Windows 7 as MBA's primary OS (Review/Guide)

[mjmcss]

[EDIT: I initially created this thread to share my experiences with Windows on the Macbook Air but it's evolved into a good resource for people looking to use a bootcamp partition primarily and to troubleshoot Windows 7 on the MBA.

Here's the TL;DR version: you lose about an hour of battery life, the trackpad is a bit wonky unless you're using Bootcamp 4.0 and the SSD writes slower than in OSX if you're doing processor intensive tasks like encoding media. Apart from that, it works great.

There are lots of questions and answers in this thread already, but feel free to ask/add if you don't find anything you need with the search function.]

USEFUL LINKS:

Autohotkey - Windows key remapping (search thread for sample script)

Input Remapper - Macbook specific Windows key remapping

Trackpad++ - Third party trackpad driver with advanced functionality (Donationware)

How to install Windows 7 to a Boot Camp partition Without an External DVD Drive (For pre-2011 MBAs)

Hey all,

My girlfriend returned from overseas last week and brought me back a 13 inch MacBook Air (no, I don't particularly care about the Sandy Bridge refresh and I prefer a more powerful graphics card). After playing with OSX for a couple of hours and not liking it, I decided to go through with my original plan of installing Windows 7. Why?

1. I wanted an ultraportable subnotebook for less than $1200 Australian dollars. I got a 13 inch MBA with 4gb in Malaysia for $1192 AUD. The Samsung Series 9 in the same country worked out to be 700 dollars more expensive, and I couldn't find any other Windows based hardware I wanted.

2. Windows has been my primary OS for a long time, I'm deeply tied into the MS Office ecosystem and the Mac version is a bit of a pain in the to use.

3. I like a challenge.

Turns out I was disappointed - not because Windows doesn't work well enough (it does), but because it wasn't a challenge to put on. I'd asked on these forums, and others, whether it was possible to run Windows as a full time OS on a MacBook Air - I was told by a lot of people that the experience is terrible compared to OSX, that the battery life is more than halved, that the trackpad is unusable, that the install process is a pain. I'm just creating this post to log my experiences and to let people know that that's not the case, that the MacBook Air I'm currently typing on is the best Windows laptop I've owned.

Installation
I wanted to install the OS without buying an external DVD drive - especially an Apple SuperDrive - because the whole experiment was about saving money, and adding more on top didn't appeal to me. Luckily, there are intrepid adventurers who have logged their experiences of installing Windows 7 via bootcamp with a bootable USB flash drive.

Here's a great tutorial video on how to do it, and here's essentially the same thing in text with pictures.

The only problem I encountered was I was initially unable to download the Windows Support Drivers from the OSX Bootcamp Assistant as I hadn't done software updates yet, but once that was done everything came off without a hitch. It's the quickest Windows 7 install you'll ever see.

Once you're in Windows, you run a single executable from your flash drive that you'd previously saved the drivers on and everything's installed and set up for you. Be warned - seeing Windows in such high resolution may do permanent damage to your psyche. I'm still trying to get used to it. Everything appears crisper and further away.

"A ton of workarounds", or "simple optimisations that will take less time than an episode of Family Guy"
I was told, on this forum I think, that to get Windows 7 working properly on my MBA I'd have to perform a "ton of workarounds". I've got it perfected and I've had to install two .exe files and one third-party driver, which in total took me ten minutes.

First things first - the trackpad. I didn't find it nearly as unusable as people had told me I would after I'd upgraded Bootcamp to version 3.2, but I like a high-sensitivity trackpad so I'll admit people could have problems with it. The best solution that I've found is a third-party driver named Trackpad++, available by clicking this link. There's an instructions page for the installation, and it requires that you have the developer's power-management program installed, but that can be removed when you're done. I find it actually significantly increases my battery life so I'm keeping it.

Trackpad++ itself works in palm rejection, gives you the option to ignore accidental inputs when typing, greatly smooths out two finger scrolling, gives fully adjustable sensitivity and a whole range of other features.

The last thing I found necessary was a keyboard remapping program to properly optimise the MBA keyboard for Windows 7. I use Autohotkey, but I used it already because it's an incredibly handy program to have. I found the only thing I really wanted to change was to add in my own keys for PgUp, PgDown, End, Home and a second control key on the right. It was also a pretty painless process.

Battery life, heat and fan speed
This is what I was most concerned about, because nobody wants a laptop capable of 7 hours running half that and I'm a fan noise/heat reduction fanatic. I'd heard horror stories, and had told myself if it was too bad I'd just sell the thing.

Good news all round, though. The battery life is smaller under Windows 7, but in my experience only by around 45 minutes. I've been consistently getting 6:15 out of a full charge (based on my own measurements, not the Windows battery meter which can be pretty inaccurate). That, to me, is an acceptable trade off for the benefits of running my OS of choice.

"But Windows runs hotter! The fan comes on all the time!" No, and no. I haven't heard the fan kick in on high speed once, and I've been watching flash video and HD movies. The heat, like OSX, is constrained to the top left corner, and is not noticably greater. I don't have measurements because it's not a concern, and that's coming from someone who's highly sensitive to that kinda thing.

Wrap-up
This, for me, has been pretty worth it. By getting a MBA from Malaysia I saved $700 Australian dollars. By getting a MBA instead of its main Windows competitor, the Series 9, I saved the same amount of money. I haven't sacrificed any functionality, and honestly because all of the drivers (bar one) are bundled together in the same .exe it's been a lot easier than a clean Windows 7 install on a PC.

I get that a lot of people think I'm crazy for buying a Mac to run Windows. I get that there are cheaper, similarly specced PCs. But none of them combine the lightness, power and cost of the MBA. I'm keeping an OSX partition for iPhoto, FaceTime and just-in-case, but it's been five days since I've booted into it and I really can't see myself going back. I'm not trying to start a which-is-better contest, but I was put off by a lot of negativity when I was considering doing this so this thread is my record of a very positive experiment.

[your mother]

Thank you. I am thinking about doing this myself. I'm glad everything has turned out to be a fairly painless process

[doh123]

people said it was hard? odd...

[linuxwanabe]

Actually, the OP would have had quite a few more choices for Windows Macbook Air clones if he'd waited a couple of months. The new "ultrabook" concept is nothing other than a PC equivalent of the MBA. I suspect that most ultrabooks will be using same processors, the same form factor, SSDs.......

I'm not convinced that "ultrabooks" will be successful, at least not immediately, because it took the MBA a very long time to catch on with consumers. Intel is really stepping up, possibly even paying PC makers to speed up the launch of the concept, which would be great if the Ultrabooks were running Intel's MeeGo OS, instead of Windows 7. As it is, the only bright spot for Intel is their relationship with Apple, which will only last until Apple goes to an all ARM line of Macs - probably at the same time Intel gets around to native USB 3.0. For Intel, the real challenge will be to break away from Microsoft before it's dragged down as well.

Honestly, I don't think the OP really offered a meaningful "review" in any sense. He used OS X for a couple of hours, didn't really elucidate any specific issues, apparently installed Windows 7 in Bootcamp, and enjoys a familiar experience. Great, that's the point of Bootcamp.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone is still using Microsoft Office, regardless of platform, but there again, there's the issue of familiarity. Yup, familiarity.

[SPEEDwithJJ]

Originally Posted by mjmcss

I get that a lot of people think I'm crazy for buying a Mac to run Windows. I get that there are cheaper, similarly specced PCs.

No, you're not crazy.

I've been running only Windows Vista & then Windows 7 on my early 2009 unibody 15" MBP since I bought it in Jun 2009. Even though in my case, my MBP runs a bit hotter & has less battery life due in part to the dedicated GPU running all the time, I can honestly say that my MBP runs MS Windows even better than my similarly spec but a lot more expensive Sony VAIO VGN-Z690 (2009) notebook.

Right now, I'm very tempted to go ahead & buy myself a new 2011 11" MBA (to run MS Windows only, of course). These MBAs are definitely very sweet little machines IMHO.

[The Garfield]

You could have bought a computer with similar or better specifications that was ultra portable and holding a charge of about 7 hours. You would have saved yourself the hassle and the questioning of other people. If you want a portable gaming laptop, you could have went for something like the Alienware M11X. I'm sure Asus has a ultraportable gaming laptop as well. I guess you already know that though, but I don't know why you think throwing a couple hundred dollars into the air is necessary. And don't expect the battery life to stay at 6 hours, that seems highly unlikely for me. It will deteriorate faster over time as you run Windows OS. Don't expect to see dramatic changes tomorrow or in a week, but you will see a drop.

[BigAl]

Thanks for posting this. And I agree with your assessment of posts about windows 7 on a MBA.

If you go ask a question like this on a mac website you will get very little helpful info, only people giving you biased opinions telling you OSX rules and how bad the experience will be with windows 7. I like this forum since it tends to be a bit more even handed.

I can't speak for why other people want to buy a MBA for use as a windows machine but I'll tell you why I am looking at one.

I want a machine with a display that has at least 900 lines of horizontal resolution (the 768p and 800p displays are just too limiting as far as I'm concerned). I like to keep the ppi around 120 if possible so it's still readable and I want all this in a machine that is around 3.5lbs or less.

So what are my choices? Pretty much a thinkpad x301 or a macbook air.

The x301 has great build quality, easy repairability (compared to the MBA), far better features and port selection, however it's a bit too underpowered and the screen, while bright enough is just so-so in color accuracy, contrast and viewing angles.

The macbook air has good build quality, the performance is just good enough for my needs, it has a good screen and is very light weight. I think they made too many compromises with the selection of ports and I'm not really a fan of the aluminum, I prefer the feel of the high quality rubberized plastic coating on thinkpads (feels better, doesn't scratch or show wear as quickly IMO).

I am waiting for more ultrabooks to come out. I'm hoping they give me a few more options. The area where I have a feeling they won't meet my needs is the resolution and quality of the display.

[kornchild2002]

Originally Posted by linuxwanabe

Actually, the OP would have had quite a few more choices for Windows Macbook Air clones if he'd waited a couple of months. The new "ultrabook" concept is nothing other than a PC equivalent of the MBA. I suspect that most ultrabooks will be using same processors, the same form factor, SSDs.......

Yes. The PC market is finally stepping up and offering these ultraportable notebooks (or ultrabooks, tomato tomato) with pretty much the same concept as what Apple was doing with the 2010 MBA. SSD, an ULV/CULV/whatever processor, razor thin design, and battery life good enough for 5-7 hours of work.

Originally Posted by linuxwanabe

I'm not convinced that "ultrabooks" will be successful, at least not immediately, because it took the MBA a very long time to catch on with consumers. Intel is really stepping up, possibly even paying PC makers to speed up the launch of the concept, which would be great if the Ultrabooks were running Intel's MeeGo OS, instead of Windows 7.

Like most new technologies, it takes time to adapt. There have been very few big initial hits in the technology industry. The iPod (at least once Apple started supporting Windows), iPad, iPhone (once the price dropped), and few others have gone against the norm in that it takes years for something to finally come to fruition and be successful. Part of the reason why it took the MBA so long to grab attention is that it was still packing older hardware when it first launched (hard drives) and Apple wanted way too much money for the very first model. Upgrading to the SSD one (which had 64GB of storage?) was impossible for most people. The MBA didn't really start making splashes until Apple was able to increase capacities while drastically decreasing prices.

However, I do disagree with you on the MeeGo part. Aside from being a dead OS, those simple OS's really don't do well in the keyboard and mouse world with full-on notebook hardware. The OS's perform fine but developers aren't really supporting them and the hardware is more than capable of running a desktop OS (i.e. Windows or OS X). Google has tried with their Chromebook design. I remember them launching it way back with something that looked a lot like a 13" black MacBook. It flopped and developers didn't really do anything with it. Google pushed Chromebook out to the mass public and again, it hasn't really done anything. The technology has been out for a while but it is just as successful as those netbook and el-cheapo notebooks running Ubuntu or some other Linux distro. Those watered down OS's have their place and that is in tablets where hardware really is a limiting factor. Right now, there is absolutely no need to put MeeGo on something as powerful as the MBA (even the one released many years ago) simply because that would be like putting a Dodge Viper engine in a Ford Escort car. Way too much power to drive something so small that isn't supported anymore.

Originally Posted by linuxwanabe

Honestly, I don't think the OP really offered a meaningful "review" in any sense. He used OS X for a couple of hours, didn't really elucidate any specific issues, apparently installed Windows 7 in Bootcamp, and enjoys a familiar experience. Great, that's the point of Bootcamp.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone is still using Microsoft Office, regardless of platform, but there again, there's the issue of familiarity. Yup, familiarity.

I would agree with you there. I have never understood why anyone would pay more money to buy Apple hardware only to get an inferior experience out of it. I am not ragging on Windows but rather the experience in Windows. Apple's Windows driver support is a joke, the trackpad is awful in Windows, and you lose that symbiosis that Mac OS X has with the hardware in Macs. To me, the whole point of paying the "Apple tax" is to use Apple's hardware with their software. There are plenty of other less expensive notebooks with very similar build quality to the MBA and MBP if someone wants to run Windows as their primary OS. I just don't get it.

On a side note, many people (including myself) run Office because we are tied to that universe. I can use OpenOffice or even iWork on my Mac but Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents don't always translate well to other programs. I have to open those types of files on my system because that is what is installed on my work computer and I can't change that even if I wanted to. The place where I work has a contract with MS that was the least expensive option so we are running Office (and Windows XP though the upgrade to 7 will happen next year). I personally run iWork when I can but Excel is still miles better than what OpenOffice and Apple are doing, I will give MS that.

[mjmcss]

The reason why I didn't wait for Ultrabooks is because I don't believe in Asus or Lenovo's ability to produce an MBA competitor without compromise - every native-Windows alternative to Apple hardware has massive drawbacks, whether it be price (Sony), screen resolution (Samsung) or a 15 year old design (Lenovo). And whoever suggested Alienware, I wanted a thin and light notebook, not a games machine I'd be embarrassed to use at work.

I have never understood why anyone would pay more money to buy Apple hardware only to get an inferior experience out of it. I am not ragging on Windows but rather the experience in Windows. Apple's Windows driver support is a joke, the trackpad is awful in Windows, and you lose that symbiosis that Mac OS X has with the hardware in Macs. To me, the whole point of paying the "Apple tax" is to use Apple's hardware with their software. There are plenty of other less expensive notebooks with very similar build quality to the MBA and MBP if someone wants to run Windows as their primary OS. I just don't get it.

The driver support, in the first week, has been excellent. Everything has worked fine. Unless this deteriorates over time, which I doubt, then your point doesn't gel with my experience at all.

The trackpad, out of the box, isn't terrible, but nor is it great. Trackpad++ fixed that for me. And as far as less expensive notebooks with similar build quality, I'd love to hear your examples. The ones I looked at were either plastic, thicker and heavier or metal, vastly more expensive with inferior specs.

[ral]

I'm not convinced that "ultrabooks" will be successful, at least not immediately, because it took the MBA a very long time to catch on with consumers.

I think the MBA took a long time to catch on because of the price. When Apple cut the price, sales took off.