How To Install Windows On A Mac Without Boot Camp
May 17, 2017 For Mac users who also need to use a PC at work, home or just with specific applications, there is a solution. Using Boot Camp Assistant, you can install Windows 7 on your Intel-based Mac computer in its own partition. Windows 10 is a good choice for business use case and instead of buying a new All-in-One machine, I decided to upgrade the iMac with SSD and install Windows on it instead. Windows 10 is unsupported via bootcamp and I don't need bootcamp and MacOS taking up space on the SSD anyways. Installing Windows 10 without DVD or Third Party Tools. Note: If installing Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) Edition, then you should read this question. This answer applies to Mac models where the following is true. An optical drive and/or Windows installation DVD is unavailable. Such cases include when the optical drive has been removed.
Bootcamp (Boot Camp Assistant) is essentially Apple's way of welcoming Microsoft into its walled garden in a roundabout way. In other words, it allows you to install Windows on a Mac computer by partitioning the disk and letting you dual-boot a laptop or desktop. You will need to specify the amount of disk space for Windows installation, as well as get all the drivers required to run Windows on your Mac OS X or macOS computer. Once installed, it will be exactly the same as working in Windows. A lot of users prefer this over switching between Mac and PC, so you can imagine why Boot Camp Assistant has been so popular for so many years.
Problems with Bootcamp Assistant on Mac
That being said, there are a lot of problems in using Bootcamp Assistant on latest macOS such as Mojave or High Serria. One of the errors is the 'Boot Camp installation failed' error. Apple suggests that you move to macOS Mojave and try installing Windows 10 again, but the issue doesn't always go away. Another common error is when trying to copy the Windows installation files. In still other cases, you'll notice that several Mac features don't work when running Windows, such as Apple Software Update stopping, no audio from built-in speakers, mic or webcam not recognized by Windows and so on.
To avoid such errors and issues, which can often take quite a lot of your time to figure out and fix, you can use alternative solutions to install Windows on a Mac from USB. Though you will still need to use Boot Camp Assistant for part of the process, but you're not likely to come across major installation errors when doing this. You can also use Terminal in Mac to help you install Windows. The next two sections describe these methods in detail.
How to Install Windows on Mac without Bootcamp - UUByte
UUByte ISO Editor can work as a great alternative to Bootcamp for installing Windows OS on Mac. You can easily fetch all the required drivers using Bootcamp, but the installation process for putting Windows on your Mac is different from how Bootcamp does it. UUbyte is one of the most robust Windows 10 bootable USB creator for Mac that you'll ever find. It can do a lot more than just create bootable media, such as creating ISO files, editing them, copying from disc to ISO and so on. For this process, you will need to use the Burn module, which is explained below:
Step 1: Get the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft's website and install the Mac version of UUbytes ISO Editor.
Step 2: Launch Boot Camp Assistant, go to Action and click on Download Windows Support Software. When the dialog appears, click Save and specify a location for the files.
Step 3: Open the UUbytes program and click on the module that says Burn. Insert a USB flash drive and Burn ISO to USB drive. Select the ISO image and click on Burn. This will create your bootable USB drive for the Windows installation.
Step 4 : Launch Disk Utility app and go to the Partition tab. Add a drive by clicking on the + symbol and naming the drive. Select the MS-DOS (FAT) format and allocate enough space for the Windows installation.
Step 5: This step is very important. Make sure you disconnect all USB devices except a wired keyboard and the USB drive containing the Windows ISO files. Now restart your computer and hold down the Option (Alt) key at the same time. When you see the drives listed, choose your USB drive. It might be called something else, such as EFIBoot.
Step 6: Choose the drive partition you created in Step 5 and hit Delete. Select the unallocated space after it is deleted and click on New to create the Windows 10 partition. When your computer boots from your USB stick, run this file: WindowsSupport/BootCamp/Setup.exe
Step 7 : You can now reboot and complete the Windows 10 installation process by following the on-screen instructions.
How to Install Windows on Mac without Bootcamp - Terminal
This method uses Terminal application to create the bootable media for Windows 10. You will still need Boot Camp Assistant for the support software, but if you're comfortable with command line work, you try this approach. You will first need to download the Windows 10 ISO file. You will also need to use Boot Camp Assistant to get the support files, for which you can follow Step 3 from Method 1.
Step 1: Launch an instance of Terminal. Type the following command and then Enter to list out your drives: diskutil list
Step 2: Scroll down the name of the USB drive listed in Terminal. You will be using this in the next command. For now, let's call it disk2. The next step is to format your USB drive for Windows 10. Use the following command, then hit Enter: diskutil eraseDisk ExFat 'WINDOWS10' MBR disk2
Step 3: You will be able to see a mounted disk called Windows 10. Mount the downloaded Windows 10 ISO file by double-clicking it in Finder. The name will be CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9. You can also run the following command:
cp -rp /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/* /Volumes/WINDOWS10/
Step 4: Unfortunately, there's no progress bar to indicate that the bootable media is being created. However, after a sufficient amount of time has passed, the USB drive will contain bootable media for a Windows 10 installation.
Step 5: Now partition your Mac's disk for Windows 10. To do this, follow Steps 5, 6 and 7 from Method 1.
Step 6: Boot your computer from the USB by holding down the Option (Alt) key while restarting your Mac. Run this file once it boots up: WindowsSupport/BootCamp/Setup.exe
Step 7: Reboot your Mac, and it should boot into Windows Setup. Follow the instructions to complete the installation of Windows 10 on your Mac.
Apple Boot Camp
Conclusion
Boot Camp Install Windows
If you are not comfortable using Terminal, Method 1 is the recommended way to install Windows on a Mac without Boot Camp Assistant. It's reliable, quick and doesn't require any special technical knowledge.
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