Windows 7 Beta on a Mac Mini

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I have a Mac Mini at home which I use from time-to-time for doing some development on OSX. I also have Ubuntu Linux on another box for that matter, but that's a story for another day!  I decided to setup the beta of Windows 7 on the Mac Mini just to do a comparison of how the two Operating Systems would perform on the same hardware. I have included the steps below, but just to summarize, the end-result was very, very positive. Windows 7 runs flawlessly on the Mac Mini with just 1GB of RAM. I find myself using this as my main computer these days.

Installation Steps

  1. First order of business on the Mac is to run the BootCamp Assistant (which is standard on Leopard). This tool will partition your hard drive (if you haven't done so already) so we can allocate some space for the Windows 7 installation.
  2. However before you run the BootCamp Assistant, I recommend you run a free program called MainMenu. This little utility which sits in the Taskbar has a number of 'cleaning' functions that will let you clear temporary files, caches, logs etc. Doing this will improve the chances that BootCamp Assistant will run successfully.
  3. Running BootCamp Assistant I allocated equal space space to my OSX and Windows7 partitions - and then let it partition the drive. This process takes a while so be patient.
  4. Once you are done you simply insert the Windows 7 DVD into the drive and let the Windows installation proceed. It will probably complain that a valid installer could not be found - but you can ignore that.
  5. The actual Windows 7 installation will take about an hour and will involve a few reboots. Note that the sound card will probably not work at this time but don't worry about this yet.
  6. Once Windows 7 is setup you can eject the Windows 7 DVD and insert the Max OSX DVD into the drive. Windows should automatically run the installer for the BootCamp Assistant (Windows version) and this will also install all the necessary drivers for the hardware devices in the Mac Mini, including the sound card drivers.
  7. After this process run Windows Update and install any updated drivers.

Enjoy the best Windows OS experience ever!

Be sure to review Tim Sneath's 'Secrets of Windows 7' blog for some tips https://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx