is windows vista possible next to windows 11 on uefi mode?

[legacyfan]

is this something that would be possible to achieve? I know vista had support for it but did it have full support? if anyone could help with thisnit would be much appreciated (and the hdd is a 500GB Toshiba Drive)

[Sergiaws]

it might, but you would need to disable secure boot.

[erpdude8]

and need to be running a 64bit edition of vista and the HDD or SSD must be formatted with GPT partitions for UEFI booting

[Tripredacus]

Vista SP1 was the first iteration to support it, at least documented as such. I never tried it.

As for whether or not Windows 11 Setup would automatically setup up the proper BCD, I'm not sure. You may be able to manually create one, or use a different bootloader.

[jaclaz]

A few notes.

Strictly speaking, there is no real need of GPT style disk for UEFI booting, though the good MS guys did introduce a few arbitrary limitations like preventing you from installing on a MBR disk (and it is entirely possible that they added a definite limitation to Windows 11) , but UEFI in itself is compatible with MBR style disks, in this cases it will consider as ESP partition the active (FAT32) partition on the disk, example of what can be done:

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=22482

The requirement for processor matching is instead in the UEFI specs, so you can only install/boot a 64 bit system on a 64 bit processor machine (or a 32 bit on an extremely rare 32 bit processor).

There is no "alternative" bootloader (AFAIK) to the bootmgr.efi, so it (and a valid BCD) are always needed, there are various bootmanagers/bootloaders/shims that can be booted "before" the bootmgr, but the final steps all go through bootmgr and the (valid) BCD that call the winload.efi that then proceeds to boot the OS.

Specifically for Vista, its support for EFI/UEFI is reportedly since Vista Beta 2 Build 5384, but even in 7 EFI/UEFI support is far from ideal, and you need additional tricks to boot on newer UEFI systems, like using UEFISeven:

https://vinaypundith.github.io/windows_7_efi_guide/

https://msfn.org/board/topic/183033-list-guide-list-of-hardware-that-supports-windows-vista-uefi-boot-and-how-to-boot-vista-with-uefi/

In other words, YMMGV.

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

On 8/12/2023 at 5:20 AM, jaclaz said:

A few notes.

Strictly speaking, there is no real need of GPT style disk for UEFI booting, though the good MS guys did introduce a few arbitrary limitations like preventing you from installing on a MBR disk (and it is entirely possible that they added a definite limitation to Windows 11) , but UEFI in itself is compatible with MBR style disks, in this cases it will consider as ESP partition the active (FAT32) partition on the disk, example of what can be done:

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=22482

 

There are some other issues, but it depend on which version of WinPE or Diskpart you use to prep the partitions. In general terms (I do not know it by version numbers) if you try to use Diskpart while the OS/PE is in GPT mode from a PE, it may not let you create an MBR disk like this, may create GPT by default and not let you change the type to MBR.

Second, it is possible to boot (Win7 only tested) on a single partition on MBR disk on a UEFI system. Multiple partitions do not work. There is a requirement to prep an image to do this, as Setup won't work. You first install the OS onto an MBR system with 1 partition using answer file. Then capture that image. Then you can redeploy it to single partition on UEFI. But if you were to do a standard install on MBR (where it creates the initial partition), make an image and then try to deploy that to single partition, it will not boot. I was not able to determine any sort of BCD commands to make it work, so I ended up just keeping one of each type of image.

Of course with all of this, there may have been revelations or workarounds that exist that I am unaware of.

But that is single OS deployment. It was not possible to deploy say, Win7 with recovery partition on UEFI at all using MS-only methods. So multi-boot is out of the question.

If I were to attempt it, I would first do a Vista SP1 install proper, then to Win 11 21H2 install and see if Win 11 automatically is going to make the bootmenu.

[jaclaz]

31 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

Second, it is possible to boot (Win7 only tested) on a single partition on MBR disk on a UEFI system. Multiple partitions do not work.

 

They do, I provided a link to a reported way to do so (small FAT32 partition+main partition).

There may well be this (or that) artificial limitation due to specific UEFI implementations, of course.

And of course the good MS guys did whatever they could to prevent you from using MBR style disks with UEFI, so thinking that anything outside the MS (stupidly) recommended paths with MS tools only is unthinkable.

To do anything out of the ordinary you need increasingly more complex procedures, third party tools and what not, and little by little they are forcing us to recognize that what they say is the only way.

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

22 hours ago, jaclaz said:

And of course the good MS guys did whatever they could to prevent you from using MBR style disks with UEFI, so thinking that anything outside the MS (stupidly) recommended paths with MS tools only is unthinkable.

I'm not sure it is on MS that this happens. I think it is a combination of the specification as well as whether or not the firmware manufacturer is compliant with it. There is still the interesting case of the Intel NUC with a specific (now lost to time I imagine) BIOS version that allowed booting Win7/8 on MBR disk on UEFI with CSM disabled. I don't think the OS has anything to do with it. Maybe the bootloaders in Win10+ changed to put a block in to do what you say. But in any case, it is not the norm that you can boot MBR under UEFI that is for sure.

[Saxon]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:20 AM, jaclaz said:

Specifically for Vista, its support for EFI/UEFI is reportedly since Vista Beta 2 Build 5384, but even in 7 EFI/UEFI support is far from ideal,

Yes! They surely implemented limitations in with Windows 7, with Vista one would have more success.

Only Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10 can boot in real UEFI mode. Windows 7 doesn't even support the new UEFI GOP (Graphics Output Protocol)

https://superuser.com/questions/1172089/can-only-install-windows-7-in-uefi-legacy-mode

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2828074/windows-7-setup-hangs-at-starting-windows-on-surface-pro

[jaclaz]

That's another thing, it is a "new" level of the UEFI specifications (UEFI Class-3), this class of hardware didn't exist in times of VIsta or 7, so it is not at all surprising.

The surface/surface PRO installing of Windows 7 is talked about on another thread:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184183-how-can-i-install-windows-7-pro-or-ultimate-on-a-microsoft-surface-go/

As said before there may be "tricks" around that limitation.

jaclaz

 

 

[Vistapocalypse]

2 hours ago, jaclaz said:

The surface/surface PRO installing of Windows 7 is talked about on another thread

A tutorial was posted in the Vista forum (but I’m not a Surface Pro owner myself):

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184402-how-to-install-windows-vista-on-a-surface-pro-1-or-any-other-uefi-only-device/

[GD 2W10]

6 hours ago, Vistapocalypse said:

A tutorial was posted in the Vista forum (but I’m not a Surface Pro owner myself):

https://msfn.org/board/topic/184402-how-to-install-windows-vista-on-a-surface-pro-1-or-any-other-uefi-only-device/

Yes. I made that tutorial. 

 

On 6/22/2023 at 1:53 PM, legacyfan said:

is this something that would be possible to achieve? I know vista had support for it but did it have full support? if anyone could help with thisnit would be much appreciated (and the hdd is a 500GB Toshiba Drive)

In theory, yes, because Vista and Windows 11 both use BOOTMGR, and both can be used on UEFI, therefore this means you can install any of them in any order. Now, if we're talking about real hardware, then that's another story. If you don't have CSM, you will need 3rd-party solutions to get Vista working on UEFI Class 3. Also, Vista tends to have several bugs on post-Ivy Bridge hardware. If I were you, if you have CSM or Legacy boot mode, if you were on UEFI, I would convert the existing 11 installation from GPT to MBR (use a program like AOMEI Partition Wizard), then install Vista on a separate partition. 

Edited August 19, 2023 by GD 2W10

[Saxon]

I myself have a KabyLake board, made in 2017-2018, I was able to use Windows 7 only after I changed from UEFI HDD to normal HDD and disabled all UEFI features that were shown in BIOS, including the GOP. UEFI 2.3.1 on paper, in theory yes, the question is, what people really want, it might be too hard to achieve, or nearly impossible with most of motherboards made after 2014. I haven't tried Vista on that kabylake mobo, but with the Haswell gen., it worked fine, but then again, Haswell is 2013, and the OP didn't tell us anything about his mobo.

[jaclaz]

There are no such things as "UEFI HDD" or "normal HDD", there is GPT style of partitioning and MBR style of partitioning.

BIOS is ONLY compatible with MBR style[0].

UEFI is (should be) compatible with BOTH MBR and GPT style, though often GPT is forced by some artificial limitation by either the firmware or the OS or both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition

The normal BIOS booting sequence (on MBR) is:

BIOS->MBR code->PBR of Active partition in MBR partition table->PBR code-> OS loader or bootmanager
 

The UEFI booting sequence (on GPT) is:

UEFI->EFI loader on ESP (normally FAT32[1]) which has its own ID of C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

The UEFI booting sequence (on MBR) is:

UEFI->EFI loader on partiion (normally FAT32) that is considered the ESP (or EFI System Partition) with an ID of 0xEF (some wrong implementations may want to use the "generic" 0x0B or 0x0C[2])

jaclaz

[0] though there are tricks/workarounds to boot GPT from BIOS, besides hybrid MBR's there are a few ways here:

http://reboot.pro/topic/19516-hack-bootmgr-to-boot-windows-in-bios-to-gpt

[1] though according to the specifications "FAT" is to be used, so also FAT12 and 16 should be possible

[2] An example (solved):

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/126

Edited August 20, 2023 by jaclaz

[Saxon]

15 hours ago, jaclaz said:

There are no such things as "UEFI HDD" or "normal HDD"

Yes there is!  Why would I tell, if it din't allow me to choose this option?!!??!

See for yourself!

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/select-boot-device-on-uefi-bios/

My MOBO allows me to select the booting device 

1st optioin: "UEFI HDD"

2nd option: just "HDD"

3rd option and up to 10 or so, allows to select other UEFI or non-UEFI devices.

Motherboard model: Biostar KabyLake H110MHV3

https://motherboarddb.com/motherboards/594/

So, like I wrote, I switched everything to "normal", and finally was able to install Windows 7!

I hadn't tried Vista on that board.