 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2020) |
| Boot Camp Assistant | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Boot Camp running onmacOS Monterey | |
| Developer | Apple Inc. |
| Initial release | October 26, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-10-26) |
| Stable release | 6.1.19  (29 August 2022; 3 years ago (29 August 2022)) |
| Type | Software assistant fordual booting |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | support |
Boot Camp Assistant is amulti-bootutility included withApple Inc.'smacOS, previouslyMac OS X/OS X, that assists users in installingMicrosoft Windowsoperating systems onIntel-based Macintosh computers. The utility guides users through non-destructivedisk partitioning, including resizing of an existingHFS+ orAPFS partition, if necessary, of theirhard disk drive orsolid-state drive and installation of Windowsdevice drivers for the Apple hardware. The utility also installs aWindows Control Panel applet for selecting the default boot operating system.
Initially an unsupported beta forMac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the utility was introduced withMac OS X 10.5 Leopard and has been included in subsequent versions of the operating system.[1][2] Previous versions of Boot Camp supportedWindows XP andWindows Vista. Boot Camp 4.0 forMac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 up toMac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion version 10.8.2 supported only Windows 7.[3] With the release of Boot Camp 5.0 for Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in version 10.8.3, only64-bit versions ofWindows 7 andWindows 8 are supported.[4][5]
Boot Camp 6.0 added support for 64-bit versions ofWindows 10. Boot Camp 6.1, available onmacOS 10.12 Sierra and later, will accept only new installations of Windows 7 and later. This requirement was upgraded to requiring Windows 10 formacOS 10.14 Mojave.
Boot Camp is not available onApple silicon Macs.[6] Viavirtualization, it is possible to runARM-based Windows 10 or Windows 11.[7]
Installing Windows 10 on a Mac requires anISO image of Windows 10 provided by Microsoft. Boot Camp combines Windows 10 with install scripts to load hardware drivers for the targeted Mac computer.
Boot Camp supports Windows 10 on Macs dated mid-2012 or newer.[8] Apple silicon is not supported due to being ARM-based.Windows 11 supports ARM64, but the ARM64 version is licensed only to original equipment manufacturers, and there are no drivers for the Apple siliconSoCs, so it cannot run on Apple silicon Macs natively.[6]
A Mac boots from the last-used start-up disk. Holding down theoption key (⌥) at startup brings up theboot manager which allows users to choose in which operating system to start the device. When using a non-Apple keyboard, thealt key performs the same action. The boot manager can also be launched by pressing the menu button on theApple Remote at startup.
On older Macs, its functionality relies onBIOS emulation throughEFI and a partition table information synchronization mechanism betweenGPT andMBR combined.[9]
On newer Macs, Boot Camp keeps the hard disk as a GPT so that Windows is installed and booted inUEFI mode.[10]
Apple's Boot Camp system requirements lists the following requirements forMac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion:[11]
Apple lists the following requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:[11]
The earliest Macs that support Windows 8 are the mid-2011MacBook Air, 13" mid-2011 or 15" and 17" mid-2010MacBook Pro, except the mid-2010 13" computers, mid-2011Mac Mini, 21" mid-2011 or 27" mid-2010iMac, except the 21.5" mid-2010, and early 2009Mac Pro.[14][15]
| 1.0 beta | April 5, 2006 |
|
| 1.1 beta | August 26, 2006 |
|
| 1.1.1 beta | September 14, 2006 |
|
| 1.1.2 beta | October 30, 2006 |
|
| 1.2 beta | March 28, 2007 |
|
| 1.3 beta | June 7, 2007 |
|
| 1.4 beta | August 8, 2007 |
|
| 2.0 | October 26, 2007 |
|
| 2.1 | April 24, 2008 |
|
| 2.2 | November 19, 2009 |
|
| 3.0 | August 28, 2009 |
|
| 3.1 | January 19, 2010 |
|
| 3.2 | November 18, 2010 |
|
| 3.3 | August 24, 2011 |
|
| 4.0 | July 20, 2012 |
|
| 5.0.5033 | March 14, 2013 |
|
| 5.1 | February 11, 2014 |
|
| 6.0 | August 13, 2015 |
|
| 6.1 | September 20, 2016 |
|
| 6.1.13 | October 26, 2020 |
|
| 6.1.14 | May 17, 2021 |
|
| 6.1.15 | June 10, 2021 |
|
| 6.1.17 | March 19, 2022 |
|
| 6.1.16 | August 22, 2022 |
|
| 6.1.19 | August 29, 2022 |
|
| Version | Date | Supported Systems |
|---|---|---|
| 5.1.5621 | Feb 11, 2014 |
|
| 5.1.5640 | Feb 11, 2014 |
|
| 5.1.5722 | Aug 12, 2015 |
|
| 5.1.5769 | Aug 12, 2015 |
|
| 6.1.6655 | Sep 25, 2017 |
|
| 6.1.6700 | Unknown |
|
| 6.1.6851 | Apr 19, 2018 |
|
| 6.1.7748 | Dec 09, 2019 |
|
| 6.1.7800 | Unknown |
|
| 6.1.8034 | Dec 16, 2021 |
|
| Mac transition to Intel processors |
|---|
 |
