Windows on a MacBook

Spizz

Spizz

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Wife got an M3 Air so I've inherited her old Macbook Pro 2017, intel i5, 8gb RAM, 128Gb SSD, etc, just the entry level, nothing fancy.

I thought I'd look into installing windows for fun but with a view to playing some older games, Half-Life or Fallout 3 kind of stuff. Would such gaming be do-able on such a system or should I forget it? Apple has a decent enough guide to follow for Windows 10, I'm assuming 11 is not a good idea?

Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant - Apple Support

With Boot Camp, you can install Microsoft Windows 10 on your Intel-based Mac, then switch between macOS and Windows when restarting your Mac.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
What is a “Mabook”? :ROFL:

But installing Windows on a Macbook is blasphemy

Spoke to someone a while back who did it (2017, not sure about exact specs), and Windows 11 apparently ran quite okay on it. Not sure about gaming on it though, and he did mention something about struggling with drivers (as opposed to Win 10)
 
bluepoole said:
What is a “Mabook”? :ROFL:

But installing Windows on a Macbook is blasphemy

Spoke to someone a while back who did it (2017, not sure about exact specs), and Windows 11 apparently ran quite okay on it. Not sure about gaming on it though, and he did mention something about struggling with drivers (as opposed to Win 10)
Click to expand...
Didn't you read? A Mabook is a hand me down MacBook from the Ma in the house
 
Spizz said:
Wife got an M3 Air so I've inherited her old Macbook Pro 2017, intel i5, 8gb RAM, 128Gb SSD, etc, just the entry level, nothing fancy.

I thought I'd look into installing windows for fun but with a view to playing some older games, Half-Life or Fallout 3 kind of stuff. Would such gaming be do-able on such a system or should I forget it? Apple has a decent enough guide to follow for Windows 10, I'm assuming 11 is not a good idea?

Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant - Apple Support

With Boot Camp, you can install Microsoft Windows 10 on your Intel-based Mac, then switch between macOS and Windows when restarting your Mac.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
Click to expand...
Apparently Windows used to run quite well on the older intel macs with Bootcamp. Alternatively there are virtualisation apps like Parallels.
 
bluepoole said:
What is a “Mabook”? :ROFL:

But installing Windows on a Macbook is blasphemy
Click to expand...

It’s a spare as I have an M2 Air and as mentioned my wife has an M3. Selling it I’ll get next to nothing so I thought I’d mess around with it.

bluepoole said:
Spoke to someone a while back who did it (2017, not sure about exact specs), and Windows 11 apparently ran quite okay on it. Not sure about gaming on it though, and he did mention something about struggling with drivers (as opposed to Win 10)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I reckon I’ll get 10 and give it a bash.
 
bwana said:
Apparently Windows used to run quite well on the older intel macs with Bootcamp. Alternatively there are virtualisation apps like Parallels.
Click to expand...

It’s first time doing something like this but I’ll try Bootcamp. Parallels is pretty expensive by the looks of it.
 
Spizz said:
It’s first time doing something like this but I’ll try Bootcamp. Parallels is pretty expensive by the looks of it.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that for something like gaming a native windows install via bootcamp takes full advantage of the Mac's resources.
 
bwana said:
My understanding is that for something like gaming a native windows install via bootcamp takes full advantage of the Mac's resources.
Click to expand...
Yup, Apple provides a fair set of drivers for everything and it usually works well - if you install the Windows of that era and using the official mechanisms.

My kid currently runs a 2011 Macbook with Windows 10 loaded - it doesn't even have Macos on it any more! The biggest pain here was that the Bootcamp version only supported up to Windows 7 and expected the DVD ROM to be used to install it - which the machine no longer has. So it took quite a bit of manipulation and some hacking to load Windows and get all of the bootcamp drivers to work. I couldn't get it to dualboot Windows and Macos, that's why the Macos drive was just removed and it just boots Windows now.

Regarding Parallels - games will definitely perform slower. Virtualisaiton just is seldom as good as bare metal. But of all the VM software, Parallels is the best (VMWare was fine at some point, but haven't used them since. VirtualBox is just absolute garbage).
 
ebendl said:
Yup, Apple provides a fair set of drivers for everything and it usually works well - if you install the Windows of that era and using the official mechanisms.

My kid currently runs a 2011 Macbook with Windows 10 loaded - it doesn't even have Macos on it any more! The biggest pain here was that the Bootcamp version only supported up to Windows 7 and expected the DVD ROM to be used to install it - which the machine no longer has. So it took quite a bit of manipulation and some hacking to load Windows and get all of the bootcamp drivers to work. I couldn't get it to dualboot Windows and Macos, that's why the Macos drive was just removed and it just boots Windows now.

Regarding Parallels - games will definitely perform slower. Virtualisaiton just is seldom as good as bare metal. But of all the VM software, Parallels is the best (VMWare was fine at some point, but haven't used them since. VirtualBox is just absolute garbage).
Click to expand...
necro from the grave:

not sure what manipulation you carried out - probably the same here - but for those who may want to install windows versions "unsupported by bootcamp", you can fox bootcamp by editing the plist file.

to get to it, right click on the bootcamp application > click "show package contents"
Screen Shot 2026-03-12 at 02.20.18.jpg




then using a plist editor (plist pro etc), open the plist file to see this:


plist options.jpg


then add or delete your mac model (you will have to google for specifics - but google "edit bootcamp plist) - that should get you started
edit plist here.jpg

in most instances you need to copy the original plist file to a new location - edit it there, then copy back to original location, overwriting the original.

**be sure to keep a copy of the original plist file in case things dont go as planned.

***in some instances you may need to disable SIP (system integrity protection) temporarily to do what you need to do (google disable sip).
be sure to enable it again once you are done
 
I have a 2020 Macbook Air i5 that is going to be replaced soon with a Macbook Air M5. That old Air may very well end up being a Windows machine to replace an older 2013 i3 Windows machine that's really struggling.
 
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