Questions about Windows 7 installs

Z

ZephyrStar

New Member
Hello all-

I'm about to purchase a new AMD X470 based system with a Ryzen 2000 series chip. My intention is to run Windows 7 64 pro on it, and I have a physical SP1 disc on hand to work with. The way I see it I will have 3 challenges.

1) Booting from USB 3 port - I'm assuming if I get the AMD chipset drivers, and they include a USB3 driver, I can add it in the drivers section of my slipstream?

2) Installing to an NVME SSD - Same as above, can I just slipstream KB2990941 and KB3087873 for NVME support, or for example the Samsung 960 pro drivers (which is the hardware I'll be installing the OS to)?

3) Booting on UEFI bios - This there was an old manual trick for extracting/moving bootmgfw.efi and renaming it to bootx64.efi in order to boot a USB flash drive on UEFI bios, will I still need to do that manually?

I'm sure I can test this once I have the hardware in hand, but I'm trying to gather the resources ahead of time so I'll know what I'm doing.
Thanks everyone, appreciate the help, and THANK YOU for making NTLite, it's such a great tool.
 
Taking your questions in reverse order:

3) I boot into a Win 7 install with a USB drive on an (old) UEFI mobo. I don't use any tricks. Just Rufus.

2) Since I install to a spinning disk, IDK. But it sounds like your procedure should work.

1) I made the mistake once of plugging my USB 3.0 thumb drive into my USB 3.0 port for a Win7 install. It failed at the beginning of the GUI part of the install.(After the first reboot.) Do modern mobo's still have USB 2.0 ports? If yes, use that to installing easier. Or a 2.0 thumb drive. If not an option, be sure to add the USB 3.0 driver to the boot.wim too, using NTLite.
 
Yes pmikep, motherboards do have usb2 but it may depend on whether they are gamer or budget type boards, but they do have usb2 headers oin them, you need a 2 or 4 port usb2 backplate. If you have a pci slot you can get usb2 cards, belkin and dynamode(i use these) are inexpensive, if you can find them. I get mine from Scan PCs(in the UK).

Here are amd links for chipset drivers, Current Chipset drivers(chipset only, not display). Previous Chipset drivers. You may have to look in Previous packages, they did have working drivers for 300series chipsets, dont know if they will work on the 400 series so i am interested in ZephyrStars findings. I would also check your boards web page to see if there are any notes about installing w7 from usb, installing from dvd isnt a problem so i have heard.

Note - Samsung 970 nvme drives are now on dealers shelves.
 
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MS is blocking w7 and 8.1 updates on newer processors from december 2017. There is a workaround. :cool:

Oh, check win-raid for advice on installing w7 on nvme.
 
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Hey guys, thanks for the quick responses!

The new machine will be an x470 build, specifically on the Asus ROG Strix x470-I, which is a mini ITX board. I know it doesn't have any USB 2 ports on the back panel, but it may have a header on the board I could use. I *think* I have everything figured out, I just need the hardware in hand to test things. I don't think the board comes out until May 8th. So far here is my plan:

1) Booting from USB 3 port - There are USB 3 drivers in the AMD chipset package along with some other things, so I'll attempt to add the whole package to the install. I also found some generic USB 3 drivers that others have had success with, from a Gigabyte motherboard tool. The motherboard also has a USB 2 header, so I can just connect a cable to it to get windows installed.

2) Installing to an NVME SSD - I'm first going to try just slipstreaming the two updates I mentioned (KB2990941 and KB3087873) along with the Samsung driver package, and if that doesn't work, I'll check out the win-raid methods. I also found some instructions for Intel NVME SSDs where they give a procedure for updating the wim file with components of these two updates using the DISM tool...something I've not done yet but will try as a last resort.

3) Booting on UEFI bios - I'll try rufus and see if that saves me time. I can fall back on the old manual method I talked about previously, that has worked for me on several UEFI systems.

Stay tuned, I'll post my results once the motherboard is in hand! :)
 
There are usually 3 usb3 drivers needed, host, hub and usb filter(though this is sometimes removed). Be carefull with the Host and Hub drivers, they need to have the .sys driver in x64 and x86 folders inside the inf's folder, just use 64 or 32bit. If they are not inside the correct folders, they wont install. As pmikep says, you will need to have them added to the boot.wim-microsoft windows setup but you may be able to use the gigabyte usb installation tool instead. There are more ryzen 2000s on the way aswell as threadripper 29xx's. :)

The only downside to using usb2 and keys to install from is when you copy over the installation files on a usb2 port, it takes a while but installing with a usb2 port is quick.
 
Good pointers, I'll keep these in mind! And yes, I can't wait for the new Threadripper... This current build is my portable 3D animation workstation, and I'm going for a new Threadripper for rendering and editing since most of the work I do is still CPU bound. TR is like a dream come true!

And yeah, I'd love to get the USB 3 working for that exact reason, to just save time on installations in case I screw one up and have to redo my image several times before getting it right :)
 
Even on usb2 ports install is quick. Get yourself a sandisk usb3 drive, they are reliable and inexpensive and quick on usb2 ports.
 
pmikep, this is a AB350M-DS3H, 4 usb2 ports and another 4 from 2 headers, nice :).
Capture02.png
 
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Zephyrstar, Asus doesnt offcially support w7 on that board, there are no drivers for it but gigabyte are listing support for gaming x470 boards, "To support Windows 7 64-bit, you must install an AMD Pinnacle Ridge & Summit Ridge CPU" and amd have support using the latest chipset package.

KB3125574 includes ms nvme drivers and the updates you list maybe later versions, may be better to use samsung drivers if availible.
 
Excellent, thanks Clanger, much appreciated!
Looks like I should have the board in hand sometime after the 8th, I'm hoping to do the build the weekend of the 12/13th.
 
Yep, that's where I got the NVME drivers.
One thing of note is that I found this: https://www.klaus-hartnegg.de/gpo/2017-03-27_Win7_on_Samsung_SSD_960_M2.html
So the .exe you download from Samsung is an installer of their own design, with actual driver .msi files buried in it.
I was able to use the method described at that link to extract 4 driver .msi files from it, but I have not yet extracted those further or attempted to add them to a windows image, but I'll probably test that out this weekend.
 
Thats an older driver, v2.1. Use the official page package. You will need to extract the actual files, inf sys etc to add them. Im having problems extracting them from the official package. The installer only works if the nvme drive is installed. :(
 
Yep, I wondered if I would have to get down to the bare driver files to get them to install properly, but it seems so and that should save some time.
I've yet to try msiexec on the .msi files to see, but I will probably get into that tonight.
The driver I'm working with is the version 3.0 package from the Samsung site btw, and WiX was able to do the extract on that package to get at the .msi's.
 
Also on Asus not supporting the board on Win 7, I wonder if using AMD's chipset driver package will at least take care of most of it?
 
Most of it yes, i never use a motherboards web page for drivers, i always get them direct. The only thing you may not get is a w7 wireless driver.
 
When you say direct, you mean the individual manufacturer of that chip or part, correct?
Or are you referring to a feature in NTLite or another app that can look at the system and give you a hardware/driver list? (I've never actually used that kind of feature before but it looks intriguing).
 
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