BootCamp Download Stuck – How to Get Drivers for Macs to run Windows 7 or 8

— updated after BootCamp 5 release June 2013 —

Where can you get a direct download of Windows drivers for Macs if BootCamp is stuck, and says 'could not continue' or you have some other problem downloading the drivers?

The brute force solution: it’s a darned large download, so physically take your machine to somewhere with a very fast internet connection that can download 600MB – 1GB in a couple of minutes. There, you’re done. Especially if you have a laptop, this would be the simplest solution - even take it to an Apple Store.

For the rest of us:

  1. If not, then first find out your Mac's ModelIdentifier
    • Q: How do I find my Mac's Model Identifier?
      A: Open System Information, and look in the Hardware Overview section.
      In other words: Click Apple menu -> About this Mac -> More Info… -> System Report -> Hardware. Now, read down the list in the Hardware Overview panel, looking for Model Identifier
    • If you're stuck, see the note below.
    • Note that a ModelIdentifierHasNoSpacesInItAtAll.
  2. Second, get a download manager. You can try doing without, but the reason you're on this page is that you're having trouble getting a file to download reliably. A download manager such as iGetter or Folx solves this problem.

  3. Then, search for your ModelIdentifier in the table below. Click the link to get the download package. Be patient as they are 600MB to over 1GB. It will be much simpler if you do the download in OS X, because OS X can open the downloaded file and also open the dmg file inside it.

  4. Still in Mac OS X, once your pkg is downloaded, double click it and install to a folder on your hard drive so you know where to find it. During the Installation, click the "Change Location" option so that you can choose where it gets installed.Image of OS X Installer step where you can choose the folder to install to

  5. The folder contains a nest of folders, the last of which contains a dmg disk image file. Double click that to open. At last! Here are your Windows installer files.Install BootCampESD 4 Find and Double click the dmg fileBootCamp WindowsSupport.dmg Contents

    BootCamp WindowsSupport.dmg Contents of Drivers Folder

  6. Copy them to a usb drive, or a burnable CD. NB, it’s still 660MB or more, so it’s a full CDs worth of burning time.
  7. Done. You can now proceed with Boot Camp assistant Windows installation and boot the Mac in Windows.

If you must do the download in Windows instead OS X, it's harder. You will need the help on http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p860/opening-a-bootcamp-driver-download-on-windows-7-or-8-with-7-zip to open the pkg file and the dmg file inside it.

BootCamp Direct Download Links

Most of these driver downloads work for both Windows 7 and Windows 8. Windows 8 on 32-bit is not officially supported, but almost everything seems to works on fine on not-officially supported models: the only specific shortcoming I'm aware of is that the screen brightness buttons don't work on all models.

Model Identifier Size & driver release date Direct Download Link
Macmini6,1
Macmini6,2
MacBookPro10,2
iMac13,1
iMac13,2 		438MB, 3 Dec 2012 http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/54/18/041-8805/9tglhtxadqtnrro79rsdy4f0mkgu7wg6or/BootCampESD.pkg
MacBookPro9,1
MacBookPro9,2 		1,058MB, 15 June 2012 http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/11/05/041-0925/g27es04pw9re5ggrfp3vuf8ew6r53asfz8/BootCampESD.pkg
MacBookPro10,1
MacBookAir5,1
MacBookAir5,2 		942MB, 15 June 2012 hhttp://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/51/041-3891/se4uhpqng48t842cdsosqh28lft54fmswl/BootCampESD.pkg
MacBookAir4,1
MacBookAir4,2
Macmini5,1
Macmini5,2
Macmini5,3 		676MB, 23 May 2012 hhttp://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/33/041-2303/W5jKtsQhhMgMXs3TKhPDqLXrpXyY2HdXMN/BootCampESD.pkg
MacBook2,1
MacBook3,1
MacBook4,1
MacBook5,1
MacBook5,2
MacBook5,3
MacBook6,1
MacBook7,1
MacBookAir1,1
MacBookAir2,1
MacBookAir3,1
MacBookAir3,2
MacBookPro2,1
MacBookPro2,2
MacBookPro3,1
MacBookPro4,1
MacBookPro5,1
MacBookPro5,2
MacBookPro5,3
MacBookPro5,4
MacBookPro5,5
MacBookPro6,1
MacBookPro6,2
MacBookPro7,1
MacBookPro8,1
MacBookPro8,2
MacBookPro8,3
MacPro1,1
MacPro2,1
MacPro3,1
MacPro4,1
MacPro5,1
Macmini2,1
Macmini3,1
Macmini4,1
iMac5,1
iMac6,1
iMac7,1
iMac8,1
iMac9,1
iMac10,1
iMac11,1
iMac11,2
iMac11,3
iMac12,1
iMac12,2 		632MB, 23 May 2012 http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/33/54/041-2011/pRtCDYcWShMLxFggy3TzFzmfnnWQNFQBfJ/BootCampESD.pkg

Finding your ModelIdentifier

If you're struggling to find your ModelIdentifier then you want the brilliant page at everymac.com which can tell you what model Mac you have based on serial number. On the result page after you submit, look carefully and you'll the ModelIdentifier.

Still stuck?

If you're still stuck, then:

  1. Look through the comments for people with similar problems -- there have been a couple of hundred so they cover pretty much everything I can suggest.
  2. Try my summary of problems/solutions for direct download of bootcamp drivers

References

See BootCampESD.pkg download instructions for references and for the DIY instructions to work out these links yourself.

365 thoughts on “BootCamp Download Stuck – How to Get Drivers for Macs to run Windows 7 or 8”

  1. Hi Chris F Carroll,

    I put the boot camp folder on my USB EXTERNAL HARDRIVE , but I couldn’t find my hardrive when I then started Windows again, what should I do now ??? PLZ reply ASAP!!!

    1. I guess that means that Windows doesn’t recognise your external hard drive.
      Do you have a usb thumb drive you can use instead? Or is there a Windows drivers CD with your hard drive?

  4. Hi,
    i’ve downloaded the proper drivers for my computer, but when i open the package i get an error when trying install it on my desktop folder. It says “The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail.” please assist me!

  5. Hey,

    Thank you so much for this. I just have a small question. I did mount the Windowssupport.dmg file. And everything that you explained did come about. Now I want to burn this into my DVD. My question is do I burn the WindowsSupport.DMG into the DVD, or do I just burn just the drivers individually, because there is some other pdf files there too. If I do have to burn just the drivers individually, then how do I do that into a DVD ( I dont think I can just copy/paste it). I am not too sure how it works, so sorry for this silly question. Otherwise, this has been really helpful.

    Cheers

  7. Pingback: bootcamp – windows on your mac. | spacecore - a blog.

    1. Yep, that would be the one.
      I can’t help you with OSX download I’m afraid but are you sure you need to do that? If you’ve got a 2012 Mac I’m pretty sure that the recovery partition is on your hard disk and if you hold the Alt key down when the system starts up you’ll see the recovery partition is shown (usually it’s hidden).
      I can see the case for having a recovery partition on a separate physical disk, but a time machine backup to an external disk would deal with that?

  9. hi
    i use macbook laptop but when i installed some software it does not accept it.why?
    for example more .exe files.
    thanks

    1. Hi Daniel, .exe files only work on Windows not on a Mac or on Unix machines. You need to look for the Mac versions of programs you want to use. For instance if you search the internet for ‘Office for Mac’ you’ll get links for MAc versions. Hope that helps,
      Chris

  10. I have a MacBookPro10,1 – the file I downloaded doesn’t contain a “setup.exe”. It does however, contain a “ssetup.exe” and two more executables called “si32.exe” and “si64.exe”.

    I originally downloaded the wrong .pkg file (for the MacBookPro10,2) which had a “setup.exe” file. However, it said it was for another MacBook Pro model when I ran it.

    I’m running Windows 8 only – no OS/X.

    Isn’t it kind of ridiculous that it’s supposed to be this difficult to get the latest Boot Camp drivers? Shame on you, Apple… :/

    1. Alas. It is. If you have moment to do a screen shot of the file contents though, I can link to it or add it to the post to show the slight variations of what you get. I take it you tried double clicking one or more of the exe files and one of them worked?

  12. Pingback: 在Macbook Air上安装windows | 筷子之家
  13. Pingback: Download BootCamp Drivers for Macs to run Windows 7 or 8

  14. hi ,
    m using mac book 7,1 i have downloaded the driver package, i had a problem before as i lost ma install disk for OSX, n when i installed windows , i needed it . does this package mean that it has the drivers that were suppose to be on the application install disk? just wanna know. pls reply asap.

    thanks.

  15. Hi
    I have Macbook pro early 2011
    I was trying to install windows 7 on my mac-book after it finished partition it asked for drivers and I don’t have any drivers..
    Would you please tell me which drivers and from where should i download from ?

    Thanks

  17. When i tryed to do this, error poped up when trying to install drivers on windows OS says something about not be ing compatible 64. Is there a 32 bit version of the drivers i need.
    My setup
    Macbook
    unibody
    Mountain Lion OS on hdd 1
    Windows 7 on hdd 2 (which is inplace of my optic drive)

  18. Hi, I have Windows 8 pro installed, and my ModelIdentifier is iMac13,2, I’ve downloaded the files and as I double clicked on the setup, it says ‘This app can’t run on your PC’ Do you have any idea why? Thanks.

  19. Hello. Thanks for this tutorial. I have Windows 8 Pro 64bit installed, and any time I run the BCA installer on Windows it complains that my MacBook 3,1 isn’t supported. I’ve gotten this error before in the past when running Windows 7 on this same machine, though I don’t quite remember how I got the drivers to finally install. Any tips/hints?

    Thanks.

    1. I still can’t get it to work. I tried using Pacifist, pulled out the dmg file, but when I copy it, it says the checksum failed, but I can still continue. When I try to mount the dmg, it won’t let me because checksum failed.

    2. Update: I think I fixed it. Just tried downloading it on iGetter and it seemed to work.

      I guess a few important bits can get flipped.

  22. hey chris…..i m having a problem installing windows using the bootcamp ……it gets stuck when it is downloading the windows support file…..so i came to this site and downloaded the bootcampESD.pkg for my mbp9.2…….but in that…. wen i reached your 4th step…..i.e choosing the folder in my Macintoshhd….i cannot find the windowsspport.dmg on it…….plz helm me with that….

    1. hey i have found the windows support.dmg fie…. but while the windows setup was runnong it asked me for some drivers…so i had put the external drive in which i had extracted the windows support.dmg file…….it recognised the external drive but didnt recognise any driver …… plz chris help me with it…!!!

      1. Hi Sandy,
        So you got as far as, you’ve download the dmg and you’ve restarted in Windows? So next open the external drive in Windows Explorer. You should see something like a setup.exe like in the picture above and you can double click it. If you don’t see that, what do you see? Chris

        1. hey chris….
          yes i can see the setup.exe……but the actual thing is …i m installing windows through bootcamp……i have a windows 7 iso file through which i m installing windows on my mac……so the problem is….during the installation time i.e when the computer is installing windows 7 >>>it asks for some drivers which are missing…..n because of that i m unable to install windows on my mac…..!!!

          plz help me chris…!!!!

          1. Ah. the drivers stuff that this page deals with assumes that you’ve already got windows working on the mac.
            This page won’t help you to get windows installed in the first place. To that, you need an ordinary windows 7 installer dvd.
            I don’t think a windows 7 iso will help you at all, unless it’s an iso of the standard win 7 installer and you can first burn it onto a dvd.

          4. it is a genuine windows7 iso file….n before the installation itself it is askin for some drivers….can u help me plzzz….!!!!

    1. In windows, you don’t want to see the dmg file. You have to open that in OS X _before_ you switch into Windows. OS X will might the dmg file as if it were a drive, then you drag the _contents_ onto your external drive.

  24. Hey! i’ve got to thank you so much! it worked perfectly, the bright and sound indicators don’t appear as well, but the buttons do! so it’s not a problem, you really helped me out and i just wanted to thank you 🙂

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