Boot Camp

Boot Camp is a collection of technologies made available by Apple that assists users in installing BIOS-based operating systems on Intel-based Macintosh computers. Boot Camp initially consisted of a non-destructive partitioning tool and a CD-ROM image with device drivers for Windows. In addition to device drivers for the hardware, the CD includes a Windows control panel for setting the primary operating system. Boot Camp is not a virtualization tool, which would allow the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems to run concurrently; instead, the computer must be restarted to use either operating system. A boot manager allows for selection of operating systems.

Beta testing and release
Apple provided no official support for Boot Camp or Windows when it entered public beta in 2006 for Mac OS X 10.4.6. Windows XP was never made available in Apple Stores, making installation the responsibility of the user. Unresolvable issues required the reinstallation of Mac OS X.

The technology was officially released in 2007 with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Boot Camp beta downloads were removed from the Apple site for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) users, making Leopard a prerequisite for running the official release version.

System requirements
Boot Camp requires that users upgrade the firmware on their Intel-based Macintosh to the latest version, which includes the boot-loader and compatibility module required to get the EFI based machines to boot legacy operating systems.

Beta requirements

 * An Intel-based Mac with up-to-date firmware
 * Built-in or USB keyboard and mouse
 * Mac OS X 10.4.6 to 10.4.11
 * 10GB free hard disk space
 * An available writeable CD or DVD
 * A BIOS operating system (Linux, Windows, etc.)

Windows 10 requirements

 * One of the following Intel-based Macs:
 * iMac (2012 to 2020)
 * iMac Pro (all models)
 * MacBook (2015 to 2019)
 * MacBook Air (2012 to early 2020)
 * MacBook Pro (2012 to mid 2020)
 * Mac mini (2012 to 2018)
 * Mac Pro (2013 and later)
 * 64GB or more free storage space on your Mac startup drive.
 * An external USB drive with storage capacity of 16GB or more.
 * A 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro on a disk image (ISO) or other installation media.

Unsupported devices
While the driver disk created by Boot Camp allows Windows XP hardware support for the majority but not all of a Mac's system components, it did not support the following:


 * Coupling with Bluetooth devices, such as the Apple Wireless Keyboard or Wireless Mouse
 * Apple USB Modem
 * Keyboard backlighting on MacBook Pro
 * Macs without Intel processors (PowerPC or Apple processors)