Downloading Boot Camp support software or Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10 on a Mac is easy. You can use the built-in Boot Camp Assistant software to get the latest version of Boot Camp drivers.
What if you need to download Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10 without the help of Boot Camp Assistant software? For instance, you might want to install Boot Camp drivers on a Mac computer where Windows 10 is the only operating system. As you likely know, Boot Camp support software are not no longer available for direct download from Apple website.
Brigadier is a free utility developed to enable you download Boot Camp drivers or support software without having to open Boot Camp Assistant. In short, with Brigadier tool, you can download Boot Camp drivers on Windows 10 running on Mac.
The beauty of Brigadier is that it downloads all drivers right from Apple servers. So, you get original Boot Camp drivers right from Apple.
The Boot Camp drivers pack for Windows 10 includes device drivers for camera, graphics, keyboard, trackpad, card reader, wireless mouse and wireless trackpad.
According to the developer, Brigadier downloads and unpacks ESD that applies to the Mac model on which you run this tool. The tool uses 7-Zip software to extract the ESD. If 7-Zip is not found, it will automatically download the same and will remove the same after extracting the ESD.
The free tool offers a few command-line options as well. Check the download link for available command-link options.
Get Boot Camp support drivers without Boot Camp Assistant
Here is how to use Brigadier utility to download Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10.
NOTE: The program doesn’t seem to work if you run it on a PC. You must run it on Windows 10 running on a Mac computer to download the required Boot Camp drivers.
Step 1: Visit the official page of Brigadier and download the latest version of the executable.
Step 2: Run Brigadier. You will see a Command Prompt window upon running the tool. The Command Prompt window, as you can see in the picture, displays all the information about the Boot Camp support software download, including the download progress.
The tool runs in the background, downloads necessary Boot Camp drivers and same them in the same location where Brigadier executable is located.
The best part is that this tool will automatically detect your Mac model and download the right Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10 running on your Mac, just like the Boot Camp Assistant software.
Bert van Tol says
MacBook Pro 9.2 here …
I tied everything, even so Brigadier, but nothing works :-(
Missing drivers:
– Sound
– Bluetooth
– SD Card
Can anybody help me ????
For example, a Copy of the drivers made with Double Driver …???
GLA says
Hi all, I deployed Brigadier package as instructed just fine for my system Windows 11 Pro.
Specs: iMac11,3 Mid-2010 27″ ATI Radeon HD5750
Upgraded to SSD, and 16GB RAM
Notes: I found the similar issue as RCrosby commented on March 27, 2023 at 12:31 am
1) Pre-Brigadier payload, Windows 11 Pro recognized the graphics card fine that I’m aware of.
2) No Audio (which is one of the main issues for virtually everyone).
Problem/Observations:
1) Same issue as commenter “RCrosby”, some drivers not effective or no-change, specifically, “No Audio” persists.
2) I experimented rolling back to initial Windows 11 Pro installation point, to try other Bootcamp drivers.. Dangerous yes, but I restored when -> bootcamp experimental drivers proof of concept that Audio worked. But lol, I encountered video issue crashed system after Bootcamp restarted system & rebooted constantly, with multi-colored horizontal pixel rows.
3) Restored pt. and hoping community can share their experiences for Audio fix/workaround.
Thanks team.
Best.
Any guidance e or direction to unblock would be greatly appreciated.
RCrosby says
I am using a 15″ 2011 MacBook Pro.
Okay.
1. I created an empty folder where I successfully downloaded Brigadier.
2. I ran Brigadier and allowed it to download the drivers.
3. I used compatibility settings to run the setup.exe file as if my OS was Windows 7. It ran successfully.
The problem is that most of my drivers do not work.
I used Windows Device Manager to show the status of my drivers.
For example, the display driver that Brigadier has installed is the “AMD Radeon HD 7400M Series”. I right-clicked it and selected Properties. Under the General tab the Device status shows a message that says:
Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43)
I visited the AMD website. However, I did not find any drivers related to “AMD Radeon HD 7400M Series”.
Does anyone have any advice as to how I can resolve this problem?
This is a list of the other drivers that display the error message:
* Microsoft Basic Display Driver
* High Definition Audio Device
* Bluetooth Driver
Eugen Mezei says
How can I force it to download the latest Bootcamp? (6.1.19 at the moment)
Running Brigadier on a 2011 iMac (that Brigadier correctly detects) it downloads ofcourse the Bootcamp with drivers for Windows 7. (Like intended by Apple.) But I want the drivers for Windows 10.
A Green says
Right click on file “Troubleshoot Compatibility”, Test it. In my case it failed. Follow the prompts, to re-test. Then use Windows 7 and run as administrator. Test again and it works.
Eugen Mezei says
“The best part is that this tool will automatically detect your Mac model and download the right Boot Camp drivers for Windows 10 running on your Mac, just like the Boot Camp Assistant software.”
I guess it will detect your Mac model if you run it from within MacOS. But this is a Windows executable. (And if I run it from another computer, a PC running Windows, than it can not detect the Mac’s model. And on the Mac I don’t have Windows in the first place, as I just intend to install it.)
So, how you run Brigadier from within MacOS?
Cayden Theseira says
Nevermind it worked, just have to run app with administrator.
eLMonique says
For all that have the same Problem, try to copy the URL from the line where its says: “Fetching Boot Camp product at URL….” and paste it in the Webbrowser. This worked for me.
David Green says
Even running as administrator i still just have an empty folder
Matias B says
The Ruan solution worked for me, for the message “bootcamp can only run on windows 7”: you must go to compatiblity tab (on propereties bootcamp setup file) and select or click “run on windows 7” and aplly changes.
Ruan says
for those who are having problems installing the bootcamp because it says it can only be installed on windows 7 you can go on the bootcamp setup and go to properties and the compatibility tab and select run this program in compatibility mode for (select windows 7 ) click apply and just open the app
Leon says
Hey guys has anybody found a solution why it says it can only be installed on windows 7?
Leon says
Anybody fixed the problem with the software saying it can only be installed on Windows 7?
Daniel says
For those of you who are slightly confused (like I was) when terminal created an empty folder.. don’t worry it’s in easy fix.
Download 7-Zip (https://www.7-zip.org/download.html)
Reopen the brigadier application as an Administrator (right click and select ‘Open as Administrator’), and select Yes to allow the system to run.
The code running on terminal will look slightly different after downloading the file.. so that’s a sign its working.
Once done, open the folder created, open the BootCamp folder and select the ‘Setup’ installer.
Hope this helps!
Larryh says
Thank you so much. It worked on my Mac 2020. My Bluetooth was not showing on device manager but your suggestion fixed my problem.
I did what Arjan said. I ran Brigadier and Bootcamp as Admin. Flawless on my side. Thanks. Hope this helps.
ben hall says
Oh this worked, thank you so much I have been trying for hours and thought I was going to have to reformat my whole drive and loose everything on the mac side, which included a lot of work. I am so grateful for this. You are my hero
Markus says
I started the programm but the downloaded bootcamp folder is empty… what do i make wrong?
Joy says
Thanks so much. Really appreciate it
mike says
I installed the files necessary and the tool just gave me a folder that I dont know how to use I guess. Do I run the installer thats in the folders?
Kiki says
THANK YOU!!! Worked like a charm.
important: like someone said before, you need to have 7z beforehand.
Yvan says
Hello,
Thank you for your work.
I tried this to correct an issue about Bluetooth on my Mac.
I launched as admin
Something seems to be copied and Dos windows has closed.
How to know if it worked ?
my last update bluetooth driver is still dating from 2006 :(
Do i have something to install from files and directories copied ?
Thank you for your help.
Regards
Arjan says
@Chris and others: run as Administrator or it won’t work. Worked flawlessly for me on iMac 2006 with Win10 64 bit
Chris says
What a surprise, it doesn’t work. Says it’s downloading drivers then auto quits, nothing happens, no drivers in the folder it created.
Jim says
Currently getting Couldn’t find a boot camp ESD for the model macpro 5,1 in the given software update catalog. Not sure if the files have been moved anyone else getting this message
akis says
this is a monumentally useless article. What if the drivers you need are the wifi ones? Useless!!!
daniel says
In case I want to buy a bluetooth Mac keyboard to be used in a Windows pc , should I get the bootcamp drivers with Brigadier and install them as normal drivers in windows 10? As I understand I must download the drivers only in a Mac pc first.
altimateware says
How do i use it from behind a proxy that requires authentication?
Mike G says
Thanks for this- really saved me when I couldn’t use the mac partition to update my drivers after upgrading to W10
disturbed user says
just downloaded it and wasted 1.6gb for nothing
Andy Picasso says
will i be able to use boot camp to boot back and forth because theyre the same drivers or no?
r says
looks like if you run it in an Admin terminal, you can just ‘brigadier –install’ and it’ll do everything for you, including downloading 7-zip.
crawley says
Newbie here. I have instaled windows 10 on a 13′ 2011 MacBook pro. Now the audio is not working no matter what I do. I did not use BootCamp because it (BootCamp) was asking for a DVD drive and I replaced by Drive with another Hard Drive.
So my question
1.) Will brigadier help?
2.) How do I use it? I run the setup file and it runs fine, downloads what it needs and just exits. I checked and it mentions something about using windows 7. Help
kj says
Make sure 7-zip is installed or it will fail at the end.
Tymas says
i can not get brigadier to download a specific product. i have tried, even putting in the model macbookpro12,1 and it still downloads the latest which does my poor macbookpro no good as it is not supported by this product ID
User says
Don’t you the suggested software. It is not good. If you are going to make a software that download 1.6 GB data to fail at the end and then restart from scratch, then it is a sign of serious software design flaw.
Will says
Thank you so much, solved my scroll problem on my touchpad which was so frustrating
Sandor Alex Kocs says
Tried as suggested but kept on saying windows 7 required. Windows 10 on Macmini4,1. What else can I do?
Adetunji says
The drivers seems to be of Windows 7 drivers, it says “you must run this on windows 7 pc” please help, am using MacBook Air 10,7 2011
Ed Se says
Actually the correct command line is:
brigadier –m XXXXXXXXXX
example: brigadier –m MacBookPro8,1
Danny says
To elaborate on Stefanos post above:
Open a command window and change directory to the folder where the exe is installed. Once at that directory (for example: “C:\Users\Name\Desktop\brigadier-0.2.4>”) then type in “brigadier -model MacMini8,1” or whatever Mac version you want. Works perfectly! Thanks for this awesome tool!
Chimo Lucas says
Thank you very much, it has been a great help,
Important note: Install 7-Zip in advance to make Brigadier work and unzip.
A greeting.
Stefanos Grigoriadis says
Hi there, just pointing out that you CAN use a PC , just give the parameter –model XXXXXXXX , where XXXX the model of your mac , for example “MacBookAir7,2” without the quotes, like brigadier –model MacBookAir7,2 . Hope this helps.