Muchen He
APSC

macOS for APSC 160

Published 2019-10-11 5 min read

This comprehensive document outlines the necessary steps to setup your macOS for APSC 160. Please follow the steps in sequential order and only move on when you have completed the previous steps. The whole process will take about 50 minutes, with variation depend on your network speed.

If you have any trouble, please seek help on Piazza.

TL;DR? Here is a YouTube video tutorial on how to do this:

What You’ll Need

Make sure you are running the latest version of macOS (Mojave). Make sure your device has at least 4GB of RAM and 30GB of storage. To check, click on the Apple menu icon (), then click on System Information.

You will need to download the following:

1. Installing VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a free software that allows you to run other operating systems such as Windows in your macOS.

  1. Head to https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads in your web browser.
  2. Select “OS X Hosts” and the download should begin.
  3. Once downloaded, open the file and the installation should begin.
  4. Continue through the installation process.
  5. Done.

You don’t need to do anything with VirtualBox, we will come back to this in later steps.

2. Downloading Windows 10 Installation Disk

We need to download the Windows 10 installation disk so that we can install Windows 10 in your VirtualBox.

  1. Go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10 and select the latest version of Windows 10.
  2. Enter the desired language and download the 64-bit Windows 10 Disk.
  3. A ~4GB file will start downloading. Make sure you have stable internet connection while this downloads to avoid errors.
  4. Done.

Do not open or execute the downloaded file.

3. Obtaining Windows 10 Education Activation Code

Windows 10 is a paid software. Luckily UBC provides Windows 10 for free.

  1. Go to https://it.ubc.ca/software-downloads.
  2. Scroll down and click on “Windows 10 Education”; this will take you to a store page and your UBC CWL login may be asked. If a page regarding permissions to access your CWL comes up, click “Accept”.
  3. Click on “Windows 10” and then click on “Add to Cart”.
  4. When it prompts you to enter the email and signature, copy the email (below the textbox), enter your full name, and continue.
  5. Enter your contact information if it asks.
  6. You will be taken to the “orders” page. Wait for the website to retrieve a Windows 10 activation code. Once that’s done, then code will appear in red.
  7. Take a picture or copy the code somewhere as you need this later. This is because you cannot get another Windows 10 code as you are limited to 1 copy per student.
  8. Done.

4. Setting Up Your Virtual Machine

Virtual machine is a “virtual” computer running inside your macOS computer.

  1. Start VirtualBox from your Apps.
  2. Click “New” to create a new virtual machine.
  3. Name your virtual machine “Windows 10” and continue.
  4. Select the amount of memory to give to the virtual machine and continue, 2GB should be enough.
  5. VirtualBox will now ask you to make a virtual hard disk where your Windows 10 can run, use the default option (VDI) and continue.
  6. Select 30-40GB for the amount of storage to allocate for the virtual machine.
  7. Done.

5. Installing Windows 10 on VirtualBox

If you did all previous steps successfully, you should have a new “Windows 10” virtual machine listed in VirtualBox.

  1. Click “Start” to start the virtual machine.

    If the screen is too small, then go back to the VirtualBox main program, click “Settings” of the Windows 10 virtual machine.

    Then navigate to the “Display” tab and increase the Display scaling to 150% or 200%.

  2. A dialog window will pop up asking for the location of the disk. Click on the yellow folder icon and select the Windows 10 .iso file we downloaded in section 2: downloading Windows 10 installation disk.

  3. Click “Install Windows” when prompted.

  4. Enter the Windows 10 activation code you obtained from section 3 when prompted.

  5. When given the option to choose between “Upgrade installation” and “Custom installation”, select Custom installation.

  6. Select Disk 0 (the storage you allocated earlier in section 4) and continue.

  7. Let Windows 10 install.

  8. When you’re prompted to enter Microsoft account during account setup, click “offline account” in the lower left corner. If you have a Microsoft account (Outlook, Live.com, Skype, Mixer, etc.), you may enter it instead.

  9. Continue through set up until you arrive at your Windows 10 desktop screen.

  10. Done.

6. Making Windows 10 Run Better in VirtualBox

At this point you might’ve noticed that Windows 10 runs very choppy and the screen is very small. We need to install some stuff in Windows 10 so that it runs better in VirtualBox on your Mac.

  1. Click “Devices” from the top menu bar.
  2. Select “Insert Guest Additions CD Image”. This will insert a virtual CD disk into the virtual computer.
  3. Open file explorer in Windows, and open the CD drive.
  4. Click on VBoxWindowsAddons to install.
  5. Complete the installation. You will be asked to reboot the Windows 10 virtual machine.
  6. Upon reboot, notice that it runs smoother, and now you can make Windows 10 run in full-screen.

7. Installing Visual Studio Community 2017

Refer to the instructions on Canvas on how to install Visual Studio (because apparently the process is constantly changing — thanks Microsoft).