Windows 10

[DiamondZ]

Hi everyone. I have a mid-2011 iMac 27-inch, i7, 12 MB of memory currently running Yosemite. Very fast, very reliable! I also run Win 7 via Boot Camp for business software...best Windows machine out there. I would like to update the Mac to El Cap and Win 10 but the Apple site says my Mac is too old to run Win 10. Can anyone tell me why and if there anything I can do other than run Win 10 in VM? Thanks

 

[honestone]

That seems rather strange, given that you can upgrade your iMac to El Capitan. But, it looks like Boot Camp can only run the (64 bit) version of Windows 10 on the Macs shown in this link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990

Unfortunately, your machine is not on that list.

Now, it looks like from this link:

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/resources/

that you can use Parallels with the 64 bit version of Windows 10 on your iMac, as according to the specs of your iMac:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...inch-aluminum-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html

it does not have one of those unsupported processors mentioned in the Parallels link.

Note that the Parallels link does state that you can also use the 32 bit version of Windows 10. I am certainly no expert with all this, but that should imply that you could use the 32 bit version of Windows 10 with Boot Camp. But, this says otherwise:

http://www.redmondpie.com/boot-camp-6-for-mac-os-x-with-windows-10-support-released/

 

[DiamondZ]

That seems rather strange, given that you can upgrade your iMac to El Capitan. But, it looks like Boot Camp can only run the (64 bit) version of Windows 10 on the Macs shown in this link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990

Unfortunately, your machine is not on that list.

Now, it looks like from this link:

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/resources/

that you can use Parallels with the 64 bit version of Windows 10 on your iMac, as according to the specs of your iMac:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...inch-aluminum-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html

it does not have one of those unsupported processors mentioned in the Parallels link.

Note that the Parallels link does state that you can also use the 32 bit version of Windows 10. I am certainly no expert with all this, but that should imply that you could use the 32 bit version of Windows 10 with Boot Camp. But, this says otherwise:

http://www.redmondpie.com/boot-camp-6-for-mac-os-x-with-windows-10-support-released/

Thanks for the response. Do you think this is a BIOS issue or is the hardware insufficient?

 

[honestone]

Assuming the information about Parallels is accurate, it seems to be a deficiency in the Boot Camp software. According to the information on the Parallels site, your Mac is supported no matter which version (32 bit or 64 bit) of Windows 10 is used. (I believe the same "benefits" are valid for VMware Fusion, a product very similar to Parallels). Boot Camp was worse, as 1) your machine is not supported for Windows 10, and 2) only the 64 bit version of Windows 10 can be used.