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Installing Windows 7 on a 10th Gen Comet Lake Laptop


Artisary

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Hi everyone!

So recently I was tired of Wintrash 10 on my system, and wanted to use Windows 7. However I didn't know that Windows 7 would even work on this laptop, and sure enough it didn't. Here are some steps I tried:
(Credit to some fine folks at the r/Windows7 reddit for helping me till here)

1. Used a complete up-to-date ISO with NVMe, USB Drivers built in
2. Used UEFISeven to try to get Windows 7 booting (failed, have attached a few videos showing what happened)

I'm not sure what is stopping me from getting Windows 7 running on my laptop, I've seen multiple people getting it running on Comet/Rocket lake or even Alder lake systems!

As for the drivers:
I don't care about most of them. I have a dGPU so it that works I'll be just as fine, I don't expect the built-in UHD 630 GPU to work. As for WiFI, it'd be nice to have it but I doubt that the new AX201 chips would even work in Windows 7, the last OS they work is 2015 LTSB, and I did try Win 8.1 but it didn't work.

If anyone could help me get Windows 7 on my laptop, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

My specs:
Intel Core i7-10870H
GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (Notebook/Mobile GPU)
16 GB DDR4-2933 MHz memory
256 GB NVMe + 1 TB HDD
Intel WiFi 6 AX201 (Again, don't expect any modded drivers)

Some images showing my problem after using UEFISeven:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BGQ2WpfeBoHz-nK
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BJjMA_eGDVsF198
After this happens, and I try to boot, it reboots after it stucks on "Starting Windows" and goes into the UEFI or sometimes goes to "Windows is loading files" even though I don't have the install medium installed.

Thanks in Advance!

Edited by Tripredacus
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2 hours ago, Artisary said:

Hi everyone!

So recently I was tired of Wintrash 10 on my system, and wanted to use Windows 7. However I didn't know that Windows 7 would even work on this laptop, and sure enough it didn't. Here are some steps I tried:
(Credit to some fine folks at the r/Windows7 reddit for helping me till here)

1. Used a complete up-to-date ISO with NVMe, USB Drivers built in
2. Used UEFISeven to try to get Windows 7 booting (failed, have attached a few videos showing what happened)

I'm not sure what is stopping me from getting Windows 7 running on my laptop, I've seen multiple people getting it running on Comet/Rocket lake or even Alder lake systems!

As for the drivers:
I don't care about most of them. I have a dGPU so it that works I'll be just as fine, I don't expect the built-in UHD 630 GPU to work. As for WiFI, it'd be nice to have it but I doubt that the new AX201 chips would even work in Windows 7, the last OS they work is 2015 LTSB, and I did try Win 8.1 but it didn't work.

If anyone could help me get Windows 7 on my laptop, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

My specs:
Intel Core i7-10870H
GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (Notebook/Mobile GPU)
16 GB DDR4-2933 MHz memory
256 GB NVMe + 1 TB HDD
Intel WiFi 6 AX201 (Again, don't expect any modded drivers)

Some images showing my problem after using UEFISeven:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BGQ2WpfeBoHz-nK
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BJjMA_eGDVsF198
After this happens, and I try to boot, it reboots after it stucks on "Starting Windows" and goes into the UEFI or sometimes goes to "Windows is loading files" even though I don't have the install medium installed.

Thanks in Advance!

Y'know there is Windows 10 that is not trash..

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6 hours ago, Artisary said:

Hi everyone!

So recently I was tired of Wintrash 10 on my system, and wanted to use Windows 7. However I didn't know that Windows 7 would even work on this laptop, and sure enough it didn't. Here are some steps I tried:
(Credit to some fine folks at the r/Windows7 reddit for helping me till here)

1. Used a complete up-to-date ISO with NVMe, USB Drivers built in
2. Used UEFISeven to try to get Windows 7 booting (failed, have attached a few videos showing what happened)

I'm not sure what is stopping me from getting Windows 7 running on my laptop, I've seen multiple people getting it running on Comet/Rocket lake or even Alder lake systems!

As for the drivers:
I don't care about most of them. I have a dGPU so it that works I'll be just as fine, I don't expect the built-in UHD 630 GPU to work. As for WiFI, it'd be nice to have it but I doubt that the new AX201 chips would even work in Windows 7, the last OS they work is 2015 LTSB, and I did try Win 8.1 but it didn't work.

If anyone could help me get Windows 7 on my laptop, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

My specs:
Intel Core i7-10870H
GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (Notebook/Mobile GPU)
16 GB DDR4-2933 MHz memory
256 GB NVMe + 1 TB HDD
Intel WiFi 6 AX201 (Again, don't expect any modded drivers)

Some images showing my problem after using UEFISeven:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BGQ2WpfeBoHz-nK
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5nqkprJeoQ0BJjMA_eGDVsF198
After this happens, and I try to boot, it reboots after it stucks on "Starting Windows" and goes into the UEFI or sometimes goes to "Windows is loading files" even though I don't have the install medium installed.

Thanks in Advance!

I see someone doing it on a pc not a laptop...

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  • Tripredacus changed the title to Installing Windows 7 on a 10th Gen Comet Lake Laptop

in my Lenovo Laptop which has an NVMe SSD I also wanted to install Windows Vista/7, but reading this I'm so confused! Is it possible to install Vista/7 on an NVMe SSD? I created a topic where I posted my hardware ids

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Going through the email archives it seems I can come up with some sort of response. BUT remember that my experience is in manufacturing and not necessarily in real world regarding this, And also, this is from a long time ago and someone may have come up with some new tricks. Of course there isn't a blanked "Windows 7 doesn't work on NVME" as there are examples of it working, even in my own experience. It isn't a cut and dry situation, as there are many factors involved:
- whether UEFI is enabled or not
- whether the M2 socket runs on SATA or PCIe lanes, or whether the board uses separate controllers for modes like AHCI, RAID or if it detects an NVME or NVME capabilities.
- the NVME itself may not support booting an OS or the board may not allow booting an OS on NVME

And all of the above includes the various firmware settings, ones you can set, ones that are locked, firmware versions, controller capabilities, board capabilities using UEFI/MBR options.

When I started testing Win7 on NVME it was 2016. The typical issue we'd see was getting an 0x7B bugcheck and adding the storage drivers didn't fix it. I had seen issues where a Samsung NVME would boot an OS (Windows 8.1 and 10) on certain boards but not be bootable on other boards. Never got Windows 7 to boot on a Samsung NVME. Was able to get Windows 7 to boot on an Intel NVME on some boards but not all. Also, performance issues were observed on this Intel testing. Other instances where Windows 7 on Intel NVME would hard lock at POST.

So for the production environment (which trickles down to personal preference) was to use NVME on Windows 7 only as storage drive, and only use M2 SATA for booting the OS. With the large amount of things that are involved with whether it will work or not is why I decided to not bother with it at all.

Of course, those who want to run experiments certainly can, but be aware you may well run into the roadblocks that are present in the board or NVME firmware that you likely won't be able to change.

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20 hours ago, Tripredacus said:

Going through the email archives it seems I can come up with some sort of response. BUT remember that my experience is in manufacturing and not necessarily in real world regarding this, And also, this is from a long time ago and someone may have come up with some new tricks. Of course there isn't a blanked "Windows 7 doesn't work on NVME" as there are examples of it working, even in my own experience. It isn't a cut and dry situation, as there are many factors involved:
- whether UEFI is enabled or not
- whether the M2 socket runs on SATA or PCIe lanes, or whether the board uses separate controllers for modes like AHCI, RAID or if it detects an NVME or NVME capabilities.
- the NVME itself may not support booting an OS or the board may not allow booting an OS on NVME

And all of the above includes the various firmware settings, ones you can set, ones that are locked, firmware versions, controller capabilities, board capabilities using UEFI/MBR options.

When I started testing Win7 on NVME it was 2016. The typical issue we'd see was getting an 0x7B bugcheck and adding the storage drivers didn't fix it. I had seen issues where a Samsung NVME would boot an OS (Windows 8.1 and 10) on certain boards but not be bootable on other boards. Never got Windows 7 to boot on a Samsung NVME. Was able to get Windows 7 to boot on an Intel NVME on some boards but not all. Also, performance issues were observed on this Intel testing. Other instances where Windows 7 on Intel NVME would hard lock at POST.

So for the production environment (which trickles down to personal preference) was to use NVME on Windows 7 only as storage drive, and only use M2 SATA for booting the OS. With the large amount of things that are involved with whether it will work or not is why I decided to not bother with it at all.

Of course, those who want to run experiments certainly can, but be aware you may well run into the roadblocks that are present in the board or NVME firmware that you likely won't be able to change.

Interesting.  When I upgraded my computer, I decided to use a SATA SSD instead of NVME on my Asus Q170 motherboard.  Since my mouse and keyboard are not USB, I did not have to attempt to integrate any drivers.  Sounds like I saved myself a great deal of hassle.

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