Vista 64 bit on older MBP?

I would like to install Vista 64 bit onto my mid-2007 Macbook Pro so I can use all 4 GB of RAM I have installed. However, Apple only officially supports 2008 Macbook Pros. Does anyone know why this is the case and what difficulties (if any) I'll encounter if I try to install Vista 64 bit? Will just downloading these drivers work, or will I need to get a hold of original Macbook Pro 2008 drivers first?

Thanks!

 

I don't see why there would be any problems installing Vista 64 on any MBP as long as it has a 64-bit processor (Core 2). The mid-2007 and 2008 MBPs are basically identical. They are both based on the same Santa Rosa platform, the only major change was switching from Merom to Penryn CPUs but that doesn't require driver support.

 

All MacBook Pros have 64-bit CPU (except those featuring the Core Duo). Intel CPUs have been 64-bit compatible since the late days of the Pentium 4 600 series. If Apple chose not to support Vista x64 on older MacBook Pros that is there choice, but your MacBook Pro should have no problem running any x86-64 based OS in theory.

 

That is false. The original generation of MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and iMacs used Core Duos with the Yonah core which did not have 64-bit support.

 

Not true, Core Duo's are only 32 bit, Core 2 Duos were their first mobile 64 bit CPU's.

 

Yes, I agree this is the case in theory but I'd really like to know people's experiences in practice. I don't want to jump the gun and I delete my old Windows installation in favor of 64 bit Vista only to find it doesn't actually work properly and then have to reinstall my old 32 bit Windows

 

Wow, sorry guys, forgot about the Core Duo, that CPU is a pure joke. No wonder they never really used them in any non-Apple computers.

But yeah, the Pentium 4 600 (630, 640, etc.) series was the first Intel chip to support 64-bit, of course AMD beat them to market with the once dominant Athlon 64. This is why I am VERY surprised that the Core Duo was not 64-bit compatible.

 

What do you mean Core Duo was never really used by non-Apple computers? They were extremely popular with all manufacturers, especially because they were the first dual core mobile processors. They were also rebranded as Pentium Dual Core after the Core 2 Duos were released and continued to sell as low-cost processors, who's volumes you can imagine would be higher than higher-cost Core 2 Duos. Mobile Core 2 Duos were also the last to be released with Xeons and desktop Conroe Core 2 Duo beings released first, precisely because the Core Duo was sufficiently strong in notebooks to wait. Dell's E1405 and E1505 series were based on the Core Duo and I know several friends that have Dells with Core Duos. They were also widely adopted by all Windows manufacturers including Toshiba, Sony, and HP since I looked at many of them.

 

In practice you'll get an error when you try and install Vista 64 using bootcamp on a mid 2007 MBP (I tried myself on my Oct 2007 model). Can't remember exactly what the message was but basically the install locks up once the actual Vista installer takes over. I did look into it more at the time and there appeared to be hacks to get round it but I lost interest at that point and reinstalled Vista 32.

 

Thanks for the info! I found some guides online (all involve downloading drivers for the 2008 Mac Pro or Macbook Pro models), but as you suggest, it's probably not worth going through all that to install 64 bit Vista -- though maybe I'll try it one day when I have more time on my hands...

For those interested, here's one of the pages that turned up in my search:

http://simpable.com/software/mbp-64bit-vista/

 

Heh, yep I figured it was one of those things to try and work out on a rainy day . Though really hoping Apple release a firmware upgrade for our MBPs that makes it as seamless as the Vista 32 install thru Bootcamp.