Switch to Intel Iris Pro on MacBook Pro under Windows

After a successful installation of Windows (Windows Server 2012 R2) on a MacBook Pro (Late 2013, 15") I've noticed that only the Nvidia graphics card is recognized in the device manager. So I've tried to install setup.exe from the folder IntelHDGraphics64 which I found on the installation disk created with BootCamp, but I got this error:

"This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software."

Same error message was thrown when I tried to install the latest drivers from Intel directly. I even tried to install the drivers manually, but this didn't work either.

Now I would like to know whether it is even possible to get the Intel Iris Pro graphics card running on a MacBook under Windows and then switch between them to increase battery life when I don't need high graphics peformance.

I am using the Mavericks version of BootCamp assistant and have the retina model.

I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but unfortunately there is no way to disable the discrete GPU and use the integrated graphics, when using Bootcamp.

This has been discussed (to death) on support forums and on the web generally.

I have thought myself in the past, that it would be useful to be able to turn off the discrete GPU just to improve battery life on the laptop. But Apple have not provided a driver capable of switching off the discrete GPU, so there is no way of doing it.

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news - who knows, maybe they will provide that functionality in the future?

Whilst possible with Windows 8, it's not a task for the faint hearted.

There's a guide here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides-apple/8717-%5Bguide%5D-enabling-intel-iris-pro-hd5200-win8-1-15-macbook-pro-gt750m.html

Even thought it's a rather old thread, it's still one of the first that come up if you are searching for I-Gpu and MacBook Pro.

In any case, it seems that it is possible to activate the igpu on windows, by following this guide: guide 1 guide 2

What you are basically doing, is spoofing the system thinking that you are booting on MacOS while you are booting on windows. It seems that it's mostly an issue on people that are interested on using an egpu on windows, but it was also a problem for anyone that doesn't work the battery to last for like 2-3 hours when using windows because of the dedicated gpu running all the time.

I have successfully installed it on my computer and is working without any problems.

Cheers.