As you can probably tell from my previous post, I still haven’t been able to find a solution to my MacBook’s boot problem. I’ve tried the usual things like SMC/NVRAM reset, external keyboard, different USBs, Recovery/Internet Recovery, etc., but nothing has worked so far.
So now I’m thinking of trying something different.
My plan is to remove the SSD from the MacBook, connect it to my Windows PC using an mSATA-to-USB adapter, and try to install macOS onto the SSD from Windows.
Before I try this, I wanted to ask:
Is this actually possible, and would it be a good idea?
If it is possible, what would be the safest/proper way to prepare the SSD so that I can put it back into the MacBook and boot/install macOS?
Any advice or better method would be appreciated. I really don’t want to make the situation worse 😅

Hi,

I'm trying to install windows 7 on my MacBookAir4,2 (mid 2011). The install through bootcamp works great until I get into the OS and install the boot camp drivers.

The drivers install, I reboot, and I get a 0x000000F4 bluescreen I can't enter safemode, because safemode also bluescreens. Windows reinstall doesn't help, only thing that heals it is a system restore point from before I install the drivers.

The text listing drivers that are being loaded stops at CLASSPNP.sys.

Any workarounds? Thanks.

After an exhausting 4 days trying to resolve GPU driver issues on Windows 10 and 11 Boot Camp, I now want to try Linux instead.

Hello, will I encounter any issues installing a Linux distro headless? My MacBook Pro's display is currently disconnected from the logic board and I am running it off of an external display. Has anybody here had success with installing Linux on a headless MacBook?

a1707 i7 7th gen 2.9ghz 16gb 500gb
radeon pro 560 4gb

ventura, bootcamp win11 installed, OCLP removed

Hi everyone, I’m having a serious boot/display issue with my MacBook Pro A1398 (Mid-2012) and I’m hoping someone can help me figure out whether this is a software/EFI issue or if I may have damaged something at the firmware/hardware level.
I’ll explain everything I did to the MacBook because the problem started after trying to install Windows.

MacBook history

This is an A1398 MacBook Pro (Mid-2012).
Originally, the MacBook was running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.
Later, I started experimenting with OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP) because I wanted to run a newer version of macOS. I tried installing newer macOS versions such as Ventura/Sonoma/Sequoia, but I repeatedly had problems with the installation/boot process.
At one point I went back and managed to get macOS Catalina installed and working.
After that, I started trying to install Windows.

Windows installation

I created bootable Windows USBs using Rufus and tried both Windows 11 and Windows 10.
I had various boot issues during the process, including:
“No bootable device”
USB not booting correctly
EFI boot problems
Windows logo followed by restarting
Windows installation/recovery problems
Eventually I managed to get Windows installed, but after installing drivers, the situation became much worse.

The problem after installing Windows drivers

After installing Windows drivers, I started getting display problems.
The screen would flicker, Windows would become unstable, and eventually I encountered crashes/BSODs. One of the errors I remember was:
WDF_VIOLATION
I also had several Device Manager problems.
Some hardware appeared with driver errors, including issues related to:
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA graphics
Cirrus audio
Bluetooth/USB controllers
Other Apple hardware drivers
Wi-Fi was working, but sound and brightness control were not working properly.
I tried installing different versions of the Apple/Boot Camp drivers and troubleshooting individual drivers. At one point the Mac became stuck with a black/blank screen with the backlight on.

Things I tried afterward

I tried a lot of troubleshooting because I thought the problem was probably caused by Windows drivers.
I tried:
Different Windows USB drives
Windows 10 and Windows 11
Booting through EFI
Different boot options
Removing/reinstalling drivers
Safe Mode attempts
macOS Recovery attempts
Internet Recovery
NVRAM reset attempts
SMC reset
OCLP-related troubleshooting
Reinstalling macOS
Different USB/SSD boot media
I also opened the bottom cover and disconnected the battery while troubleshooting the MacBook.

Current situation

This is where I am now.
When I press the power button:
The MacBook turns on.
The screen comes on, but nothing is displayed for a while.
After some time, the screen turns off.
Then it comes back on/restarts.
Eventually I get this message:
“No bootable device insert boot disk and press any key”
The biggest problem is that I cannot get to the normal Mac boot picker.
Holding Option (⌥) does not seem to take me to the boot selection screen.
I also cannot get into Internet Recovery (⌥⌘R).
Normal recovery options don't seem to work either.
So at this point I'm not sure what exactly is failing.

What I’m trying to understand

Could this be:
A corrupted/damaged EFI/bootloader caused by the Windows installation?
A Windows/OCLP boot configuration problem?
A corrupted NVRAM/PRAM configuration?
A problem with the internal SSD not being detected?
A firmware/EFI issue?
Or could the Windows graphics driver installation somehow have caused a hardware-level problem?
The strange thing is that the MacBook does power on and the display/backlight comes on, but I don't get the normal Apple boot screen or boot picker.
And then it eventually gives me:

“No bootable device insert boot disk and press any key”

I would really appreciate advice from anyone who has worked with A1398 MacBook Pros, Windows/Boot Camp, OCLP, EFI boot problems, or Apple Internet Recovery.

I’m especially interested in knowing what I should test next to determine whether this is an SSD/bootloader/EFI problem or a hardware/firmware problem.

I’ve already tried quite a few things, so I’d prefer to avoid randomly reinstalling Windows/macOS again unless we know what is actually failing.
Thanks in advance.

Hardware: 2017 15" MacBook Pro (MacBookPro14,3), Intel HD 630 + Radeon Pro 560 (PCI 1002:67EF, Apple subsys 0179106B REV_C0). Internal display is physically broken/disconnected — running headless off an external monitor via Thunderbolt/DisplayPort. Booting via OpenCore Legacy Patcher 2.4.1.

The problem: In macOS, the Radeon is fully accelerated and drives the external display perfectly. In Windows 10 22H2 (Boot Camp), every AMD Windows display driver I've tried fails with Code 43, service amdwddmg ending up STOPPED / ERROR_SERVICE_NEVER_STARTED.

The exact failure signature, consistent across everything below:

- Driver installs cleanly, PnP shows Device Status: 0x0180200a (DN_DRIVER_LOADED | DN_STARTED, no problem flag) immediately after

- Within 1-2 seconds it silently settles to CM_PROB_FAILED_POST_START

- Zero crash, exception, bugcheck, or DXGKRNL error anywhere in Windows logs — total silence

- Without an AMD driver, the card enumerates fine as Microsoft Basic Display Adapter and drives the external monitor at native res with no errors at all

Before the internal panel is completely written off as the cause: it isn't. See below.

Everything tried

Driver identity/version (4 separate codebases, all identical failure):

- BootCampDrivers "Polaris Red Edition" repack, AMD 24.9.1 base (u0407052.inf, 31.0.21921.1000) — diffed the repack against the original AMD INF; the only changes were added PCI-ID recognition for other Mac GPUs, nothing functional

- AMD's own official Boot Camp R6.4 (21.30.45.22)

- AMD R2 from 2019 (25.20.14020.10001) — six years older, completely different codebase

- Project Falcon (github.com/icywire/project-falcon) — a community project that patches genuine official AMD driver builds for Mac compatibility. Ran their actual mechanism end-to-end: downloaded AMD's real 26.5.2 Polaris/Vega installer (623MB, byte-verified), overlaid their re-signed INF/cat, trusted their cert, installed. Confirmed genuinely bound (DriverVersion 31.0.21925.1001). Same failure.

- The historical 2017-era Apple driver (C0313060.inf) blackened the external output rather than throwing Code 43 — different failure mode, no clean success

Registry/driver flags:

- MSI (MSISupported=0)

- TDR (TdrLevel=0, TdrDelay=60)

- 5 AMD display-detection keys (ExtEvent_EnableAutoDisplayConfig, PP_GPUPowerDownEnabled, EnableUlps, Display_Detection_DEF, Force_TV_Detection_DEF)

- KMD_BootCampPlatform / PP_EnableLoadFalconSmcFirmware — found these were stranded in a Navi-only INF section on every driver tested, never actually reaching the Polaris device. Manually set both directly in the registry, confirmed applied and surviving reboot. No change.

GPU/display topology:

- Intel iGPU: present+enabled, PnP-disabled, and fully firmware-deactivated (SignalAppleOS=false via OCLP) — tested all three states, identical Code 43 regardless

- Internal display panel physically reconnected and confirmed live in Windows (Color LCD, active, 3360x2100) — still Code 43 with a real panel present. This was the leading theory going in; it's dead.

- ARZOPA connected directly via USB-C vs. through a USB-C hub's HDMI output (completely different receiver chip/link path on the monitor side) — identical failure either way

OS/firmware:

- Windows 10 Pro N — missing Media Foundation entirely; confirmed mf.dll/mfplat.dll/etc. all absent, AMD's AMF runtime present but its MFTs weren't. Installed the Media Feature Pack, verified all DLLs present. No change.

- OpenCore config fully audited: zero ACPI patches, zero GPU DeviceProperties injected, SignalAppleOS toggled both directions

- Native Microsoft-EFI boot bypassing OpenCore entirely — still Code 43 (rules out OpenCore/OCLP as the cause)

Also tried — older Windows 10 build (1607/LTSB era):

- Based on an unverified third-party report that older Windows 10 builds might pair better with older AMD driver stacks (~18.40), tried a full Apple Boot Camp install on Windows 10 1607

- Result: color cycling/corruption, sometimes a stuck loading cursor — not a clean result, inconclusive

- Also tried in Parallels, but that test doesn't count — Parallels only exposes virtual hardware, never touches the physical Radeon, and the installer rolled back on an unrelated Bluetooth driver step anyway

- Given it never produced a clean result either way, not something I'd call "tested," just noting it was attempted

Hardware-level checks (via macOS as a live reference, since it works there):

- VBIOS dumped from IORegistry and parsed by hand (ATOM Object Info Table) — connector table is completely healthy: 1x eDP + 4x DisplayPort paths, correct encoders, correct subsystem ID matching Windows exactly

- Live PCIe link state: negotiating at full x8, Gen3 — the card's absolute maximum, zero degradation

- Live DisplayPort link state: 4 lanes at HBR3 (8.1 Gbps/lane) — also absolute maximum, zero degradation

- No GPU resets/panics in 30 days of macOS logs

- GPU's ACPI node (_SB/PCI0/PEG0/GFX0) properties all normal/consistent — no way to inspect actual _DSM AML logic without extracting+disassembling the DSDT, which I haven't done yet

Where I've landed

Given the electrical hardware checks out clean on both interfaces, I don't think this is physical damage anymore (even though the internal panel is broken from whatever incident this is). My best guess now is some kind of ACPI/platform-control-plane call AMD's Windows driver makes during init that Apple's firmware doesn't answer the way a normal PC would — but I have no way to confirm that without a kernel debugger and symbols AMD doesn't publish.

Has anyone actually gotten a Radeon Pro 555/560/560X's real Windows driver working in Boot Camp on a headless/no-internal-panel setup? Not "installed Windows and got a picture via Basic Display" — the actual AMD driver, no Code 43. Or has anyone seen this exact silent-post-start-failure signature on real (non-Mac) hardware and found what triggers it?

INTRODUÇÃO:

A máquina ultilizada para instalção possui as seguintes configurações:

- Intercore i7 1gen (4 núcleos 8 threds)

- 16gb de RAM DDR3

- SSD 240GB

- Placa gráfica AMD Radeon HD 4670

- Junto a máquina um pendrive bootável de 30gb.

Sou curioso e entusiasta em TI, não sou profissional, esse guia é baseado numa experiência de 20 horas quebrando a cabeça durante várias camadas para que o processo de instalação do Windows 10 no iMac antigo fosse possível, e agora estou entregando tudo mastigadinho aqui pra você não perder o tempo que gastei, então vamos lá! - Leia com atenção, não pule passos, sei que está ansioso, mas não leia passando o olho, atente-se a cada instrução pra funcionar corretamente.

PREPARANDO PENDRIVE BOOTÁVEL:

1 - Baixe a ISO do Windows 8 ou 8.1 no seu Mac; Sim o 8, não tente diretamente com o 10, pois a formatação do pendrive feita pelo MAC (fat32/MBR) suporta até 4gb e o 10 passa esse limite.

2 - Você pode tentar fazer a formatação e gravação da ISO pelo bootcamp do Mac, mas aconselho que consulte o GEMINI para que ele lhe dê as instruções que seão executadas pelo terminal, é bem mais acertivo, vai por mim.

3 - Pendrive pronto, desligue o computador. Seguiremos para o próximo passo:

INSTALANDO O WINDOWS 8/8.1:

1 - Desligue o MAC

2 - ao dar a tela branca de inicialização, aperte e segure Option, ou Alt caso seu teclado seja paralelo, como é no meu caso.

3 - Ao aparecer os métodos de boot escolha o pendrive

4 - Ao instalar o Windows 8/8.1 escolha o método de instalar de forma personalizada, marque a maior partição e exclua, depois clique em formatar, após isso exclua as partições restantes.

5 - Escolha o SSD vazio que restou, e avance, o Windows irá iniciar normalmente.

INSTALANDO O WINDOWS 10:

Neste ponto, se quiser permanecer com o windows 8 é possível, mas não recomendo por conta de softwares que não são mais compatíveis com o sistema, porém, se você quiser, baixe o suporte de bootcamp pro windows 8 do site da Apple, ele irá instalar drivers de som, bluethooth e outras coisas, se não funcionar pelo setup, vá de pasta em pasta do arquivo zipado e instale os drivers.SE NÃO DESEJA FICAR NO WINDOWS 8 NÃO PRECISA FAZER NADA DISTO.

1 - Instale o RUFUS no seu Windows, ele irá formatar e montar a ISO no seu pendrive.

2 - BaiXe a ISO do Windows 10 2h22 no seu Windows. Não instale pelo update, baixe o arquivo.

3 - No RUFUS, selecione a ISO e configure (GPT, UEFI (non CSM), FAT32.

4 - Dê START e espere o processo.

5 - Reinicie o MAC e faça o boot novamente pelo pendrive, fazendo o mesmo processo de instalação que fizemos no Windows 8/8.1

IMPORTANTÍSSIMO: PARA INSTALAÇÃO DO 10, NÃO LIGUE A REDE EM MOMENTO ALGUM, ANTES FAREMOS OUTRO PROCESSO, CASO CONTRÁRIO VOCÊ RECEBERÁ UMA TELA PRETA E VAI PRECISAR FORMATAR NOVAMENTE. Isso acontece, porque diferente do Windows 8 o Update do 10 ainda atualiza automaticamente drivers e irá substituir o driver de vídeo já existente por um incompatível, por conta da idade da placa gráfica, resultando em um crash.

6 - Instalado o Windows, pressione Windows + R, busque msconfig, vá em inicialização, habilite a inicialização segura, habilite rede e vídeo base, após isso reinicie o Windows.

7 - Prioridade: Acesse: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp-previous e baixe a versão 15.201 data de 21/09/2015. execute o instalador até ele retornar um .zip, extraia, NÃO INSTALE OS DRIVERS PELO SETUP AMD.

8 - Vá em gerenciamento de drivers e dispositivos, localize o adaptador de vídeo, clique em seu driver e atualize, ao atualizar, busque um driver do seu computador, escolha a pasta extraída e ele encontrará o driver de reconhecimento da placa gráfica e instalará com sucesso, após isso baixe o suporte bootcamp da apple e instale os outros drivers manualmente também, sem executar o setup.

NEM TUDO SÃO FLORES:

Desta forma o PC já estará ultilizável, sem risco de crashar, mas a GPU não será ativada de fato, então vídeos e coisas que exigem aceleração de hardware exigirão mais da CPU, podendo gerar alguns gargalos, porém, agora você tem um pc ultilizável para trabalho e estudo, atualizado para qualquer software da nova geração.

Hey, I had problem with bluetooth microphone on my 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro under Boot Camp, so in my free time I made a custom driver that enables both Bluetooth audio and the headset microphone using the MacBook's built-in Bluetooth adapter.

I published it here:

https://github.com/djmajino/macbook-bootcamp-bluetooth-mic

There is a ready-to-use installer EXE in the release:

https://github.com/djmajino/macbook-bootcamp-bluetooth-mic/releases/tag/v1.0.0

If you do not want to trust my EXE, the full source and build instructions are in the repo, so you can inspect it and build it yourself, or use Codex or another AI coding agent to help you prepare your own build.

Just keep in mind that this is an experimental self-signed kernel driver, so Secure Boot must be disabled and Windows Test Mode must stay enabled. It works on my MacBookPro16,1, but use it at your own risk.

NÃO ESTOU CONSEGUINDO INSTALAR O WINDOWS 10 NESSE MACBOOK FICA COM ESSA TELA CONGELADA DEPOIS DE INSTALAR O WINDOWS.

ALGUÉM ME AJUDA?

CONSEGUI INSTALAR O WINDOWS, COMO PODE VER NA FOTO JÁ ESTAVA NA ÁREA DE TRABALHO JÁ ESTVA ACESSANDO NAVEGADOR, O MACBOOK TRAVOU E AO REINICIAR FICOU NESSA TELA CONGELADA.

my sister had a macbook pro for a bunch of years til the ios part of it started lagging, it didn’t want to update and so she reset it and but got stuck on the oldest update. and so my dad to not spend money on a new laptop when he cant sell the other, he gave it to me but its microsoft. didnt complain it ws fully working (except the camera) and 1 day before traveling my laptop couldnt recognise any usb drive whatsover not even my mouse. my dad went and got it “fixed” to his friend who literally knows nth abt laptops who ended up resetting the WHOLE thing. my dad came back with a laptop that has no bluetooth no taskbar nada. and so he told me if i wanna dimmer the lights or the audio i gotta do it from the internal laptop. fast forward to a month ago i’s studying real hard since my SATs is in october and i turn the lights down and end up turning it way too down. i panicked i rushed to gemini and for 19 days straight ive been coding ive been restarting and i even downloaded the macbook pro bootcamp since my dad’s friend literally deleted it (including brigidair). my taskbar worked but my wifi stopped working and bluetooth and camera same as it is and ive missed too much lessons and i cant even study on m6 ipad unless my sister is back from uni which she stays in for atleast 10 hours. i need a solution ASAP i cannot fail.

I use macos catalina how do I even run win7 on this thing, it wants win10

I finally got sick enough of the existing touchpad drivers in Boot Camp and the available open-source alternative that I ended up heavily rewriting the driver.

I started with an existing Precision Touchpad driver because there really wasn’t a decent alternative. I use the touchpad extensively for work, and I got tired of working around the driver’s quirks. One day I put my MacBook to sleep, put it in my bag, and went home. When I took it out, I found it completely frozen and hot, with the fans running at full speed.

After using the open-source driver, I decided to fork it and spent a ridiculous amount of time rewriting, fixing, and improving it, with Claude helping me along the way. What started as “let me fix this one annoying bug” turned into a full-on driver project. It’s called Wellspring Precision Touchpad.

And no, it’s not some “AI generated driver, good luck” thing. There’s been a lot of actual debugging, rewriting, fixing race/lifecycle issues and testing on real hardware.

I’ve been working on things like Force Touch, palm rejection, touch processing and a bunch of other stuff that I kept finding annoying with the standard setup. I’ve tested it on both a T2 MacBook Pro 2019 and a 2015 MacBook Air.

----------------------------

I also built a GUI for the driver that lets you change various touchpad parameters on the fly, without having to rebuild or reinstall the driver every time you want to tweak something. This makes experimenting and fine-tuning much easier.

It’s still a hobby project, and I’m not pretending to be a driver developer. But it’s now at the point where I actually use it as my daily setup, so I figured it was time to let other people try it.

GitHub: https://github.com/Osaul4ik/wellspring-ptp

If you’re running Windows through Boot Camp and you’re tired of the stock trackpad experience, give it a shot.

The two main downsides: it currently requires Windows Test Mode because the driver isn’t commercially signed. So yeah, you’ll get the lovely “Test Mode” watermark on the desktop.

Advanced haptic feedback isn’t supported, so unfortunately there’s no satisfying click feeling after Force Touch (Default haptic present)

----------------------------------

I recorded two short videos to give you a quick look at Wellspring in action:

• MBP 2019: YouTube Short
• MBA 2015: YouTube Short

----------------------------------

Update: I also made an installer to simplify the setup.

It automatically:

• enables Windows Test Mode;
• installs the required certificate;
• installs the Wellspring Precision Touchpad driver.

So there’s no need to do these steps manually through Windows settings / Device Manager.

I’ll include the installer with the project/release.

I have a 2015 Macbook Pro 15 inch, running Bootcamp Windows 10 and I cannot get the camera to work properly in Google Meets using Google Chrome browser. I've tried resetting permissions and nothing. Anyone else having this issue? Thanks.

Hey zusammen,
wer von euch hat noch ein älteren iPhone Laptop im Einsatz, auf dem dank Boot Camp eigentlich noch Windows 10 läuft, das aber laut Microsoft wegen fehlendem TPM 2.0 oder „nicht unterstützter CPU“ für Windows 11 gesperrt ist?
Es gibt einen extrem simplen Trick, um das zu umgehen, ohne extra bootfähige USB-Sticks mit Rufus basteln zu müssen. Man nutzt dabei einen Schalter im Setup, der Windows vorgaukelt, es handele sich um eine Windows Server-Installation. Die Hardware-Prüfungen greifen hier nicht – installiert wird am Ende aber eine ganz normale Windows 11 Home oder Pro.
⚠️ Wichtig vorab:
Backup erstellen! (Man weiß ja nie).
Der Trick funktioniert am besten als In-Place-Upgrade aus einem laufenden Windows 10 heraus.
Internetverbindung kappen! (WLAN ausschalten / Netzstecker ziehen), damit das Setup währenddessen keine Online-Prüfungen durchführt.
🛠️ Schritt-für-Schritt-Anleitung:
1. Offizielle Windows 11 ISO direkt bei Microsoft herunterladen.
2. Die heruntergeladene ISO-Datei im Explorer per Doppelklick als virtuelles Laufwerk (z. B. ⁠D:⁠ oder ⁠E:⁠) bereitstellen.
3. Öffne das virtuelle Laufwerk, mache einen Rechtsklick auf einen freien Bereich und wähle „Im Terminal öffnen“ oder „In Eingabeaufforderung öffnen“ (alternativ: ⁠Win + R⁠ drücken, ⁠cmd⁠ eingeben und Enter drücken).
4. Tippe folgenden Befehl ein und bestätige mit Enter:
⁠setup.exe /product server⁠
5. Das Setup öffnet sich jetzt und ignoriert alle Hardware-Blockaden! Wähle einfach aus, dass deine persönlichen Daten und Apps behalten werden sollen.
💡 Pro-Tipp für MacBooks:
Vergiss im Anschluss nicht, die Apple Boot Camp-Treiber unter Windows zu aktualisieren, damit Trackpad-Gesten, Sound und Tastaturbeleuchtung wieder reibungslos funktionieren.

Kurzer Hinweis: die Anleitung funktioniert such auf normalen Fenster Computern nur ohne die Start

Habe das ganze mit einem iPhone Laptop Pro (Mid 2012) getestet

So last morning we installed one it was crashed on bootcamp by already started services so I disabled immediately and I fixed it

I needed a light, small windows laptop for light work, media consumption, browsing etc. I need it to be Windows as a few work applications I needed to install were not compatible with Macs and I do not like MacOS anyway.

I looked into a few options but eventually landed on a used Intel Macbook Air 2020 to install Windows 11. This model is super cheap right now as its considered one of the worst Macbooks especially given the M1 came out a few months later and made this thing feel like a dinosaur. But this was perfect as I wanted to run Windows natively and I felt it wasn’t possible to get the build quality + screen at that price point with basically anything else. I avoided the i3 model and bought a i5, 8G Ram, 512GB Storage model for 220 Singapore Dollars (approx. 180 USD). It only had 99 battery cycles and the chassis looked clean.

Windows 11 installation:

1. Updated MacOs to the latest version (Sequoia)
2. Used Bootcamp to install Windows 10
3. Used another Windows computer to make a Windows 11 install flash drive using Rufus
4. Installed Windows 11
5. Installed bootcamp drivers: This took some digging but a few reddit threads had the right links

Thermal pad mod:

To relieve thermal throttling issues that plague this model, I got a 1.5mm thermal pad and put it on top of the heat sink, covering the entire thing. I make sure to not cover the side holes so there can still be air flow. I also took off the black factory insulating sticker that was stuck to the bottom cover over the heat sink to maximize heat transfer. I didn’t do a thermal paste change.

The entire process (Windows install + Thermal pad mod) took about 2 hours. Pretty easy to do.

Issues:

• During Windows 11 installation, the laptop’s keyboard and trackpad did not work. I connected an external keyboard/mouse to navigate the installation steps. Near the end of the installation process, it suddenly started working again
• After installing Windows 11, a bunch of stuff didn’t work including the Fn Key, multi-touch scroll, Bluetooth and a bunch of other minor things. Device Manager showed a bunch of missing drivers. This was all fixed once I installed bootcamp drivers
• The bottom gets super hot under load. Like uncomfortably so. This kind of makes me think the thermal paste swap wouldn’t have been that useful anyway. But this will be on a desk 90% of the time and I don’t expect my workflow will push the CPU that much so this shouldn’t be much of a problem. Under light use, the bottom gets barely warm. The thermal pad mod will be more for longevity than anything else.
• Fingerprint sensor doesn’t work. Its not a big deal and I couldn’t find a fix for it online. But if someone knows how to fix this, let me know!

Pros:

• Love the aesthetics and the build quality. Screen is second to none.
• The performance is great. Zippy for nearly all the tasks I want to do. I do occasionally see some slowdowns when I push the thing but overall the lag is manageable.
• Battery life seems to be around 8 hours under light/moderate load with the screen brightness adjusted down slightly. I turned off all the tracking, Windows aesthetics and the other usual optimizations to boost battery life.
• The last MacOS that this thing supports is Sequioa and support for that will probably end in about a year. Installing Windows 11 will probably extend the life of this thing for at least another 3+ years.

Final thoughts: If you want a nice budget Windows-native machine and your workload isn’t too heavy, this is unbeatable for the price. This is massively underpriced as this model is so hated by Mac users. A new Windows machine at 180 USD from a reputable maker will get you some plastic piece of crap with less than half the specs of this thing. Even for used windows laptops, it’s a bit of a crapshoot and I could not find that much under 200 USD worth considering. Plus, parts are easy to source.

Before all the Apple silicone fanboys yap about how the M processors are so much more efficient powerful blah blah blah the cheapest somewhat normal M1 is at least 2.5x the price of this thing and it can’t run the apps I need so suck it.

I installed Windows 11 on my 2014 Macbook A1466, and during bootup, I got the error: "The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot continue. To reinstall Windows, click OK to restart the computer, and then restart the installation. I click OK and it restarts, but it still does the same thing. I insert a Windows flash drive, but it doesn't read it.

My family did the setup for my macbook, giving one partition for the mac and windows bootcamp. But somehow, the bootcamp became two? Is this a bug?

Long story short, I may have FAFO. I had a 2019 iMac that long ago I bootcamped with a 50% partition (Sorry I dont know the proper words for the things I did), then when I ran out of space, wiped the disk and installed just the Windows OS with a USB. MacOS, to my knowledge, does not exist on the PC. That worked perfectly for a very long time. Updated drivers with Bootcampdrivers.net, and called it a day. awhile after that, I unplugged it bcs I got a new PC and was giving this old one to a friend. Accidentally cracked the screen a little but seemingly no other issues, the fans start on full blast but they were always like that, plus it is hot. Plugged it in at their place, and I get a windows "Preparing Automatic Repair" screen, that loads for a fat minute, before skipping to a screen That’s just the windows logo and a loading wheel, that is seemingly stuck forever. My keyboard only turns on for a few seconds before the screen pops up, then it stays off. Not sure what to do, since every solution I see says to get to screens that I cant access. Help a brother out!