After my friend James helped me to replace and install my Macbook HDD with Mac OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard, I was getting excited and ready to install Windows 7 Ultimate on my Macbook. However, at my “blogging press time”, the official Apple support for Boot Camp was not ready for Windows 7 and the Apple team is currently working on it. I went through forums, search through search engines, discussed with friends who are more experienced in Apple technology on whether which bit of Windows 7 would be suitable for my Macbook ? 32 bit or 64 bit ??

Going a few days of reading, researching and understanding, I made a decision to install the 32 Bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my 2008 Macbook model 4,1. I would be writing down my Boot Camp and Windows 7 installation process and share with my readers here -

BEFORE DOING ANYTHING

- Update your Mac OS X first !

- Back Up ALL YOUR DATA !

- Print out Boot Camp Assistant Manual that comes in your Macbook or open another laptop with the Boot Camp Assistant in your sight.

- Prepare your Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard CDs and Windows 7 CD

Disclaimer  - This step carries risk and proceed at your own risk.

Once all the above preparations are ready,

- Follow ALL Step by Step in the Boot Camp Manual

- Do not skip the Steps

From my own experiences, the Windows 7 CD did hang for a while, what I did was to press and hold down the power button to shut down, wait a while and switch on again and it just ran smoothly from then on ! During the entire process, there would be times whereby your Macbook would reboot, do not worry and let it run smoothly.

When Windows 7 was installed successfully, you would need to do some basic configuration before going inside further Windows 7, always follow the Steps in the Boot Camp manual. Install the drivers by inserting the Leopard / Snow Leopard CD and let the setup.exe file run to start the installation. I didn’t face any issues during this drivers update and my Macbook model 4,1 now operates very well with my Windows 7 Ultimate.

Specifications

Macbook 2008 model 4,1 running on 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM  & 320 GB HDD running Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard, running Windows 7 Ultimate with Boot Camp.

The overall installation was very smooth except for the initial hiccup whereby my Macbook doesn’t seem to be starting, once Windows 7 was successfully installed, the ongoing steps would be patch and updates. Do it first before installing other programs that you are planning to do so, same theory applies, once a new program is installed, check for updates and patches accordingly. In my next few posts, I would be writing up on my Windows 7 experiences ! Do keep a lookout for my sharing, stories and tips !

I am now running the best of both worlds , Snow Leopard with Windows 7 Ultimate on my Macbook !!