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Aug 5, 2011 - The hidden costs of running Windows on a Mac. I looked at these numbers on my late-2009 Mac Mini, with a decent Core 2 Duo CPU, 8 GB of. Boot Camp helps you install Microsoft Windows on your Mac. After you install, you can restart your Mac to switch between macOS and Windows. Mac mini Server (Late 2012) Mac Pro (Late 2013). You can switch back to macOS using the Boot Camp system tray item in Windows. Select the macOS volume, then restart your Mac.
I'm running windows 8 with VMware fusion. You can run windows 7 as well. Just depends if you want to run in a virtual environment or run a dual boot with boot camp. You can use boot camp and never have to use mac at all since you're not a mac user. Just boot into windows.always. You wouldn't need to 'go back' to the 'mac system' since you would be running both OS.
![Running Windows On Mac Mini Running Windows On Mac Mini](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125352200/378346796.jpg)
I believe all mac minis come with a hidden partition on the hard drive to restore (if disaster struck) your OS back to original factory default. Command R at boot up will give you options to restore. Click to expand. As pointed out in previous article there are a couple of ways of invoking the Mac OS X Recovery tools. A new mini will be able to boot from Apple's serves even if manage to loose all of your local back-ups and images. If really looking for a 'recovery disk' or 'recovery USB drive' then there is also tool to make one. The recovery disk assistant: There aren't 'bit for bit' whole disk cloners, but SuperDuper ( ) and CarbonCopyCloner ( ) can clone Mac partitions and make them bootable.
If need to clone the Bootcamp windows partition then WinClone ( ) is an option. Well nothing ventured nothing gained. I put the 64bit Windows 7 upgrade disk in and let Bootcamp have a go at it. It ran just as described at Ars Technica and when I chose the partition I formatted it as directed and ran the install. I chose to install fresh and it took off. Ran all the way through the install without a hitch.
The only head scratcher was at the registration key entry. I typed it correctly from the upgrade disk but it wouldn't take it. I then gave it the key from an OEM install label of Win7 on my computer which now runs Win8 and it took that. I ran the Windows update files that Boot camp had made and added the latest Intel Graphics driver and all is good.
I can use the win8 upgrade disk later when Bootcamp for win8 comes out. Everything seems to be working fine now.