Solved Is Windows 7 x64 UEFI install even possible?

[Engert]

To create a UEFI boot able flash drive:
Rufus or do it yourself: UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

Hey bud, any UEFI Windows 7 disc will work ONLY if the motherboard supports legacy BIOS emulation.
At least this is what I have found out today.

 

[Megahertz07]

Correct if I'm wrong. You said that it installed from a DVD on UEFI mode, but didn't install from a USB created with an iso file.
The main difference is how these two are booted.
On the DVD you have \efi\microsoft\boot where you have the boot loader.
For a USB you have \efi\boot where you have the boot loader (bootx64.efi).
Try OPTION TWO from the link UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows.
My MB does have a option Legacy only or UEFI ONLY. I've installed with UEFI ONLY, using a USB with boot.wim and install.wim modified to add USB3 and SATA drives. I've created my USB using OPTION TWO and it installed without problems.

 

[Engert]

Correct if I'm wrong. You said that it installed from a DVD on UEFI mode, but didn't install from a USB created with an iso file.
The main difference is how these two are booted.
On the DVD you have \efi\microsoft\boot where you have the boot loader.
For a USB you have \efi\boot where you have the boot loader (bootx64.efi).
Try OPTION TWO from the link UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows.
My MB does have a option Legacy only or UEFI ONLY. I've installed with UEFI ONLY, using a USB with boot.wim and install.wim modified to add USB3 and SATA drives. I've created my USB using OPTION TWO and it installed without problems.

I take that back. This has been a learning process for me as well but the bottom line seems to be (at least reading the Microsoft article) that any uefi disc or USB will work on motherboards with Bios emulation only.
The difference between DVD and USB in this scenario is that with the USB you get the \EFI\Micosoft\Boot\BCD 0xc000000d error which is very misleading and with the DVD the setups hangs at the Windows screen. You'd think that the hanging of the video could be as simple as a driver injection but it's not. It's VGA.sys trying to load itself into an UEFI system.

Kind of like plugging in a 110volt appliance into a 220 volt system. It just doesn't work and it's not designed to work that way (at least according to Microsoft).
There might be diehards out there who are willing to modify the HAL but I'm not going there.

Thanks for all your responses in this thread ! I appreciate it.

 

[Engert]

I'd like to add a few more notes here to provide some explanation as I understand it.

There are many great guides in this site, other sites in the Internet, or simply using your Windows experience on how to create a Windows 7 install from USB. This install is also UEFI capable.
All of these guides assume one thing which should be clear: They will work ONLY if the hardware supports BIOS emulation.
Since Microsoft is considering Windows 7 a legacy OS now, all of these guides on this site or other sites will work on any legacy hardware or on any new hardware which provide old BIOS legacy support.
And the list of manufacturers who make new hardware with BIOS legacy support is getting shorter everyday until they stop making them one day. At that point, all of the guides will not work on ANY new hardware.

Having said that, I have personally been using a Windows 7 Universal installer for at least 4 years now and I have included a lot of options to make it as compatible as possible with legacy hardware.
I am using Windows 8.1 setup files which provide great support for USB3 and MassStorage drivers and I'm using the $WinPeDrivers$ folder to inject further drivers into the install.wim DURING setup. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2686316 . Because of these customizations my ISO is close to 9GB now which includes a 2GB driver library and a 3GB $OEM$ folder which includes a few applications like Office etc.
It has been working great and it will continue to work great for any hardware that supports BIOS emulation.

 

[Megahertz07]

That was something new to me.
I'm always learning.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

 

[Engert]

That was something new to me.
I'm always learning.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Sure thing.
Quick question. Is the tenforums.com affiliated with this site and are there any guides here or in that site for a Windows 10 unattended setup or customizations?
I can put a guide together if needed and I figured Windows 10 might be a good start since Windows 7 has been exhausted at this point.
The only cool thing you can do at this point with a win 7 guide is to have Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7 wim file which includes all OSes and customizations in one single huge ISO.
But since these are almost legacy now, Windows 10 would be the place to start.
I noticed you have been here for a while so wanted to ask if a Windows 10 guide is needed or if there are many other guides out there in the tenforums.com so I don't duplicate any efforts.
Thanks.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Tenforums is a sister forum to this one. I'm a member there, but don't spend much time there or have any familiarity with guides and tutorials.

 

[derekimo]

Sure thing.
Quick question. Is the tenforums.com affiliated with this site and are there any guides here or in that site for a Windows 10 unattended setup or customizations?
I can put a guide together if needed and I figured Windows 10 might be a good start since Windows 7 has been exhausted at this point.
The only cool thing you can do at this point with a win 7 guide is to have Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7 wim file which includes all OSes and customizations in one single huge ISO.
But since these are almost legacy now, Windows 10 would be the place to start.
I noticed you have been here for a while so wanted to ask if a Windows 10 guide is needed or if there are many other guides out there in the tenforums.com so I don't duplicate any efforts.
Thanks.

As already mentioned it is our sister site. Windows 10 Forums

As to your question about guides, I believe this is what you are talking about,

Windows 10 Image - Customize in Audit Mode with Sysprep - Windows 10 Forums

Kari is our resident guru on most of those subjects, he's made tutorials on all our forums.

Feel free to see if there is an area that hasn't been covered but I find our tutorials pretty vast myself.

 

[Layback Bear]

Just some more information

At the bottom of each page on this forum shows our Sister Forum.

• Vista Forums
• Eight Forums
• Ten Forums
• PC Help Forum

 

[Engert]

Thank you gentlemen.
I did check that guide and it is very comprehensive and has nothing further to add.
One possible alternative could be to create a Windows 10 install which can be updated monthly. Since that is something that most home users don't care about and it's used in corporate environment I don't think it will be useful for people here.
The difference is that Kari has sysprepped that image and the image cannot be updated further unless u have a pre-sysprepped snapshot to update it and sysprepped it again.
The other method is without syspreping and you customize everything at runtime and you inject Microsoft updates monthly on Microsoft patch Tuesday.

Again I don't think it'd be useful here and looks like Kari has covered pretty much everything in his guide.

 

[askho2]

I used a Windows 7 ISO that I made from a slipstreamed Windows 7 DVD installer that I made a few years ago.

ignatzatsonic I got here googling and I know this thread is a little old but could you please explain me how did you made that DVD? Thanks in advance.

 

[Megahertz07]

This is an old thread.
You should open a new thread.
What do you want to do?

 

[askho2]

Yes I know it´s an old thread. I´m having problems trying to install Windows 7 SP1 64bit in UEFI mode.
I'd like to learn how to inject USB3 and SATA AHCI drivers into a Windows 7 ISO beause it seemed to work for an user here. I´ll open a new thread.

 

[Megahertz07]

To install in UEFI you must have a UEFI BIOS. Sandy Bridge (i5 2450m) use to have Legacy - MBR BIOS.
Read my tutorial Create a Windows 7 USB flash installation with new drives for new MB's - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[askho2]

To install in UEFI you must have a UEFI BIOS. Sandy Bridge (i5 2450m) use to have Legacy - MBR BIOS.
Read my tutorial Create a Windows 7 USB flash installation with new drives for new MB's - Windows 7 Help Forums

My HP Pavilion g4-2082la laptop has BIOS and UEFI. It came with W7 64bit Home Premium preinstalled in BIOS mode. I upgraded to Windows 8.1 64bit in UEFI mode without problems, which is the maximum it supports. But it runs slower and hotter than W7. So I came back to W7 (simply switch disks) and began this insidious process of installing W7 in UEFI mode. ¿Why? Because sometimes I need to connect discs that are more than 2TB in size. Thanks for your tutorial, I'll try it.

 

[Megahertz07]

The tutorial is to add USB 3.x and new SATA drivers to the win 7 installation disk. I think you don't need it.
To install as UEFI - GPT, insert the Win 7 64 installation disk and launch boot menu. Choose to boot as UEFI. Go to install - Advanced - delete ALL partitions - create new.
It will create 3 partitions
- 100M - Fat32 - UEFI
- 120M - RAW - MS reserved
- Big NTFS
Install on big NTFS

 

[askho2]

The tutorial is to add USB 3.x and new SATA drivers to the win 7 installation disk. I think you don't need it.
To install as UEFI - GPT, insert the Win 7 64 installation disk and launch boot menu. Choose to boot as UEFI. Go to install - Advanced - delete ALL partitions - create new.
It will create 3 partitions
- 100M - Fat32 - UEFI
- 120M - RAW - MS reserved
- Big NTFS
Install on big NTFS

It´s exactly what I do. I tried to install with DVD and with USB configured with Rufus + UEFI-GPT but it always hangs at "Starting Windows". I don´t know what more to do.

 

[AddRAM]

Did you create the installers yourself ?

Maybe you just need a fresh Iso file

 

[askho2]

Hello AddRAM. The official unmodified ISO downloaded from Microsoft I used is the same with which I installed W7 in BIOS mode without problems.

 

[Megahertz07]

Is secure boot and or fast boot disabled?

Why don't you install as Legacy - MBR?
On your laptop there is no performance difference.