Bootcamp Wifi
This post is a bit outside of the normal realm of photo booths here at PBO I wanted to write down my experience. Today I installed Windows 8 Pro 64-bit RTM (legit I am an MSDN subscriber) on my MacBook Pro (late 2011) that is running Snow Leopard. While I am a Windows developer and long time user, Apple does create the best Windows hardware I have found.
Hi, I had installed Windows 10 1909 Pro using Bootcamp on ma new MacBook Pro 13 I5/16/512 (4-PORT). So far, so good. My Problem is the wifi (driver?) came with bootcamp for the Broadcom Wifi chipset. I getting very slow download rates in Windows. I uses here in Germany a Fritz Box 7590. Windows 10 likes to replace official Broadcom drivers with newer broken Microsoft drivers. This results in unusable internet on encrypted Wi-Fi networks. Available for the following machines while running Boot Camp: MacBook Air (Late 2010 and later), MacBook Pro (Late 2010 and later), Mac mini (Mid 2010 and later), iMac (Mid 2010 and later), MacBook (Mid 2010 and later) Impact: An attacker within range may be able to execute arbitrary code on the Wi-Fi chip. You may follow the steps below and make sure that the wireless network device is set to use 5.0 Ghz. In the start search box type devmgmt.msc and press enter. This will open device manager. In the device manager window, expand Network adapter. Right click on the Wireless card in the device manager and click on Properties. The solution was found with a Google search for 'macbook pro wireless disconnects randomly bootcamp windows 10' which returned the following video as result 2 Fix APPLE bootcamp wifi drop out. My System: Macbook Pro 10,1 (Early 2013) Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter; Driver Version: 7.35.118.73.
This post is not to walk you through the whole process of installing Windows on a Mac with boot camp. If you are looking for information about this I recommend you visit Apple‘s website.
What this post is about is the difficulty I had getting my screen to stop auto dimming and the wireless driver to install.
These are the steps I took to install the boot camp drivers for Windows and the fixes I found for my issues.
Installing Boot Camp Drivers for Windows 8
First I installed boot camp 3.0 drivers for Windows. To do this I had to jump a small hurdle and copy the boot camp files locally to my hard-drive. I copied these files to C:BootCamp on my hard-drive.
Since I installed the 64-bit version of Windows 8 I needed to run the proper installer. Unfortunately this wasn't quite as simple as one would believe, I had to first locate the installer of all things. In my instance it was located at C:BootCampDriversApple and was named BootCamp64.msi. I've bolded the part of the path specific to where I copied the boot camp file., adjust as necessary for you setup.
Next I ran the installer in compatibility mode. I successfully used the “Previous version of Windows” option for this.
I then went through the upgrade chain to get to boot camp 3.3 and ensure I had Apple's latest drivers. You can get these again on Apple's website. Here is a direct link.
After doing this I found two major things that I could not move forward without resolving. My screen would dim and I had no wireless.
Resolving Dimming Screen in Windows 8
First my screen would dim to about 50% seconds after booting into Windows. The brightness adjust was showing 100% though. This was alarming as it was very difficult to read the screen with it so dim. After some digging around I found that this was actually a Windows 8 setting you needed to disable called “Enable adaptive brightness”. Apparently this is evil.
You can locate this setting under Control PanelHardware and SoundPower OptionsEdit Plan Settings. There click your power plan's Change Plan Settings link and then Change Advanced Power Settings on the next screen. In the dialog locate the “Display” option in the list box and expand it. The last item (though it could be elsewhere in yours I suppose) is Enable adaptive brightness. Expand it and turn it off for both of the options “on battery” and “plugged in”.
You now have full control over your screen's brightness.
Resolving No Wireless Driver for Windows 8 in Boot Camp
Now for the more perplexing issue of the two, no wireless driver! This ended up costing me a few hours of searching the internet's answer machines (a.k.a. Google and Bing) before finally finding a solution that worked.
As I mentioned above I installed boot camp 3.0 from my Snow Leopard disc and then upgraded it to 3.3. After all this I still had no wireless and a generic “Network Controller” without a driver in Device Manager. I tried extracting the various drivers from the boot camp installation and various updates and installing them separately. None of these worked. Finally I stumbled across this thread and downloaded the first driver listed (I am providing a download below for this same file).
After the download completed I extracted the contents and proceeded to install it manual. If you have not done this in awhile all you need to do is the following.
- Go to Device Manager.
- Locate the device missing a driver.
- Double-click on it and then click the Update Driver button on the dialog.
- Select the Browse my computer for driver software option.
- Select the Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer option.
- Select Network adapters from the as, as we are installing the wireless adapter.
- Click Next.
- Click Have disk
- Navigate to the folder you extracted the driver downloaded (available below) and select the bcmwl6.inf file.
- Click OK and follow the rest of the prompts.
You should now have wireless access for your Windows 8 installation!
I hope that this is helpful to others experiencing these same issues that I did. Below you can find a link to the drivers that I used in my installation.
Boot Camp requires a Mac with an Intel processor.
When you install Microsoft Windows on your Mac, Boot Camp Assistant automatically opens the Boot Camp installer, which installs the latest Windows support software (drivers). If that doesn't happen, or you experience any of the following issues while using Windows on your Mac, follow the steps in this article.
- Your Apple mouse, trackpad, or keyboard isn't working in Windows.
Force Touch isn't designed to work in Windows. - You don't hear audio from the built-in speakers of your Mac in Windows.
- The built-in microphone or camera of your Mac isn't recognized in Windows.
- One or more screen resolutions are unavailable for your display in Windows.
- You can't adjust the brightness of your built-in display in Windows.
- You have issues with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in Windows.
- You get an alert that Apple Software Update has stopped working.
- You get a message that your PC has a driver or service that isn't ready for this version of Windows.
- Your Mac starts up to a black or blue screen after you install Windows.
If your Mac has an AMD video card and is having graphics issues in Windows, you might need to update your AMD graphics drivers instead.
Install the latest macOS updates
Before proceeding, install the latest macOS updates, which can include updates to Boot Camp.
Format a USB flash drive
To install the latest Windows support software, you need a 16GB or larger USB flash drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT).
- Start your Mac from macOS.
- Plug the USB flash drive into your Mac.
- Open Disk Utility, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar.
- From the sidebar in Disk Utility, select your USB flash drive. (Select the drive name, not the volume name beneath it.)
- Click the Erase button or tab.
- Choose MS-DOS (FAT) as the format and Master Boot Record as the scheme.
- Click Erase to format the drive. When done, quit Disk Utility.
Download the Windows support software
After preparing your USB flash drive, complete these steps:
- Make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Open Boot Camp Assistant, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- From the menu bar at the top of your screen, choose Action > Download Windows Support Software, then choose your USB flash drive as the save destination. When the download completes, quit Boot Camp Assistant.
Learn what to do if you can't download or save the Windows support software.
Bootcamp Wifi Driver
Install the Windows support software
After downloading the Windows support software to your flash drive, follow these steps to install the software. (If you're attempting to resolve issues with a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard, it might be easier to use a USB mouse or keyboard until these steps are complete.)
- Make sure that the USB flash drive is plugged into your Mac.
- Start up your Mac in Windows.
- From File Explorer, open the USB flash drive, then open Setup or setup.exe, which is in the WindowsSupport folder or BootCamp folder. When you're asked to allow Boot Camp to make changes to your device, click Yes.
- Click Repair to begin installation. If you get an alert that the software hasn't passed Windows Logo testing, click Continue Anyway.
- After installation completes, click Finish, then click Yes when you're asked to restart your Mac.
Mac Bootcamp Wifi Slow
Learn more
Bootcamp Wifi Not Working 2020
If you can't download or save the Windows support software:
- If the assistant says that the Windows support software could not be saved to the selected drive, or that the USB flash drive can't be used, make sure that your USB flash drive has a storage capacity of at least 16GB and is formatted correctly.
- If the assistant doesn't see your USB flash drive, click Go Back and make sure that the drive is connected directly to the USB port on your Mac—not to a display, hub, or keyboard. Disconnect and reconnect the drive, then click Continue.
- If the assistant says that it can't download the software because of a network problem, make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Make sure that your Mac meets the system requirements to install Windows using Boot Camp.
Bootcamp Wifi Issues
If a Mac feature still doesn't work after updating the Windows support software, search for your symptom on the Apple support website or Microsoft support website. Some features of your Mac aren't designed to work in Windows.