Want to develop for .NET on a Mac?

There are generally 3 ways to get visual studio on Macbook Pro:

1. Install windows via Bootcamp,
2. Run windows via a virtual machine,
3. Install windows via Bootcamp then run the image as a VM with parallel.

In this article I am focusing on the first option to dedicate maximum CPU and ram for visual studio, MSSQL and IIS.

Check if your Macbook Pro is supported

Anything 2013 early 15” Retina and later should support 10. If you’re not sure, check Apple’s list at https://support.apple.com/en-sg/HT204990#models

Getting windows 10 installer image

For those on Bizspark, you can download the enterprise edition iso at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads
(To reach here from Bizspark website after logging in, click on the small “get tools” link on the top right, and again “MSDN Subscription” in the same area on the new page.)

If you’re wondering why some versions have a “N” suffix, those are versions without media technologies (media player, codecs, etc.) bundled.

Run Bootcamp assistant

Allocating space for windows partition

The windows 10 OS itself took up about 20GB. Office will take up another 1.5~2GB. Visual studio installer alone takes up 6GB, and take up some 15-20GB installed.

If you are not planning on doing anything other than development work in Visual Studio, recommend at least 50~60GB of space for the new partition.

Windows Support Software

If you get the error “The Windows Support Software Could Not Be Saved To The Selected Drive”, try only checking the first option and perform 2nd and 3rd later. In my case, I proceeded with the install without downloading the support drivers first, and only came back to MacOS for it after the first boot into windows.

Installing Windows

If your windows installer complaints that “We couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see setup log files”, try resetting your NVRAM:

Reboot your Mac, hold down Control, Option, R and P on the keyboard right after the chime. Keep holding until the Mac reboots and you hear the chime again. After that complete the BCA procedure as normal.

(Referenced from last page of https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7020233?start=45&tstart=0)

Install boot camp support software on windows

Go to your USB drive and look for a bootcamp folder or similar. You should see a setup.exe inside. Run it.
If you get a “The version of Boot Camp is not intended for this computer model”, you may have manually downloaded a version via apple’s website. Those are meant for widows 7 and earlier, so reboot into MacOS and use the boot camp assistant to download the right version.

Stuck at Realtek?

If your set up stucks on “Realtek Audio”, try these to work around:

1. Keep the installer running (do not force quit)
2. go to your bootcamp folder, manually install the realtek driver, at the end of the install, do not restart
3. after manually setting up realtek, open Task Manager, and kill the “RealtekSetup” process
4. bootcamp will now skip the Realtek step and proceed.

(Referenced from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6567790?tstart=0 )

In Windows land

Configuring keyboard and trackpad

Access the boot camp control panel from the status area (right most of the task bar), it’s the grey diamond icon. Click on it once then select “Boot Camp Control Panel”

Select the options you need in the “Keyboard” and “Trackpad” tabs in the new window.
Want to use the command key as ctrl? Download sharp keys from http://www.randyrants.com/category/sharpkeys/

Installing Visual Studio

To mount the iso, select the iso file in explorer, and a new menu “Disc Image Tools” should appear. Clicking on it should give you 2 options “Mount” or “Burn”. Select “Mount” and run the set up application at the root of the disc (mine was “vs_enterprise.exe”).

Select custom installation so you can select the components you need. For me I enabled “SQL Server Data Tools” and some Git tools under “Common Tools”. If you are also doing frontend development, you can install node.js here too.
Enable any mobile-related components and the installation size jumps to 30+ GB as it auto-selects windows SDK and Android Native Development Kit (taking up about 5GB each) among others.

Install IIS

Open the “Programme and features” section of control panel and stay tuned for Part 2!