Losing OSX on Mac Mini for Windows 10

Flukester · 25 Aug 2015 at 15:16

Hi all

Without using bootcamp has anyone ever totally rid their Mac of OSX and installed Win7 or Win10 ?

In theory both support EFI so should work.

I know it's crazy but our old Mac Mini has SSD / 16GB / I7 and should run Windows natively really fast. Though we like OSX most the time it spends running is being used with Win7 virtual machine.

Reading around net instructions and advice vary....

Reason for move is all our photos are on there now in Photos migrated from the now dead Aperture. I'm not 100% with OSX and feel my data is more easily backed up and managed from Windows. (though I'm sure OSX is fine if you learn it fully)

EDIT: this should prolly be in software forum :|

Phate · 25 Aug 2015 at 16:07

I can't offer much in the answer, but I can't help but think it would be FAR easier just learning OSX more and getting confident with the backups?

If anything. I'm more confident with Time Machine on OSX than any other backup software I've used.

shiver · 25 Aug 2015 at 20:12

It is possible but is a bit of a long-winded solution. I'm thinking, if you're worried about stability on the Mac, why are you looking to run non-native software on it? :S

Just use Time Machine to back it up?

Or just google for a guide

Feek · 26 Aug 2015 at 11:00

Time Machine couldn't be more straightforward. *click* done.

MagicBoy · 26 Aug 2015 at 19:45

I wouldn't completely obliterate OS X - you're then screwed for firmware updates and the like in the future.

Boot Camp it and knock the OS X partition down to the minimum 20GB or whatever it is now, then use the rest for Windows if you so wish and set the startup disk accordingly.