How to upgrade to 64bits windows on a 4,1 macbook ?

[DrCanard]

Hi dear mac users,
I recently acquired a Macbook 4,1 from early 2008. Unfortunately the latest version of macos supported is Lion. I managed to upgrade it to Mountain Lion and Mavericks (but that last one lost the graphic acceleration). The impossibility to use modern apps on those system made me install windows 10 on it.
Weirdly, this mac won't boot on a windows USB stick (but boots on a macOS one) so I had to burn Windows on a DVD. Unfortunately, there is room only for the 32 bits of windows 10. Everything seems to works very well on it, but I would like to upgrade to a 64 bits version of windows 10 in order to use some of my programs that are exclusively 64 bits.
In order to do so, I used a dual-layer DVD to burn W10 64 bits, but the mac seems do not accept this DVD (it automatically ejects it after few seconds of trying to read it).

So I'm looking here for some help, advices or ideas in order to make this mac boot from a windows USB stick or to find a smaller 64bits versions of windows 10 that can be burned on a single layer DVD...

 

[maflynn]

a 2008 MacBook doesn't support running windows 10 natively. I'd say your least painful way to do this is to run parallels

 

[BrianBaughn]

You can run a Linux distribution on that MacBook model and the graphics card will work.

So…you might want to look at the possibility of using Virtualbox in Linux to run Windows 10 64-bit. I haven't done it or even looked into it. I imagine it would be rather laggy even if it works.

 

[DrCanard]

a 2008 MacBook doesn't support running windows 10 natively. I'd say your least painful way to do this is to run parallels

Thanks ! I know that it doesn't support W10 natively, but I'm searching for a workaround that doesn't need emulation (it would be very, very slow!).

You can run a Linux distribution on that MacBook model and the graphics card will work.

So…you might want to look at the possibility of using Virtualbox in Linux to run Windows 10 64-bit. I haven't done it or even looked into it. I imagine it would be rather laggy even if it works.

Indeed I ran Ubuntu on it but Linux doesn't support the tools I need. I could virtualize W10 but it would be very, very slow and inadequate.
Actually the graphic acceleration works fairly well on the 32 bits version of W10. I'm looking for a way to update it on the 64 bits version.

 

[Kifouett]

Lastest version of Windows 10 (20H2) works perfectly in an early 2008 Macbook with bootcamp drivers

see below some photos of my macbook early 2008 with Windows 10 20H2

and.... a video to prove dual boot Lion Win 10 20H2:

Personnaly i search a way to upgrade Lion to a newer version of OS X like Yosemite... I will find it probably in an another topic in this forum

 

[Kifouett]

first i try to plug a HDD from another computer (due to my job i have some test SDD with windows on it) a windows 10 on a MBR partition style, works perfectly.

second time i manually resize Lion partion via Gparted bootable tool, and i make a fresh install in the free space with the lastest windows 10 ISO make by "Media Creation Tool" and specify manually language and architecture X64

then when it was fully installed and updated (everything is "usable" from scratch before install bootcamp drivers) wifi works, touchpad is usable but click is only via physical button, keyboard layout is not apple by default

and finally manually install all the bootcamp drivers (specify compatibility "previous os" in the installer

and all works:
iSight
Microphone
Sound
graphic drivers
bluetooth
keyboard layout
touchpad with multitouch

etc...

no issue at all to use a 64Bits Win 10 20H2 in a Early 2008 Macbook