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Do I have to partition my hard drive to use Windows on my MacBook?

I have a 2020-era 13' MacBook Pro that has only a 245G hard drive, only 26G of which is still free. I would like to use it for gaming every now & then as most of the games I'm interested in aren't compatible with MacOS.

Do I have to partition the hard drive to install a Windows OS on my MacBook, or can I just load BootCamp on it and run it from there?

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on Feb 23, 2024 2:04 PM

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4 replies

Feb 23, 2024 2:09 PM in response to crash041

If you are using the MacBook Pro M1 from 2020 from the footer, that is Apple silicon Arm AArch64 and not Intel x86-64, and Boot Camp is not an option on Apple silicon.


You will need to install and use a virtual machine such as Parallels and Windows for Arm, or install and use a virtual machine with emulation support such as UTM or such and Windows for Intel.


Performance in emulation probably won’t be great.

Feb 24, 2024 8:40 AM in response to crash041

crash041 wrote:

What if I were to use my iMac desktop? It's a 2017-era Quad-core Retina4K. Can I simply run Bootcamp from my hard drive as it is, or do I have to partition my hard drive? I would really like to not have to partition my hard drive if I don't have to...


Boot Camp fundamentally involves storage partitioning.


Installing Windows for Intel as a guest of Parallels or another* virtual machine can run Windows as a guest, at nearly full speed. This does require a fair amount of physical memory in addition to the necessary storage, as Windows is not small. The storage is a large-to-enormous file, not a partition.


*I’d tend to avoid VMware options here, given Broadcom’s recent business and pricing 📈changes.

Do I have to partition my hard drive to use Windows on my MacBook?

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