does W7 hate UEFI - cannot install - help please

A casual glance shows that Legacy options are available and useable there.

But when it is working perfectly, no real need is there to pay much attention in it. If you opt for windows 10 (or windows 8.1) anytime in future, then changing to UEFI will have some bearing.

But what does USB have to do with installing Win 7 in UEFI? As I said, I used a factory DVD, not a USB stick.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

But what does USB have to do with installing Win 7 in UEFI? As I said, I used a factory DVD, not a USB stick.

Hi Lady Fitzgerald. :)

As the legacy option for USB is there, the legacy boot option for ODD should also be there. And as default the configuration for USB is, "if Legacy is available then legacy first and then UEFI"; ODD also should be configured in the same way. As far as I know and have seen, all the boards have it, at least till date.

That is how your windows is installed, the installer booted using the "legacy first" option. If you dont guide a windows 7 installer to boot as UEFI, it will generally boot as legacy due to it. It is not an issue, not a bad install, not anything. It just does not use the UEFI features. And those are not any very big deal for windows7. Windows 7 is perfectly OK with BIOS+MBR.

The catchline is, your board has the UEFI features, but the present windows installation does not use it. Because during installation it was not guided to boot as UEFI, so it booted as legacy, formatted the SSD to MBR and kept UEFI aside.