what's the oldest version of windows I could install on a macbook pro?

[nageov3t]

because of lower sales tax in my town, I picked up a macbook pro (latest model, retina, etc) for my friend. it's now sitting in my apartment and he'll be picking it up this weekend.

as a prank, because he's such an anti-Windows guy, I thought about taking a backup of its current state and installing a Windows OS on it for when he boots it up this first time

I'm wondering, though... what's the oldest, worst version of Windows I could probably get to load?

I assume 7 or vista would be standard, but what about something like ME?

 

[cheez]

Windows XP or Server 2003.

But sadly there is no driver available for the keyboard and display control which is a huge hunky dunky cow problem. You can get wired connection though.

This is why I went back to OS X Lion. It's superior....

P.s. you can install pretty much any older version of Windows (Win98 ME in this case) by booting off from CD. But you won't be able to install any drivers and will be worthless. Chipset driver won't work either.

 

[RichieZ]

who cares about installing windows, if you opened my new apple product for me that'd really piss me off

 

[cheez]

You might be able to install Windows 2000. Then throw in the Service Pack 4. Install some updates. It'll be like WinXP.

 

[Printer Bandit]

put windows 8 release preview on it. that would blow his mind.

 

[Oyeve]

put windows 8 release preview on it. that would blow his mind.

This!

 

[mmntech]

put windows 8 release preview on it. that would blow his mind.

Haha. I love it.
The prank that is. Windows 8 truly does blow for conventional systems.

 

[vailr]

who cares about installing windows, if you opened my new apple product for me that'd really piss me off

Agreed. Don't spoil your friend's "fresh from Apple's China factory experience".

 

[dagamer34]

As much fun as this prank would be, I do not recommend opening up someone else's new products. That would cause way more hatred from him towards you than any Windows prank (I would be totally pissed if someone was messing with my new computer doing anything really).

 

[nageov3t]

prank foiled; my friend ended up coming over after work last night instead of waiting until the weekend.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Bet the guy couldn't wait to get his hands on the new baby.

Shame. If you'd just installed Windows 7 on it, you'd see how epic it looked at 199% DPI scaling. There was no comparison.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

put windows 8 release preview on it. that would blow his mind.

Careful, he might think it's just the new Mountain Lion.

 

[umrigar]

no restore media with new Macs, FYI.

 

[TheStu]

no restore media with new Macs, FYI.

Boot it up and hold R, it will restore from the internet. I wish they still threw the jump drive in there as a bone, and maybe if you call them and explain that you are in the boondocks, or have dial-up or something they will ship you one, but the internet restore isn't too bad.

 

[forumuser]

If you're using Bootcamp, the oldest you can use officially is Windows 7 as a heads-up.

 

[forumuser]

no restore media with new Macs, FYI.

He can still pick up an old copy of CCC to use for the backup, though.

 

[TheStu]

He can still pick up an old copy of CCC to use for the backup, though.

Or use SuperDuper, or even the built in Disk Utility. Time Machine works as well.