Reverting to Windows 7 from Windows 10 on a new machine

[cadoganman]

Hello people, I have just joined your Forum but I really would appreciate any advice you can give to my current problem. I have very recently purchased an ASUS TUF Gaming FX504GE but perhaps surprisingly I did not buy it for its' gaming abilities but mainly as an upgrade from my previous aged Asus, which has served me well. To cut to the chase I thought that I could merely format the 128 SSD to Windows 7 and leave the other 1T for storage and all would be well in the Kingdom. However after days (which on reflection may have been totally wasted ) trying to install Windows 7 I have met with no success. I searched for hours online looking for a solution and yesterday found an article which says it is not possible to do so. Can any of you knowledgeable people advise me if I have bought a pup or is there a solution to this problem as at my stage of later life I do not want to start learning a new operating system. The question remains can I operate Windows 7 on this system. Please do ask for any further info if you can possibly help me as I tried and failed to work the system details app.

Kindest regards to all


Gaming NB FX504 Series

Product Series:FX504 Series

Product Name: ASUS TUF Gaming FX504GE

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. You dont say how your installing ie are you boot from 7 dvd. What error do you get what happens. Its possible that secure boot is set in the bios which wont allow any o/s not registered to boot

 

[Rainner]

Hi cadoganman
I didn't mean to interupt what Samuria started, I just wanted to let you know that YES you can run 7 on it; I'm doing it now on a bit older ASUS laptop.


Please continue with samuria's info and questions

 

[AddRAM]

Yes, tell us exactly what you are doing and any error messages you get.

Does it ask for a driver during the install etc....

Are you trying to install with a dvd or a usb stick ?

Asus has a program called Asus EZ Installer, which you can use to create a Windows 7 installer to use on newer hardware.


EZ Installer | ASUS USA

 

[Gawskert]

Welcome to the forum. You dont say how your installing ie are you boot from 7 dvd. What error do you get what happens. Its possible that secure boot is set in the bios which wont allow any o/s not registered to boot

I just wonder that how to set it in the BIOS settings ?need some tips .

 

[AddRAM]

Secure boot needs to be disabled as already suggested, set the dvd drive to boot 1st, the OS drive 2nd.

Once you have windows installed you can set the OS drive to boot 1st and the dvd drive 2nd, the dvd drive will still show up if you bring up the Boot menu, and still work as usual.

 

[cadoganman]

Thank you all so much for your swift and helpful responses, unfortunately I am unable to carry on this thread at the moment as I have had to take my dog to the vet for an urgent unforseen operation. However I would love to carry on this discussion in the next few days after Alfies recovery.

Kind regards

cadoganman

 

[dsperber]

Last version of Intel hardware supported officially by MS and Win7 is 6th generation CPU and Skylake chipset. 7th and 8th (which is in your ASUS TUF Gaming FX504GE) generation CPU's will not be given Windows Updates.

Furthermore, the original retail Win7 installer media does NOT support (a) USB 3.0, nor (b) NVMe M.2 drives. USB mouse and keyboard on these Skylake and newer machines requires USB 3.0 support, so you won't be able to do a Win7 install using the original retail Win7 media if you're using USB mouse/keyuboard. And you won't be able to do a Win7 install to an M.2 NVMe target drive if that's what you want to do. At least not with the original retail Win7 installer media.

Beginning with Skylake chipset hardware several years ago in order to install Win7 even on those machines you had to create new updated Win7 install media that contained at a minimum the missing and now required USB 3.0 driver. Also, if you wanted to target your install to an M.2 NVMe drive (e.g. a Samsung EVO or PRO) you also had to add the needed Samsung NVMe driver to that updated Win7 install media being created.

Easiest way to create new usable USB-bootable Win7 install media containing both of the missing drivers (USB 3.0 and NVMe) is to use Gigabyte has a utility program they created for their own users of Skylake motherboards (Intel chipsets 100/200/x299) which required USB 3.0 driver support built into the Win7 install media. As with the Intel utility linked to above, the Gigabyte utility also creates new USB install media by slipstreaming USB 3.0 drivers into a pre-existing Win7 DVD install media, so that the newly created bootable USB Win7 install media can support the USB mouse/keyboard via USB 3.0 ports.

In addition, the Gigabyte utility will also optionally add NVMe drivers (which are also missing from original MS Win7 install media), so that if you want to install Win7 to an M.2 NVMe target drive on your new Skylake machine you can do that as well. The utility from Intel is only concerned with adding USB 3.0 drivers, so this is an advantage to using the Gigabyte utility instead to be able to install Win7 to NVMe if you want to do that.

The Gigabyte utility is available from the Gigabyte download site, scrolling down on the page about midway. It is described as: Windows USB Installation Tool, (Note) Support Intel 100/200/X299 series motherboards. OS: Windows 7 64bit,Windows 7 32bit.

The direct link to the utility on that page is here.

I am guessing it is is similar to the ASUS-provided utility alluded to earlier in this thread. I haven't used the ASUS utility but I have used the Gigabyte utility, and it absolutely works. You will be able to install Win7 on Skylake+ machines, with Skylake (6th-generation) CPU's.


I still cannot confirm you can install and run Win7 on 7th and 8th generation Intel CPU's., but for sure you're not going to be getting Windows Updates from MS, and that's a problem.

One more suggestion you might consider... Why not just stick with Win10, but customize it to work like Win7 in the Start Menu (which is the biggest complaint people have about seeing Win10 for the first time)?

==> Just install the Start10 product from Stardock. It restores 100% of the look and feel and full functionality of the Win7 Start button and Start Menu feature... while also making the regular Win10 Start button and its own functionality still available as well. So you can have BOTH, but you can use Win7 Start Menu 100% if that's what makes you comfortable. My own guess is that you'll kind of use some of Win10's features eventually.

Win10 configured with Start10 installed is pretty much cosmetically indistinguishable from Win7, except that it is faster, sleeker, cleaner, and of course supports your new hardware completely while also getting regular Windows Updates from MS. Sure, it's Win10 and MS has moved some things around and changed the user interface a bit (in some cases seemingly for no real good reason, but you'll get used to it).

I have now given a Start10-configured Win10 machine (both desktop and laptop) to four friends and family members who are NOT TECH SAVVY, and didn't want to ever give up what they were used to with the 8-year old Win7 machines they were using. But they HAD to upgrade, and Win10 is all they really sell now with the newer generation CPUs.

==> Give Start10 a try before you knock yourself out trying to install Win7 on a new machine.

 

[SIW2]

I still cannot confirm you can install and run Win7 on 7th and 8th generation Intel CPU's

A lot of people do.

but for sure you're not going to be getting Windows Updates from MS, and that's a problem.

Not a problem.
Download wufuc - MajorGeeks

 

[dsperber]

Not a problem.
Download wufuc - MajorGeeks

Great. Clever trickery outfoxes the rules of the master again.

And what happens after January 4, 2020?

Plus, you may or may not actually have Win7 drivers for the hardware contained in the new machines, even if Win7 itself can be installed on an unsupported CPU. You might end up with numerous "other devices" driverless hardware, with yellow exclamation marks and no drivers... and nowhere to get those drivers because the manufacturer designed the new hardware parts to run just in a modern Win10 environment and so that's where the software development dollars went.

As a longtime Win7 user my feeling still is that the real complaint about Win10 (and Win8 before it) was the radical revision to the classic desktop concept and the Start button/menu functionality which had been in place since the mid-90's and Win95. Simply crazy to do away with it after decades of having it simply always be present and always work the same way, for truly no reason. Nobody minds a faster sleeker OS, but why completely change the way you launch programs for no real reason?

Or, why not just support BOTH the old way as well as the new way!!! And that's exactly what Start10 is.

So when you are running Win10 you really could argue it sure looks like Win7 on the desktop. And that's what professionals really wanted, their old-fashioned desktop with a Start button to produce the same Start Menu it always had. That's what Start10 gives you.

Or, if you want to try out the new Win10 tile menu approach (and many obviously have and don't mind it at all, in fact applauding it), you can have that too. That's what Start10 gives you.


Honestly, this reminds me of the argument where people try to defend the "wonders of high-quality MP3" music files when in fact they're really just wanting high quality audio using up less file space on disk than the original WAV files on the original CD. And that's what FLAC is, a better ZIP-like compression format for WAV to result in a significant savings in file space, while retaining a bit-perfect lossless file format that when played back through a FLAC player sounds 100% identical to the original WAV, since it really is just a bit-perfect lossless higher-compressed format than WAV for the audio data.

So assuming you had plenty of disk space, and had no problem with storing identical-sounding FLAC files being say 40% the size of the original WAV on the original CD, how could you possibly argue that MP3 is "almost as good as" when you can actually have "identical to"? The only reason for lossy MP3 is that you can compress it down to almost nothing if you're willing to give up audio quality in the playback. But if you want better sound, you must have a larger MP3 file... and it's still only "almost as good as" and is still LOSSY, not LOSSLESS like FLAC.

So if I'm willing to allocate the disk space, why would I ever use MP3 and not FLAC?

Again, if I had Start10 to bring back the missing Win7-like Start button and Start Menu to Win10, while at the same time also retaining the native Win10 Start "tile" functionality, what could possibly be better than this? It's really exactly what MS should have done to begin with.

We've been migrating up through Windows versions for decades, each one evolutionary and improving upon the previous one in assorted ways. And the hardware manufacturers came along for the ride, in a symbiotic relationship where old Windows versions and old hardware eventually became unsupported. Only new Windows and new hardware coexisted happily as both MS and the hardware makers were all working together.

So what is the point of wanting to hold onto Win7 forever, when Win10 has a lot of positive aspects to it (along with some features or changes that justifiably produce gripes)... if only it still had the Win7 Start Menu functionality that was first born back with Win95 and has been in every Windows version since?

And that's what Start10 gives you. Try it (if you haven't already). You'll like it, and you'll agree that Win10 with Start10 is very very very much like Win7 (if that's what you want), while at the same time being completely new and Win10-like (if that's what you want).

 

[SIW2]

Check the internet. Plenty of people using kaby\coffeelake with win 7. There aren't igpu drivers for coffeelake - Solved by using a graphics card.

Kabylake HD620 graphics driver for win7
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Driver/mb_driver_vga_intel_21.20.16.4508_w7.zip

H310 r2.0 chipset (coffeelake) with win7 drivers supplied by Asus and Gigabyte.
PRIME H310M-A R2.0 Driver & Tools | Motherboards | ASUS Global

AMD have been supplying win7 drivers all along.
X470 Drivers & Support | AMD