[LIST] [GUIDE] List of hardware that supports Windows Vista UEFI boot and how to boot Vista with UEFI

[Jakob99]

Part 1: You do not need to disable UEFI mode, only secure boot. Here's how to get Windows Vista working on Sandy Bridge UEFI or later.

You will/may need: Windows Vista ISO, a USB 8GB or larger, a system with UEFI enabled
and secure boot disabled, Rufus, another laptop with USB SATA cable or Linux run from
USB on the Windows Vista computer (if no USB SATA).

1. Grab a Vista ISO. There are several with updates up to 2017 EOL.
Those are highly recommended as any Server 2008 updates from 2017-2020 could break compatibility with the Extended Kernel should you choose to use it.

2. Burn the ISO to USB 8GB or larger with Rufus as GPT.

3. Go here and follow this guide: https://vinaypundith.github.io/windows_7_efi_guide/

3A. You do not need a third party program to mount the EFI drive from within an
existing Windows installation if you have a USB SATA cable.
To mount it, search for CMD within the Start Menu, right click it, run as administrator,
and then run the following commands. Do not add in the items within the () such as (efi part) and (replace b with your desired drive letter).

diskpart
sel disk 0
sel part 1 (efi part)
assign letter=b (replace b with your desired drive lettter)
exit
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe

Your drive should be now mounted. This is much easier than using Linux or a third party
tool to view it. You may run into an issue where this may not work if you run this command
on Windows 10. 7 and 8.1 will for sure work!
Credit to superuser for this nifty command: https://superuser.com/questions/965751/how-to-access-efi-partition-on-windows-10

4. You have Windows Vista on UEFI mode! Congrats!

5. Now finish the setup with the Vista Extended Kernel, which you can learn more about here: https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=333

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Part 2: Hardware capable/not capable of Vista UEFI boot:

Now it should be noted that I don't every hardware old and new to test UEFI compatibility. It should be noted that Vista will work with Ivy Bridge and earlier Intel platforms with UEFI enabled. I don't have access to much later versions of Intel platforms, and in fact, what is currently in the Unsure/Needs testing section is stuff that I do own, but either haven't tried it yet, or have but the results are unclear. If you guys have access to Intel/AMD/Nvidia hardware and wants to try out Vista UEFI, be my guess. Please let me know in this thread what your experience was and I will compile it to the appropriate section. Also, just because you see Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge does not mean you are not allowed to test it. There could be variations that could work differently from my experiences with the hardware (although Ivy Bridge was the only one I have tested successfully as my sole Sandy Bridge hardware crapped out earlier this year and I never got a chance to try Vista with its UEFI boot) Any hardware that does not work will get added to a does not work section.

 

List of hardware that supports Windows Vista UEFI boot:

    Ivy Bridge Core i5 and other Ivy Bridge

    Sandy Bridge (Not sure, and I don't have my Sandy Bridge laptop anymore, but if Ivy Bridge works, then I see no reason this shouldn't too)

Unsure/Needs Testing

    AMD Radeon R4 Graphics and AMD Dual-Core 9220e Processor (Stoney Ridge)
(Did not work with K4Sum1's 2020 ISO, produced a black screen after I put the drive
back in after modifying the bootmgfw.efi file on the efi partition and booted.
The Windows Did Not Shut Down Successfully options showed just fine and trying
to boot into Safe Mode also freezes after loading a driver.
Maybe someone has a solution to get UEFI working on AMD Acer Aspire A315-21)

    Intel Celeron n3050 Cherry Trail (Froze after it loaded the files)

    Intel Haswell (Have not tested this platform yet, but given the issues documented here,
I expect UEFI to be finicky at best on Haswell and later)

Edited October 13, 2021 by Jakob99