After installing Windows 7, you install some Bootcamp drivers from an older MacOS installer DVD, and you have to disable three. To do this, you format your drive as MBR MS-DOS(FAT), then install and activate Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I repeated and refined the process several times and presently have Windows 10 Pro 64-bit running on four A1278 Minis without any problems. But if you're interested in finding new life for an old 2007 Mini, Windows 10 runs quite well on it. I also used the same method to install Windows 10 on a 2010 Mac Mini, which supports up to 16GB RAM and is a more reasonable platform for modern use, as the 2007 Mac Mini is still limited by a slower CPU, much less RAM, and a very weak GMA950 graphics chipset. I was intrigued by reading reports that Windows 10 is more efficient than previous versions of Windows in that it eats up less RAM, and RAM is at a premium in the A1278 Mini, as it can only address 3GB max. A lot of trial and error resulted in discovering a back-door method that allows installing and running the current version of Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (presently 21H1 as of this writing). Apple abandoned support for that hardware platform long ago, so I wondered if any version of Windows might run on them.
Installing the last supported MacOS 10.7.5 was not very promising as modern web browsers won't run on them and the browsers that will run lack the security needed for modern websites. I embarked on this journey when I inherited 4 unwanted 2006-2007 Mac Minis and wondered if there was anything I could really use them for. I previously documented this method of installing the current version of Windows 10 Pro 64-bit on the A1278 Mac Mini in a thread on the macrumors web forum, but thought the wider Reddit community might benefit from it.
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