Update: See our follow up article Can the Macbook Air Game? where we punish an Air running Windows 7 64-bit and Bioshock 2.

 

Do you own a Macbook Air or other modern Apple and want to install and use Windows 7 ala Boot Camp? If so, you may have encountered the dreaded “Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model” error dialog when trying to run the provided Snow Leopard Bood Camp setup.exe:

Boot Camp error message: No Boot Camp For You!

Boot Camp error message: No Boot Camp For You!

There is a simple trick outlined in this tutorial that may get you over the hump.    After you install Windows 7, log into it and insert your Snow Leopard DVD.  Now, browse the DVD.  Air users, you will have to get an external DVD drive.  I recommend Apricorn external USB DVD drive as it works with both OSs without extra power and without drivers.

Browse down to “Boot Camp/Drivers/Apple”:

bootcamp_path

Locate and right-click the “BootCamp64″ application and select “Troubleshoot compatibility”:

bootcamp_menu

At this point, Windows 7 will recognize that it can run this application by disabling Boot Camp’s Version Check, as shown below.  Click on “Start the program…” and the installer should proceed without incident (though it may prompt for credentials of course).

settings

Once you reboot, you may notice you now have audio, a web cam, backlit keyboard, and well everything else you expect.  Turn on your multitouch right-click ability by using a new control panel app called Boot Camp.  You can get to it from the windows task bar:

bootcamp_start

So there you have it!  If you have anything to add, please comment away.

-d

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