Update your Win 7 installation media

SIW2 said:

There isn't any need to change the intel usb drivers. 5.0.5.55 are widely compatible and you had them working on your vm previously.

Actually, not.

When using the ISO to install in Win7-VM including your provided USB3 drivers, Device Manager in the resulting Win7-VM showed the "other device", which was one of the two related devices (i.e. either USB3 root hub or USB3 XHCI controller). I had to manually "update drivers" (pointing to your very \Drivers folder) for that item in order to get "other" to go away and the two USB3 devices to show up properly.

The "help" from VMWare that appears when you specify support for USB3 in the Win7-VM provides a URL link to the Intel download site for the version of USB3 driver they want you to use, presumably fully compatible with how they represent the USB3 hardware in Win7-VM. That Intel driver page shows the driver version is 5.0.4.43v2 for Window 7, dated May 2017. And that is the one I dowloaded from the Intel site and substituted for the 5.0.5.55 that you provided.

And this time, when I used the resulting ISO (with 5.0.4.43 present) sure enough there was no "other" in Device Manager of Win7-VM. Instead, both USB3 devices (root hub and XHCI) correctly appeared, properly installed.

So, for whatever reason or explanation, using your 5.0.5.55 didn't work in Win7-VM, whereas 5.0.4.43 did. And the same result for the true physical Win7 install I did on my Z170 machine.

Anyway, I will stick with 5.0.4.43v2 in my install media.

I'm almost finished setting up a new machine, all updates from the final simplex installed via your method. Regarding Windows Update...my first inclination is to to turn it off, but given that I have Office 2010 installed (new installation, updated only with the MS update pack, good to 12/2018)), should I allow WU to keep checking for updates? Will MSE continue to work and update for Win 7?

Thanks, SIW2. I guess I could just reject all Windows O.S. updates (or is it possible that some legitimate win updates might be issued?). Also, SIW2...any connection to System Information Utility?

I just ran update. The rejects you mention were in the list (which I 'hid'). Also a few Office updates and an update for MSNF 4.8 (which I allowed to install). I've always combed through updates for defectives anyway, so leaving it enabled is no burden. Thanks for all your help and all the time and effort you put into your update script and answering all of our questions. I can't tell you how helpful you've been and how much it's appreciated. Thanks!

In passing, I bring up a new issue regarding doing a Win7 install, even with a fully slipstreamed Win7 installer.

There is still a need to run the Intel Chipset Device Software (their new name for the old Chipset INF Utility) for your machine, as there are still a few motherboard-specific hardware items which show up as "other devices" in Device Manager post-install. Normally the relevant chipset INF utility is provided by a motherboard manufacturer on the "utilities CD" that comes in the box with the motherboard and which also provides other hardware-specific drivers or general utilities and add-ons. But you may have misplaced this disc.

Looking around now, it seems that Intel's "latest" version of the Chipset Device software is 10.1.18 dated 11/28/2019. However it is about 1/2 the size it used to be. Furthermore, looking at the info and description and then inside the components, it appears that this package only supports Win10. Clearly this is in line with EOL for Win7, and they must be cleaning house for everything they offer to remove references to Win7.

I myself used my old copy of 10.1.17 of this utility (released in 2018) just this past weekend to address the three hardware items which needed chipset INF drivers manually installed after using the 7UP-produced install media to perform a test Win7 install-from-scratch on my ASUS Z170-Deluxe machine. And this worked fine, meaning that support for Win7 is of course still contained in 10.1.17 which was released some time back.

I don't know if it's possible to include these hardware-level chipset INF drivers in the7UP \Drivers folders, and if doing so would successfully address the Device Manager "other" hardware-related items which themselves need "drivers", during the formal Win7 install process (same as with other recognized hardware for which drivers are pre-provided). The Intel download file includes an "SetupChipset.exe" to make it easy to get the job done, but I don't know if this is actually the only way these hardware item drivers can be installed.

So I mention this as something which, for me and my test install and for all Win7 installs I've done in the past, even after completing the normal Win7 install there is still a need to deal with the possibility of leftover hardware items showing up in Device Manager as "other". Generally these are covered by the Intel Chipset INF Utility. But it looks like 10.1.18 and newer from Intel will not include support for Win7.

Also, I have had a hard time finding 10.1.17 on the internet as it's not seemingly no longer available from Intel, unless you just need to know their FTP Archive Download Site URL (if it exists) for older versions. I don't know it, if it exists. But Station-Drivers (reputable) does have 10.1.17 available.

And 10.1.17 is also available from Softpedia.

SIW2 said:

A bunch of .inf files that assign null drivers and a description to remove the yellow bangs from device manager and look pretty.

Attachment 410951

Are these the isolated INF files from 10.1.17, that you've organized by hardware type sub-folders? And suitable for Win7, Win8.1, Win10? Looks similar to the internal expanded contents of the previous 10.1.17 chipset ZIP file which were placed into a single folder.

Can these be added to the \Drivers folders for 7UP? Will they be picked up automatically as needed via Device Manager "update drivers" for those "other"items? If it works with the latter, it seems it would work with the former. I may try this and do another test install on my Z170.

Or must they be installed only using something like the SetupChipset.exe utility?