Installing macOS Big Sur on a Windows PC

A Hackintosh guide — tested on a Dell OptiPlex 7020

Video by Spec Tech — @Spectechofficiall

Hardware Used

1. Check Hardware Compatibility

Scan your hardware with OpCore-Simplify to see which macOS versions are supported. This rig topped out at Monterey, but the guide uses Big Sur for stability.

2. Create the EFI

macOS needs an EFI to "understand" non-Apple hardware. In OpCore-Simplify, select Option 6 to generate it.

3. Download macOS (Recovery Image)

Use OpenCorePkg's macrecovery tool. Find your Big Sur product code from the official recovery_urls.txt list, paste it into CMD (remove the leading ./), and wait for the com.apple.recovery.boot folder to download.

4. Prepare the USB Installer

Format an 8GB+ USB drive with GPT + FAT32 using Rufus, then copy over the EFI and recovery boot folders.

5. BIOS Settings

Disable Secure Boot in your BIOS before booting the installer.

6. Install macOS

Boot from USB, format the target drive in Disk Utility as APFS / GUID Partition Map, then choose Reinstall macOS Big Sur and complete setup.

7. Install EFI on the Internal Drive

Use MountEFI to mount your internal drive's EFI partition, then copy the EFI folder from your USB drive over to it.

8. Done

Shut down, remove the USB drive, and boot into your fully installed Hackintosh.

Bonus: Minecraft Java Edition

Use Legacy Launcher to run Minecraft Java Edition on this setup.