I was trying to upgrade the Windows 7 Ultimate Edition on my MacMini (late 2009) to Windows 8. So I first tried out to upgrade process. It was NOT a good experience since:
- Even though it seemingly did preserve all my system setting, the system experienced frequent freeze up for no good reason so frequent that the system was basically unusable.
- A lot of junky installation was left over from the Windows 7 world.
So eventually I have to do a clean install, basically wipe out the C drive of MacMini and install Windows 8 clean on that partition. Here's are some tidbits based on my experience.
- Always turn on ALL the monitors that connected to my MacMini. There were times that I thought the installation was not success, but actually showed up on the second screen.
- Use DVDR to install instead of Flash drive, and DO NOT use the DVDR drive on MacMini. Instead use an external USB DVDR drive. The DVDR drive on my MacMini simply cannot recognize the Windows 8 disc I burned.
- To create ISO DVD on Windows 8 with Nero Burning, I need to set the application to run in admin mode.
- It is still way better to use a wired keyboard to install Windows 8 on my Mac Mini. The bluetooth keyboards had problem being recognized dring the installation process.
- I need to explicitly install audio driver. Windows Update does NOT seemed to be able to pick the proper one for me.
