[SOLVED] Friend having issues with Windows 7 on Ryzen.

[Vishera]

He says he needs Windows 7 for specific software his company hasn't gotten around to patching yet, and that they have concerns about employees using 10 because of telemetry. He doesn't really want to buy a new PC specifically for 7, as his current computer is fairly good at what he does, so he'd like to install on his Ryzen 2600 based system. He and I found some community projects meant to keep 7 alive on modern hardware, such as Integrate7 and other such fan scripts mean to slipstream modern drivers and updates into the install ISO, and we thought he had the ISO set up properly...but when his computer restarts to go into the second half of the installation, it blue screens in the middle of the Windows logo phase of startup. PC restarts so fast that I can't read an error code, if there is one, and neither can he. As far as I can tell, Integrate7 is injecting every update released for Windows 7 since Windows 10's into the setup files, as well as USB 3.0 drivers for the mouse and keyboard to function during setup. Aside from that, he chose to add the latest Windows 7 supported release of his motherboard's storage drivers as well. That's it.

I know that's not much to go off of, but does anyone have any suggestions, besides just emulating 7 in a VM?

 

[trents]

What motherboard is he using?

Saw this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7kzjkj

It's for first gen ryzen, however.

 

[bmwbaxter]

IIRC there were some issue with Win 7 and certain Bios revisions for some boards. I would recommend he google his mobo and win7 issues or go through his mobo's bios revisions to see if any mention it.

 

[Vishera]

IIRC there were some issue with Win 7 and certain Bios revisions for some boards. I would recommend he google his mobo and win7 issues or go through his mobo's bios revisions to see if any mention it.

Is downgrading the BIOS, if need be, as easy as upgrading? His board is a Gigabyte, and it has an in-UEFI flashing tool, as I would guess most do these days, called Q-Flash. Is the BIOS being an older revision going to cause any issues?

 

[Vishera]

What motherboard is he using?

Saw this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7kzjkj

It's for first gen ryzen, however.

Same motherboard as me actually, a Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro WiFi rev1.0, and in regards to Baxter's suggestion about different BIOS revisions, Google isn't turning anything up, and the manufacturer website doesn't highlight any issues with Windows 7 for any of them.

 

[Vishera]

The tool the guy in that video used didn't even properly install the USB drivers. He gets into the first setup screen and can't use his mouse and keyboard. So, that's a no go as well.

 

[EarthDog]

IIRC, you have to slipsteam the XHCI drivers in the install and set the bios to legacy mode. I thought we had a guide on that somewhere here. I'm mobile and can't really search ATM.

 

[Vishera]

IIRC, you have to slipsteam the XHCI drivers in the install and set the bios to legacy mode. I thought we had a guide on that somewhere here. I'm mobile and can't really search ATM.

Yep, we're trying Integrate7 again, but without any of the post-SP1 updates baked in. Gonna see if that changes anything. The board he has has an option called CSM Support, and that's turned on, so that should enable legacy mode if I'm not mistaken?

 

[Johan45]

Read through this thread I stared when Ryzen was launched. It was fairly easy early on to produce a Win7 ISO that worked. MSI and others actually had a tool on their site to do it for X370/470. X570 became a bit more difficult but near the end of this thread there are links etc.. that I used to create a fully functioning Win7ISO for the newest Ryzen 5000/ X570 https://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/781091-AMD-Ryzen-Win7-ISO-Guide

 

[Vishera]

Read through this thread I stared when Ryzen was launched. It was fairly easy early on to produce a Win7 ISO that worked. MSI and others actually had a tool on their site to do it for X370/470. X570 became a bit more difficult but near the end of this thread there are links etc.. that I used to create a fully functioning Win7ISO for the newest Ryzen 5000/ X570 https://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/781091-AMD-Ryzen-Win7-ISO-Guide

We actually didn't end up using that thread, he got it working at like 3:30 this morning. Turns out he was using Rufus to make his USB drive into an install disk and that was messing with stuff somehow? Told him to just extract the ISO Integrate7 spits out directly into the USB drive, and after that it worked fine, updates and all. I think I'll be doing a Win7 installation of my own on my currently Win10 PC, after getting it to work for him. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Now, I've heard that Vista still works on Ryzen too...maybe a project for another day