamp partition to Windows 7. Of course, Apple is more than willing to take your money to upgrade your entire machine.