Windows 7 Drivers Dell Precision 7520

[gvtbay]

Hi Folks,

I bought a new Dell Precision 7520. It came with Windows 10 installed, but there was info on the Dell website about how this machine has a 6th generation processor, which is the last generation supported by Windows 7. Installing Windows 7 should be fine, in theory (I am trying to create a dual boot system).

I have a retail version of Windows 7 on DVD. I had problems with the installation due to the USB 3 and NVME drivers. I was running the DVD in an external DVD drive connected to a USB 3 port (no USB 2 ports on this machine). I solved this problem by creating a recovery USB and adding the USB 3 and NVME drivers, using RUFUS.

I am able to get a little further on the installation (one or two screens further I think), but the Windows 7 installer is still asking for additional missing drivers before it lets me select where I want windows 7 installed. I went to the Dell Support website and entered my service tag. They have a list of drivers for download for windows 7 for this very machine, the Dell Precision 7520. I have downloaded all 12 listed, but most of them are in .exe format. The Windows 7 installer doesn't seem to know what to do with these.

Is there a way to convert these into driver file format (.dll, .inf, .sys files, etc...)?

Am I approaching this the right way, or is there another way to make this work?

 

[dg1261]

I think you're approaching it the wrong way by focusing on the Dell drivers at this early stage. There should be nothing on the Dell drivers page that is relevant pre-installation except for perhaps the USB3 driver (which should be the same one as the Intel USB3 driver widely available elsewhere, anyway).

Also, the 7520 manual says an M.2 drive is optional, so it would perhaps help if you could affirm whether you're trying to install on M.2/NVMe or on the regular SATA SSD/HDD.

I have a retail version of Windows 7 on DVD. I had problems with the installation due to the USB 3 and NVME drivers. I was running the DVD in an external DVD drive connected to a USB 3 port (no USB 2 ports on this machine). I solved this problem by creating a recovery USB and adding the USB 3 and NVME drivers, using RUFUS.

Can we assume by "recovery USB" you mean "installation USB"? You transferred the contents of the installation DVD to the USB stick, right?

Also, you'll need to elaborate on what you mean by "adding the USB 3 and NVME drivers, using RUFUS". Rufus doesn't do that, it only does the final step of creating the bootable USB stick, so it's left unclear exactly how you integrated the USB3 and NVMe drivers. Perhaps there's something in that process that you did incorrectly, but we'd have to know what procedure you followed.

I mention that because it kind of sounds like maybe the USB3/NVMe drivers didn't get embedded into the boot.wim file when modifying the DVD's contents.

 

[SIW2]

In addition to dg1261 post above, if you have an nvme disk you probably need to integrate the MS nvme UPDATES ( they are not in driver format) into the installation media. It is not trivial, so you might want to use something like my little batch file to do it for you:
Update your Win 7 installation media.