Background: Bootcamp lets you run Windows on Intel-based Mac hardware.  Until this week it only included drivers for Windows XP.  Previously when you tried to install the Apple drivers in Vista the installation would fail with a fatal error and you had to hack your way through getting devices to work.  And even then, the trackpad on my MacBook would stop working when resuming from Sleep or Hibernate.

Yesterday Apple released a new version of Bootcamp (1.2 beta) with driver support for Vista.  A few things that now work for me in Vista:

  • Driver installation (no more fatal error - yea!)
  • Apple Remote support - play/pause/next/prev for media and volume (I need to find a way to make it work with Powerpoint)
  • Eject button
  • MacBook trackpad works after resuming from Sleep or Hibernate

To install the update drivers you have to make a new driver CD.  Download and install Bootcamp 1.2.  Then run Bootcamp Assistant (Applications/Utilities) to burn a new driver CD.  Reboot into Windows and run setup.exe from the new driver CD.  The display will flicker a bit and eventually all your drivers will be installed and working!  You do not have to repartition your drive or reinstall Windows.  Just make the new driver CD in OS X and then run the installer from the CD in Windows.  That’s it.

The new version also includes Apple Software Update for XP and Vista so presumably you won’t have to update your drivers via a CD in the future - the updater should download and install them for you.

Linkage: http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

Happy day!  Oh, happy day!