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thejimmyjames — The Proof. No pudding required. by-nc-nd

Published: 2017-01-24 20:02:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 359; Favourites: 1; Downloads: 0
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Description I've been asked this before: How are you running Windows on a Macintosh without Boot Camp? Simple. Boot Camp installs Windows in a legacy BIOS emulation mode (except on newer machines) but even on older Macs, Windows can be installed in what's known as "native UEFI" mode. That is, UEFI replaced the old ROM BIOS some years ago for most machines, and Apple was at the forefront of this, as it allowed them more control over the boot process for macOS.

Windows 8.x and 10 both support native UEFI boot, but you have to prepare your boot media to work. Using the Rufus tool, a USB stick can be configured to boot the installer so that it can format the system drive as the newer GPT partition scheme, instead of the old MBR method. Getting the picture? Lots of old stuff getting replaced by modern versions.

If Windows is installed this way, Boot Camp is not required to manage things, and thus macOS isn't needed to be installed.

Here you see that using the WMIC commands, we can read the system's information, including serial no, manufacturer, and model number. It's Macmini6,2 identifying it as a Late 2012 Mac mini. This particular Macintosh has a quad-core Intel Core i7-3615QM CPU. It's a mobile part to help with heat, but it's no slouch, despite being several generations old (Ivy Bridge.)

In Disk Manager, it's revealed that there are no macOS partitions. Only a UEFI boot partition, Windows' system partition, and two recovery chunks which are created by the Windows installer. So there you have it, a Macintosh that runs Windows and only Windows.

I of course didn't back up my macOS Sierra install media. LIKE A FOOL.

Edit: No kvetching about my use of Readyboost. The system has a slow 5400RPM disk, and the Readyboost cache greatly speeds up access to commonly-used program data, especially using multiple drives for better parallel reads.
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