Boot Camp (software)

For other uses, see Boot camp.

Boot Camp Assistant
Developer(s)Apple Inc.
Initial releaseOctober 26, 2007; 17 years ago (2007-10-26)
Stable release
6.1.19 Edit this on Wikidata (29 August 2022; 2 years ago (29 August 2022))
TypeSoftware assistant for dual booting
LicenseProprietary
Websitesupport.apple.com/boot-camp

Boot Camp Assistant is a multi boot utility included with Apple Inc.'s macOS (previously Mac OS X / OS X) that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows operating systems on Intel-based Macintosh computers. The utility guides users through non-destructive disk partitioning (including resizing of an existing HFS+ or APFS partition, if necessary) of their hard disk drive or solid-state drive and installation of Windows device drivers for the Apple hardware. The utility also installs a Windows Control Panel applet for selecting the default boot operating system.

Initially introduced as an unsupported beta for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger,[1][2] the utility was first introduced with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and has been included in subsequent versions of the operating system ever since. Previous versions of Boot Camp supported Windows XP and Windows Vista. Boot Camp 4.0 for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 up to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion version 10.8.2 only supported Windows 7.[3] However, with the release of Boot Camp 5.0 for Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in version 10.8.3, only 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 are officially supported.[4][5]

Boot Camp 6.0 added support for 64-bit versions of Windows 10. Boot Camp 6.1, available on macOS 10.12 Sierra and later, will only accept new installations of Windows 7 and later; this requirement was upgraded to requiring Windows 10 for macOS 10.14 Mojave.

Boot Camp is currently not available on Apple silicon Macs.[6] Via virtualization, it is possible to run ARM-based Windows 10 (only Windows Insider builds, as they are the only publicly available ARM builds of Windows 10) and Windows 11 through the QEMU emulator,[7] VMWare Fusion, and Parallels Desktop virtualization software, which also allows Linux.[8]

  1. ^ Broersma, Matthew (April 13, 2006). "Users Find Flaw in Boot Camp". PC World. Archived from the original on May 3, 2019. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
  2. ^ Mossberg, Walter (April 6, 2006). "Boot Camp Turns Your Mac Into a Reliable Windows PC". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 6, 2007. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
  3. ^ Kessler, Topher (August 1, 2011). "Boot Camp 4 requires Windows 7 or later". CNET. Archived from the original on September 7, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2013.
  4. ^ "Boot Camp 5: Frequently asked questions". Apple Inc. Archived from the original on October 10, 2014. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
  5. ^ "Apple BootCamp 5.0 only supports 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and 8". BetaNews. March 15, 2013. Archived from the original on March 19, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
  6. ^ Warren, Tom (June 24, 2020). "Apple's new ARM-based Macs won't support Windows through Boot Camp". The Verge. Archived from the original on February 7, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  7. ^ Computer Clan (December 8, 2020). "Windows 10 on M1 MacBook Air (Virtualization Sensation) - Krazy Ken's Tech Misadventures". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved December 14, 2020.
  8. ^ "Just Released: Parallels Desktop 16.5 for Mac Supports Both M1 and Intel Chips". Parallels Blog. April 14, 2021. Archived from the original on January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 18, 2022.