#Early 2011 macbook pro windows 10 cdrom install#
#Early 2011 macbook pro windows 10 cdrom upgrade#

I purchased Plextor 256GB SSD, also equipped myself with a dedicated bay for disk and external case for DVD and followed iFixIt guide to replace the optical drive. Beside, there was a next version of Windows on the horizon. In 2013, when my desktop PCs were already using SSD drives, I tried to apply similar approach to this MacBook (as RAM was sufficient and i5 processor is powerfull enough for development), where initialization of Windows 7 with lots of bad stuff onboard could consume few very long minutes. I could perform any type of required mobile-dev at that time using this single machine, while travelling etc. No one could actually understand, why dare I to buy MacBook and primarly use Windows on it to execute BlackBerry development ). Then I installed Windows 7 (using BootCamp). Next I replaced the harddrive with a brand new WD Caviar Black with 750GB / 7200rpm and got extra space. First I replaced original RAM, put 8GB (max for this model) and seen a little performance boost. I had this brilliant idea of making upgrades myself. Really long story, full of midnight joys started the next day I bough this MacBook in the middle of 2011. Good job Microsoft and thanks for such a good experience! I have never been happier, when moving from one Windows to another.

Few days later I found that repairing BootCamp 5.1 (as suggested here), without even using ‘compatibility mode’ would help and I can confirm – it fixed all broken features. Beside that all other stuff was working more-less OK. Of course without the ability to use correctly the keyboard (F-keys) and without the way of turning off the machine (it only rebooted instead), with only possibility to sleep it. Windows did the dirty work, rebooted few times and after completion of the whole procedure I had Windows 10 starting up.

#Early 2011 macbook pro windows 10 cdrom upgrade#

Then, when the time had come, I simply hit the ‘ Upgrade To Windows 10’ button. I already had latest Windows 8.1 installed on a secondary hard drive of this MacBook Pro. However some initial configuration is required, i.e. Was it easy? YES! and NO! (explained in Long Story below) ⚠️ : Additionally I was able to extend its memory to 16GB and replace the internal drive with Samsung SSD 860 Evo to give it maximum performance.

#Early 2011 macbook pro windows 10 cdrom install#

It’s possible to install and have perfectly running copy of Windows 10 on this extremely old early-2011 MacBook Pro, even though Apple latest BootCamp 6 doesn’t officially support this hardware.