Install guide to avoid Windows 7 install freezes at "starting windows"

Ha, I independently came up with the Windows 8.x *.efi solution a couple days ago.

Though I don't use CSM boot at all, except after the installation to install proper graphics drivers.

You can do the installation in pure UEFI without CSM if you use the boot.wim from Windows 8.x.

On my machine however I still have no video in Safe Mode. I would be impressed if you solve this.

HausTechnik said:

Yes, I know this post is kind of old. In any case, inside the E:\efi\microsoft\boot folder on the Windows 8.1 install media, there resides another folder called resources, ie; E:\efi\microsoft\boot\resources and in that folder, there is bootres.dll
I checked and it is both on my installed system of Windows 7 X64 and within the install.wim on the install media for Windows 7 X64. The E:\efi\boot should only contain bootx64.efi and nothing else. I am about to recreate my install media on my HP USB drive with the new changes made and will report back once I have and definative answer as to the functionality of my media.

Please give me at least one to two hours.

EDIT: OK, still fails. There has to be something in the Windows 8.1 install media that is missing in the Windows 7 media. Maybe there is some type of key signing verification that is missing and freezes the install. Will have to fine tooth comb through the media and find the diff.

Perhaps you don't actually understand the cause. From what I observed the system is actually not frozen, just fails to update the screen (though is semi-functional in the background).

Try booting the setup in Safe Mode and see if you notice a black bar across the top appear over the text after it's finished loading files.

If you look in my other thread, I got around this problem.

I was able to get a proper UEFI Install for Windows 7 Home Premium. I used the BOOTX64.EFI from Windows Automated Installation Kit Supplement for Windows 7 SP1 iso. Immediately booted into UEFI install. There is the lack of USB 3 support. There is no secure boot either. Admittedly, while installing drivers, I got the BSOD and was unable to recover. However, I am reading up on some partitioning scripting to create all of the proper and recommended partitions, including WinRE and recovery. Also, I need to add my drivers and such into my install.wim. Any recommendations as far as free wim editors?

Why do all that? Are you trying to deploy an image to multiple PC's?

If not you only need to get the UEFI firmware updated and set correctly, then follow UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums

It explains how to trace missing or Unknown Device drivers in Clean Reinstall Windows 7.

You can also ask back here in our Drivers forum where they can find any driver.

Thanks for the heads up. I got it.

Netnissen said:

Hi Friends of the internet


I have been reading several forums regarding the issue of installing windows 7 (64 bit) to a computer that have had windows 8 installed previously or just a GPT formatted disk. I found some kind of solution, hope it can help you.



My Case:
Windows version installed: Windows 7 Professional N with Service Pack 1 (x64) or Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Computer to install windows 7 on: Samsung laptop
Model Code: NP53U4C-A02SE
See the specks here:
14" 5-serien NP535U4C - SPECIFIKATIONER | SAMSUNG


Create a USB install disk that not freezes at ”starting windows” screen:


First I followed this great guide (Thanks Daniel), See copy below:
Creating a UEFI/BIOS Windows 7 USB and installing to GPT partitions ? Hodgin.ca
STOP Daniels Guide after step 13!


1. Open a command line in administrator mode
2. run DISKPART
3. type LIST DISK
4. Look for the disk number that represents your USB drive
5. type SELECT DISK # where # represents the number of your USB drive. Get this right or you will wipe a different drive out.
6. type CLEAN
7. type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
8. type SELECT PARTITION 1
9. type ACTIVE
10. type FORMAT fs=fat32 quick
11. type assign
11a. type EXIT
11b. type EXIT
12. The drive should now be formatted and marked as active and fat32. Do not format the drive as NTFS or you will only be able to boot into the installer in BIOS mode.
13. Now you will need to copy the contents of the windows 7 install dvd to the USB with a regular copy paste from windows explorer.

Here comes a very weird hack... I do not know why it works, but I think it is all about flash drive data structure. I did these steps on a win 7 prof. computer.

( Let’s assume the USB is assigned drive E: )

1) Make a copy of your e:\efi\microsoft folder to e.g. your desktop.
2) Delete the e:\efi folder
3) Copy the \efi folder from a windows 8 installation disk (I used Windows 8 (x64) Professional) to the e:\efi folder. See attached RAR.
4) Here comes the weird part. Then delete e:\efi\microsoft you just copied from the win 8 installation disk.
5) Copy the \microsoft folder form the desktop to e:\efi\microsoft

Resume the guide from step 18.:
Creating a UEFI/BIOS Windows 7 USB and installing to GPT partitions ? Hodgin.ca

18. Insert the USB in the machine and turn it on and boot into the UEFI/BIOS loader and check for boot options. On the ASUS Zenbook it detected two boot options on the USB drive. One was UEFI and one was regular BIOS. I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.

· My bios setup was:

• Secure Boot = Disable
• OS Mode Selection = CSM and UEFI OS
• Boot Device Priority = I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.

The installation should start normal.


E.g. See this guide:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with


What I did was:

1. Select custom installation (Advanced).
2. Click Drive options (Advanced).
3. Delete all partitions (this might not be needed). When I did not delete all partitions I was asked every time after the install, during start up by the windows boot manager to select ether win 8 or win 7.
4. Click new (DO NOT make Changes in the size of the disk), apply, see NOTE!
5. Edit the Primary partition as you want it e.g. divide it to more partitions.
6. Select the one you will install windows on and do a normal install.
7. I did not make changes in the Bios after install. The Boot priority is automatic set to “Windows boot manager”. If I change the boot mode back to OS Mode Selection = UEFI OS, the computer will freeze at the “starting windows” screen again.

All this worked for me, good luck. There might be more to it, but this is a start.
By the way, the start up time for a MBR install was 37 s. And for the GPT it was 49 s.


Remember if we stand on each other’s shoulders we will reach higher .


NOTE:

Here the installation program should create three partitions automatically!
- Partition 1 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
- Partition 2 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
- Partition 3 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.


If this isn’t the cast you are not installing in UEIF mode. To check for this (thanks again Daniel):


If you need to find out if you have booted into BIOS mode or UEFI mode when the installer starts you can press SHIFT+F10 when the welcome installer shows up to open a cmd prompt. from here you will likely be at X:\Sources. Type cd .. to go back a dir and move into \Windows\Panther\


Then type notepad setupact.log


Within this file do a ctrl+f and search for
Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment:
It should either say BIOS or UEFI.

To check if your disk is in the GPT format.
Open the command prompt.
Type: DISKPART
Type: List Disk
See for the star (*) in the GPT column

I did make an account on this forum just to to this.

Thanks for the awesome tutorial! ^_^
I did try serval other things and tutorials, but this is the only tutorial that did work!

Netnissen said:

Hi Friends of the internet


I have been reading several forums regarding the issue of installing windows 7 (64 bit) to a computer that have had windows 8 installed previously or just a GPT formatted disk. I found some kind of solution, hope it can help you.



My Case:
Windows version installed: Windows 7 Professional N with Service Pack 1 (x64) or Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Computer to install windows 7 on: Samsung laptop
Model Code: NP53U4C-A02SE
See the specks here:
14" 5-serien NP535U4C - SPECIFIKATIONER | SAMSUNG


Create a USB install disk that not freezes at ”starting windows” screen:


First I followed this great guide (Thanks Daniel), See copy below:
Creating a UEFI/BIOS Windows 7 USB and installing to GPT partitions ? Hodgin.ca
STOP Daniels Guide after step 13!


1. Open a command line in administrator mode
2. run DISKPART
3. type LIST DISK
4. Look for the disk number that represents your USB drive
5. type SELECT DISK # where # represents the number of your USB drive. Get this right or you will wipe a different drive out.
6. type CLEAN
7. type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
8. type SELECT PARTITION 1
9. type ACTIVE
10. type FORMAT fs=fat32 quick
11. type assign
11a. type EXIT
11b. type EXIT
12. The drive should now be formatted and marked as active and fat32. Do not format the drive as NTFS or you will only be able to boot into the installer in BIOS mode.
13. Now you will need to copy the contents of the windows 7 install dvd to the USB with a regular copy paste from windows explorer.

Here comes a very weird hack... I do not know why it works, but I think it is all about flash drive data structure. I did these steps on a win 7 prof. computer.

( Let’s assume the USB is assigned drive E: )

1) Make a copy of your e:\efi\microsoft folder to e.g. your desktop.
2) Delete the e:\efi folder
3) Copy the \efi folder from a windows 8 installation disk (I used Windows 8 (x64) Professional) to the e:\efi folder. See attached RAR.
4) Here comes the weird part. Then delete e:\efi\microsoft you just copied from the win 8 installation disk.
5) Copy the \microsoft folder form the desktop to e:\efi\microsoft

Resume the guide from step 18.:
Creating a UEFI/BIOS Windows 7 USB and installing to GPT partitions ? Hodgin.ca

18. Insert the USB in the machine and turn it on and boot into the UEFI/BIOS loader and check for boot options. On the ASUS Zenbook it detected two boot options on the USB drive. One was UEFI and one was regular BIOS. I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.

· My bios setup was:

• Secure Boot = Disable
• OS Mode Selection = CSM and UEFI OS
• Boot Device Priority = I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.

The installation should start normal.


E.g. See this guide:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with


What I did was:

1. Select custom installation (Advanced).
2. Click Drive options (Advanced).
3. Delete all partitions (this might not be needed). When I did not delete all partitions I was asked every time after the install, during start up by the windows boot manager to select ether win 8 or win 7.
4. Click new (DO NOT make Changes in the size of the disk), apply, see NOTE!
5. Edit the Primary partition as you want it e.g. divide it to more partitions.
6. Select the one you will install windows on and do a normal install.
7. I did not make changes in the Bios after install. The Boot priority is automatic set to “Windows boot manager”. If I change the boot mode back to OS Mode Selection = UEFI OS, the computer will freeze at the “starting windows” screen again.

All this worked for me, good luck. There might be more to it, but this is a start.
By the way, the start up time for a MBR install was 37 s. And for the GPT it was 49 s.


Remember if we stand on each other’s shoulders we will reach higher .


NOTE:

Here the installation program should create three partitions automatically!
- Partition 1 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
- Partition 2 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
- Partition 3 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.


If this isn’t the cast you are not installing in UEIF mode. To check for this (thanks again Daniel):


If you need to find out if you have booted into BIOS mode or UEFI mode when the installer starts you can press SHIFT+F10 when the welcome installer shows up to open a cmd prompt. from here you will likely be at X:\Sources. Type cd .. to go back a dir and move into \Windows\Panther\


Then type notepad setupact.log


Within this file do a ctrl+f and search for
Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment:
It should either say BIOS or UEFI.

To check if your disk is in the GPT format.
Open the command prompt.
Type: DISKPART
Type: List Disk
See for the star (*) in the GPT column

Hello Netnissan. Could you list all steps clearly? I can not access the link refered to Daniel's guide.