Leopard: How-to update the BootCamp drivers on your Windows partition


Yesterday i wrote that i’m missing the option to burn a driver CD in Leopards BootCamp Assistant.

Turns out that the Leopard DVD IS ALREADY THE DRIVER CD. So another example of Apple thinking ahead and making things simple (at least for first time installers of Boot Camp).

Unfortunately people like me that already installed Bootcamp beta, aren’t told that they just have to boot into windows and drop the Leopard DVD into the drive. It is then recognized as a 401MB CD and immediately starts setup.exe which in turn is a BootCamp driver installer.

But my suggestion is to cancel this immediate install and doe a little bit of spring cleaning first. Go to the software section in the SystemPreferences Application and first delete all the old driver versions installed by the Bootcamp Beta. This includes the RealTek and SigmaTel audio drivers as well as BootCamp Services. I had plenty of these, starting with 1.3.x.x versions (in total approx 4 version of each driver needed).

After tha, startt the BootCamp application on the CD. Deleting the drivers not only gave me some more space on my drive, it also fixed a problem with non working audio on my Vista Home Premium installation.

PS.: Did the same for the XP BootCamp partition on my wife’s MBP, which also worked flawlessly.