Solved Possible to create a w7-64 install which never needs internet access?

[peterh337]

Not only if you never change the hardware (which I guess may be a possible case) but even if you do change the hardware.

With WinXP it does seem to work, nowadays.

 

[Megahertz07]

You want to install windows on a computer and don't what it to be able to access the internet? Yes you can.

You install it Win 7 on a drive, go online to activate, install all drivers, install all updates using Single file with all updates - Simplix and then under Device manager disable LAN driver so it wont be able to access the internet.

If you change the hardware you will need to provide the drivers for it.

 

[peterh337]

Thank you - this sounds great.

Does the Simplix route obtain updates later than when MS stopped offering them to normal customers? I know MS still do updates to customers with contracts. I am especially after VC++ 2015 or later redistributables which seem very difficult to install using the usual route.

Doesn't win7 disable itself if the hardware is changed, alleging that it is counterfeit?

The application here is a project which needs to be archived, together with development tools, and it will be done as a VMWARE win7-64 VM. It is thus easy enough to keep the hardware constant, but one might forget and e.g. I did that, by changing the number of CPUs from 1 to 2 (the base CPU has 12 cores). I thought win7 went online at every hardware change, and eventually stopped working, and if you disable internet access then it will just eventually say it is counterfeit (which it will NOT be; it is a real license) and at best you get constant popups.

 

[Alejandro85]

Windows by itself doesn't need internet access at all, and it'll work as expected even without ever connecting to internet or other computers. On top of my head, a few built-in features rely on internet access and will obviously fail or need workaround:

1. Windows Update: Automatic updates won't work, and even manually searching for updates will fail. You can easily however download them on another computer and ship them to the offline one (though removable media, for example).
2. Drivers and automatic drive search, pretty much the same as above, you can download them from their official websites and transfer them to install, if you ever need
3. Software install, since you cannot simply download them directly, you again have to transfer them from somewhere else.
4. Clock syncronization: since you won't be able to talk to NTP servers, you'll have to manage your clock yourself, if it ever gets out of sync.
5. Built-in spyware: including WER, "telemetry" and other data exfiltration things built in into Windows will obviouly fail, including the famous and useless "searching for a solution" when a program crashes. I still have to see a downside to this failure .
6. Activation: as long as you've got your serial, I don't think you need to do anything else.

 

[Megahertz07]

Does the Simplix route obtain updates later than when MS stopped offering them to normal customers?

Yes. It has the latest updates.

 

[peterh337]

This all works brilliantly - very many thanks!
This has been a great help.
SP1 loaded, VC++ 2019 installed no problem. All updates up to August 2021 added