Windows Vista on Alder Lake System

[WinFX]

After 10 years using Sandy Bridge, I have decided that the time has come to update my main hardware, I resisted updating, among other things, due to the stagnation of intel between 2012 and 2017 as well as the incompatibility of old Windows (already Kaby Lake was not even officially compatible with Windows 8.1).

Then I found Alder Lake running on Windows 7 (with a dedicated graphics card): https://msfn.org/board/topic/183194-windows-7-on-the-intel-alder-lakez690-platform/, and I told myself it's time to upgrade!

I have done several tests with different versions of Windows such as Windows 7, XP, and of course, Windows Vista. In this article I will summarize how I managed to install Windows Vista, although it is not the best option for such current hardware.

Procedure to install Vista on an Alder Lake system:
1- Download USB 3.0 AMDXHCI drivers: Windows Vista, like Windows 7, are not compatible with USB 3 natively, so you have to proceed to unofficial universal drivers such as AMDXHCI, I leave a link to some specifically designed for Vista: here

2- Burn the Vista SP2 64-bit iso image on a USB stick: Do it with the Rufus program, if it's in GPT change it to MBR, change the file system to NTFS. After burning the ISO, copy the AMDXHCI folder to the root of your USB.

3- Enable CSM in BIOS

4- Time to install Vista!: Connect the USB memory in a USB 3.0 port, and use a PS2 mouse in this part since the whole USB will not work, when you click "Install Now" a dialog will appear asking for a driver, click on browse and locate the previously downloaded AMDXHCI. The installation is normal.

5- OOBE time: Before you get to the final Vista installation setup, press F8 as Vista starts and choose "Allow unsigned drivers" as USB 3.0 won't work.

6- Install essential drivers with SnappyDriverInstaller: When you get to the desktop you must install some drivers with SDI, select all the drivers that appear (except one for synaptics mouse) and install them without problems.

Until here, ready, we already have Vista working in Alder Lake!

Works:
- HD Audio
- USB 3.x

It does not work:
- Ethernet

Without trying:
- NVMe
- Big-little

Clarification: it is mandatory to use a dedicated graphics and disable the integrated graphics since with the latter the CSM will not work. You must have a dedicated network/wifi card since the ethernet provided by intel only works in Windows 10/11.

Edited September 24, 2022 by WinFX

[Chuterix]

1 hour ago, WinFX said:

1- Download USB 3.0 AMDXHCI drivers: Windows Vista, like Windows 7, are not compatible with USB 3 natively, so you have to proceed to unofficial universal drivers such as AMDXHCI, I leave a link to some specifically designed for Vista: here

4- Time to install Vista!: Connect the USB memory in a USB 3.0 port, and use a PS2 mouse in this part since the whole USB will not work, when you click "Install Now" a dialog will appear asking for a driver, click on browse and locate the previously downloaded AMDXHCI. The installation is normal.

There is also a generic USB 3 driver made by the same user that made the AMD USB 3 driver. See here (must be logged in!)

https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/windows-vista-drivers-etc-for-modern-hardware-collection.85899/

I can also provide direct links

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fgpxbkt9ly6i4py/WinPE_KB2864202++USB3x.7z/file

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MoRwTRdvbOTG88PV3_CervB235YJVkZm/view?usp=sharing

https://www.icafe8.top/usr/uploads/2021/04/3331464833.rar

You can also swap boot.wim with the one from Windows 7 with the USB 3 drivers integrated. (use NTLite or Simplix Update Pack Tool) There's a way to integrate drivers into install.wim but it's difficult. (Does Load Driver installation even work?)

You can also use WinNTSetup from a WinPE environment (Windows 10 PE?) to deploy the Vista install.wim with the drivers added.

1 hour ago, WinFX said:

3- Enable CSM in BIOS

For UEFI Class 3 systems, UEFISeven could work. Untested.

https://github.com/manatails/uefiseven

1 hour ago, WinFX said:

Without trying:

 

- NVMe
- Big-little

 

Clarification: it is mandatory to use a dedicated graphics and disable the integrated graphics since with the latter the CSM will not work. You must have a dedicated network/wifi card since the ethernet provided by intel only works in Windows 10/11.

A generic NVMe driver that supports Vista; (from chinese forum) here's it's mirror:

https://mega.nz/file/bwY3kKqJ#EjcvJk2023Vy3eOkxT8w2Q6UW7u4Tsp1y2pQPPvjw8s

See the MDL forum topic for more details.

I'm very noob at ARM CPUs so IDK what to say.

WDYM by "use dedicated GPU and disable integrated graphics because with the integrated graphics CSM doesn't work?" Does it mean you're stuck with the default generic VGA driver since there are no IGPU drivers for Vista?

MSFN, why can't you implement a redo function when making a post? Once I ctrl+Z my post, there's no going back and it's worse with my OCD here.

[WinClient5270]

@WinFX Does Windows Vista still have the same problems on Alder Lake as with Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Coffee Lake, etc? (I’m referring to failed services at startup, failed boot attempts, and applications failing to launch randomly)

TIA

[WinFX]

23 hours ago, WinClient5270 said:

@WinFX Does Windows Vista still have the same problems on Alder Lake as with Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Coffee Lake, etc? (I’m referring to failed services at startup, failed boot attempts, and applications failing to launch randomly)

TIA

Yes, but to a lesser extent, the worst that can happen is that aero doesn't work (it disables itself), but restarting the Desktop Windows Manager service fixes it. And Windows Update doesn't work, you have to install the updates offline manually, because Windows Update keeps checking for updates forever even with the SHA-2 patches and the 4 updates that fixed the loop problem.

[WinClient5270]

2 hours ago, WinFX said:

Yes, but to a lesser extent, the worst that can happen is that aero doesn't work (it disables itself), but restarting the Desktop Windows Manager service fixes it. And Windows Update doesn't work, you have to install the updates offline manually, because Windows Update keeps checking for updates forever even with the SHA-2 patches and the 4 updates that fixed the loop problem.

Thank you for the information.

To clarify, does Vista ever fail to boot up on Alder Lake or does it always boot, just sometimes Aero doesn’t work? 

Does this error ever appear:

https://imgur.com/a/ikOCaD0

Edited September 29, 2022 by WinClient5270

[WinFX]

On 9/28/2022 at 8:38 PM, WinClient5270 said:

Thank you for the information.

To clarify, does Vista ever fail to boot up on Alder Lake or does it always boot, just sometimes Aero doesn’t work? 

Does this error ever appear:

https://imgur.com/a/ikOCaD0

Only on winpe setup, shows the aura background with the cursor and shift+f10 didn't work and language screen not show. You need to use Windows 7 WinPe to install Vista.

[WinClient5270]

My partner and I just built an Alder Lake system. I installed Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 with the Extended Kernel and it works great! There is absolutely no drift-like behavior as seen on Haswell (4th gen) thru Tiger Lake (11th gen). Here's a screenshot:

Just like Windows 7, the processor cores do not show up in Device Manager, however it is recognized in System Properties. Ethernet drivers are also currently unavailable, however since I am friends with win32 and speak to him on a regular basis, I asked him if he could possibly get the ethernet drivers working. He said he would have to add functions to NDIS & ntoskrnl, but he could do it at a later time. Right now, I use USB wifi which works fine but I could just install a Vista-compatible PCI ethernet card if I wanted to.

Specs:

Asrock Z690 PG Riptide Motherboard

Intel Core i7 12700KF

32 GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 980ti GPU w/modded 398.11 drivers by win32

Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD

Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 x64

I may try UEFI at a later date with UEFIseven, but for the time being I am using Legacy boot with no problems. Windows Vista/7 also do not properly turbo the P & E Cores, however enabling High Performance in the BIOS simply makes the cores turbo up constantly so it runs great with no performance issues. I dualboot with Windows Server 2012, which does turbo the cores properly (and has drivers for everything, including ethernet).

Edited February 20, 2023 by WinClient5270

[TSNH]

1. Has anyone tested Alder Lake cpus that don't have any E-cores on Vista (like i5-12600). Are they also not affected by the drift issues? nvm the @winfx's i3 doesn't have them

2. Has anyone tested z690 DDR5 MBs with Vista?

Edited March 23, 2023 by TSNH

[Eddie Phizika]

1 hour ago, TSNH said:

1. Has anyone tested Alder Lake cpus that don't have any E-cores on Vista (like i5-12600). Are they also not affected by the drift issues? nvm the @winfx's i3 doesn't have them

2. Has anyone tested z690 DDR5 MBs with Vista?

If anyone have tested any e-core only mode in i9-12900k, in Vista, it would be happily appreciated to give their feedback.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Eddie Phizika

[TSNH]

I have finally decided to upgrade my Ryzen 5 1600AF PC and this time I went for Intel cpu, namely I5-12600 with MSI Pro Z690-A DDR5 Motherboard.
One of the first things I've tried out after building the PC was Windows Vista and the installation went without any problems and at first everything seemed fine.
After some time i noticed that around 25% of UAC prompts failed to start with an error. I installed some programs and drivers (including USB3 ones) and at some point the device was not able to shutdown properly and any attempt to do so would result with this BSOD.

While the fameous "Logon procedure failed" error never showed up, sometimes the explorer wouldn't start automatically so I had to do it manually.
Everything got even worse after I installed the nvidia GPU drivers - from that point only half of the bootups were fully successful and most of the times numerous services like Windows Audio, Defender or themes failed to start.
So to sum up Haswell issues are NOT gone with Alder Lake. I'm not sure why I got different results than others here, but perhaps it is because my CPU does not have E-cores.
I also remember someone mentioning that the USB3 drivers have compatibility issues with the nvidia drivers so that's another potential cause.
In the end I decided to go for Windows 8.0 which works perfectly fine on this hardware.

[D.Draker]

4 hours ago, TSNH said:

I also remember someone mentioning that the USB3 drivers have compatibility issues

It was me, I wrote many times, here on this forum, and not only to you, the self brewed Brazilian USB3.0 drivers are just terrible and killed my mobo,

I was clever enough to experiment on a relatively cheap board, but still!

And thank you for a good, honest review, I'm starting to like you.

[Cocodile]

3 hours ago, D.Draker said:

the self brewed Brazilian USB3.0 drivers are just terrible

Thank you! The same for me, I was getting BSOD multiple times. At least, I was able to clean them up, before something really bad happened.

[Cocodile]

4 hours ago, TSNH said:

nvidia GPU

Model? Maker? thnx

[TSNH]

57 minutes ago, D.Draker said:

the self brewed Brazilian USB3.0 drivers are just terrible and killed my mobo

The exact drivers I used looked more Chinese than Brazilian or at least they were part of Chinese driver pack with nvme and USB3 for Vista that @Chuterixlinked in this thread (idk if they are any different). The driver vendor is Riolin Limited

They also have a Windows 7+ version which turned out to be very useful on Windows 8.0, because with the default Microsoft drivers I was getting unrecognized device error for every device I plugged in.

59 minutes ago, Cocodile said:

Model? Maker? thnx

1060 6GB this one

[D.Draker]

8 hours ago, TSNH said:

The exact drivers I used looked more Chinese than Brazilian or at least they were part of Chinese driver pack with nvme and USB3 for Vista that @Chuterixlinked in this thread (idk if they are any different). The driver vendor is Riolin Limited

1060 6GB this one

Well, all drivers I found were bad. But the Brazilain ones did kill the mobo. So don't, just don't kill yours. Some drivers worked! But I was getting BSOD while gaming, here's the favourite nVidia conflict for you, lol.

Surely none of ny business, but I 'd say the GPU choice is rather weird. An 8 years old budget mid range for such modern mobo with DDR5?

Though, I'd understand if you have no other choice. I mean, such an old card can have potential conflicts with the new board. Perhaps the reason Vista acts up?