Boot Camp Windows 8 – Me haz Drivers?

Works on my MachineYou own a MacBook Pro? You run Boot Camp? You run Mac and Windows? You want to upgrade to Windows 8 but you still hesitate because Apple has not released a new Boot Camp version supporting Windows 8? First of all: I did it. I have to admit, I haven’t spent a single though on drivers before I upgraded to Windows 8 – and still I just blog from Windows 8 on my MacBook Pro.

What happens when I upgrade?

If you upgrade, some devices will work some won’t.Even if the Microsoft Upgrade Assistant does not show any incompatibilities with any of the MacBook’s devices in its report, they probably won’t work.

Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant Report

After installing, Windows 8 will show various devices in the Devices list indicating, there are no drivers available. Other’s simply won’t be detected at all, e.g. Windows8 won’t be able to detect the MacBook Pro’s WiFi at all. Function key, keyboard backlight won’t work and the graphics chipset might reset the screen resolution between the MacBook’s native resolution and something about 800×600 from time to time.

Where to get the Windows 8 drivers for my MacBook Pro?

To solve the driver issues, you simply start the Boot Camp Assistant from your Mac OS and follow the instructions until you find yourself faced with the following dialog.

Boot Camp Assistant Task

Chose Download the latest Windows support software from Apple and continue. In the following step follow the on screen instructions either burning a DVD/CD or copying the files to a USB drive or any folder accessible from Windows (don’t drop the files to the Mac OS’s partition, though).

Will it blend work?

Restart Windows 8 and insert the disc, stick and select the setup.exe in the WindowsSupport folder. This will install a whole bunch of drivers.

Boot Camp Windows Drivers

Based on Apple’s Boot Camp 4.0 FAQ , the Windows Support Files contain the following drivers

  • Apple Bluetooth
  • Apple Keyboard Support
  • Apple Remote Driver
  • Apple Trackpad
  • Atheros 802.11 Wireless
  • ATI Graphics
  • Boot Camp control panel for Microsoft Windows
  • Boot Camp System Task Notification item (System Tray)
  • Broadcom Wireless
  • Intel Chipset Software
  • Intel Integrated Graphics
  • iSight Camera
  • Marvel Yukon Ethernet
  • nVidia Graphics
  • Cirrus Logic Audio
  • Realtek Audio
  • SigmaTel Audio
  • Startup Disk control panel for Microsoft Windows

Once installed and the machine restarted, everything seems to work fine, the Windows Bluetooth and Boot Camp icons are shown in the notification area, light sensor, FaceTime camera and sound work perfectly and the graphics card runs smooth like butter.

Windows Networks under Boot Camp

One last word on function keys – they won’t work out of the box. You have to start the Boot Camp Control Panel from the tray and switch to the Keyboard tab.There check the Use all F1, F2… box.

Boot Camp Control Panel

Windows 8 on the MacBook Pro is a great experience even without touch display and retina. Upgrading without checking for the drivers of course was a greenhorn mistake. However, I hoped (yes I know indeed, hope is not a strategy) during the inplace upgrade, Windows will keep the drivers. However, the fact that all drivers still work, clearly shows that the driver architecture from Windows 7 to Windows 8 did not change at all. That’s good as manufacturers do not need to update drivers in a hurry based on a new architecture, but on the other side it shows that there are not that many improvements how Windows deals with the hardware. But again, maybe this is not necessary at all.

Before you upgrade to Windows 8, run a backup! I did so using Acronis True Image 2013. Even without thinking about drivers, I was not sure whether the upgrade process with Boot Camp on the machine will maybe brick my box. Also run a backup of you Mac OS partition using Time Machine.

Said that kids, please bear in mind, that this worked fine on my machine, and might fail on yours. Also there is probably no support from Apple for Boot Camp 4.0 running Windows 8.

26 Comments

    • Reply

      It’s a non-retina 2010 15″ one. But it should not matter if Windows 7 does already run fine on yours. It seems (so far) that all drivers for Windows 7 provided by Boot Camp work fine with Windows 8 as well. If you experience something other, let us know.

  1. Reply

    I’m having trouble with my sound. The managing driver crashes if i interact with the speaker icon in the corner or if I go into sound devices. Does this fuck it up for you as well?

    • Durandt Eksteen

      Reply

      Problem with mine as well. I have the 13″ MacBook Pro (9.2). Did a clean install of Win 8 x64 & ran the latest Boot Camp Software. Everything works except my audio. I have tried everything…..

  2. stefan

    Reply

    Almost Exactly the same way as you. After the upgrade W7 to W8, all previous hardware drivers work. Except, the keyboard light (always on), and especially the complete failure of the trackpad. Fortunately, bluetooth support enabled me to use a wireless mouse.
    Then reinstall the BootCamp 4 (WindowsSupport, few month previously downloaded) has fully repair these few worries.
    Everything works perfectly! Except, perhaps, not taking choice :nVidia Graphics’ / ‘Intel Integrated Graphics’. Windows8 only uses nVidia. Which heats the Mac, and uses a lot of electric energy. (sorry for my english)
    [MBPro 17′, 2009, 2,66Ghz Core2, 4Go]

  3. Reply

    Haven’t thought about the graphics drivers, yet. You are right, it seems that AMD Radeon HD 6490M is used only with my MacBook running Windows 8.

  4. Rob Agostinis

    Reply

    I just upgraded from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro on my mac (vm fusionware 5) Everything was fine, but when I went to restart and got back to the welcome screen to type in my password the keyboard wouldn’t work, so I can’t log in. My mouse works. So what do I do? I have a MacPro Desktop with Mountain Lion.

    • Reply

      I had the same issue. The way to fix this is to install a new copy of windows (not the upgrade option). Then install the boot camp 4.0 drivers, then re-install your apps, if necessary.

  5. Amin

    Reply

    This was awesome finally got windows 8 pro and im having a friend do it tommorow and was wondering if i can play pc games such as new black ops 2 on it

  6. amarsinha

    Reply

    i have upgraded to windoes 8 but i am not able to listen to sound any solution please tell.

  7. laminegrari

    Reply

    thnx for this presentation and i hope you can send me WindowsSupport folder

  8. alien

    Reply

    you will need to reinstall your wifi drivers if on a MacPro (note Book missing). My wifi was ridiculously slow after Win8 upgrade from Win7 …i reinstalled the drivers using this instruction and im back up to max speed as before. This makes me think there might be other bugs i had not noticed……”so i would advise doing this regardless once you have upgraded to Win8″ – Thanx for these instructions.

  9. Joe

    Reply

    is anyone experiencing frequent lockups on Win8 through bootcamp? I’m going to try a reinstall and see if that clears it up…just wondering if anyone else is seeing that as well.

    • Michael P

      Reply

      Yes, happens every single time. It has made me avoid booting into Windows because it’s only a matter of time before it locks up.

  10. Ahad

    Reply

    I downloaded and put Wwindowssupport” folder (640 MB in a USB Flash Drive). When I click on setup.exe this happened:
    I have a 17″ MBP (Late 2007 with upgraded specs) MAC OSX M Lion and Windows 8 installed.

    I got this ” Boot Camp X64 is unsupported on this computer model”

    Please help

  11. Matt Webb

    Reply

    Hi there,

    I am still running OS 10.6 and as a result a only seem to be able to get Bootcamp 3 even though I have just downloaded the latest version from the Mac Bootcamp Assistant. So when I try to run this from Windows 8 it says that it is only compatible with Windows 7. Is there any way to download Bootcamp 4 without upgrading my Mac OS?

    Many thanks

  12. Peter

    Reply

    Is there a way to get the drivers from “Download the lasts support software from Apple” step if you already installed Windows 8 through boot camp? I already out Windows 8 on and some things like speaker sound do not work but I have not installed any drivers yet (speakers did work with Parallels trial installed).

  13. angelo

    Reply

    I downloaded windows 8 a few weeks ago and it worked fine but now my backlight stopped working can anyone help me with this please??

  14. Reply

    Thank you so much for this article. Totally resolved all my problems and saved me a lot of time. Much appreciated!

  15. Rohit

    Reply

    Thanks a lot. I followed your instructions, and Windows 8 works like a dream now on my MacBook. I had been struggling for a while to figure why the Boot Camp Contol Panel does not show. I am glad to have found your article.

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