Hello everyone! In this video, I will show you how to install Windows 7 on a modern system in 2022. Thanks to the great community of Windows 7 users, this is very possible, even in a time when hardware does not have official Windows 7 drivers anymore. The good news is certain hardware (even today!) does have drivers, like NVIDIA’s RTX 30 series cards. Sadly, the 40 series does not, but hopefully someone will figure out how to make them work on windows 7 as well. Wherever possible, it is good to use official drivers (for the obvious security and stability reasons), but the good news is that for the most part, these modded drivers are usually safe. It is still a good measure to check them with a virus scanner first, however.

Prior to installing windows 7 on your modern PC, you first should make sure that CSM is enabled and secure boot is disabled in the BIOS. Also, typically you are better off going with an ASUS or MSI motherboard vs. using a Gigabyte or AsRock board, due to ACPI issues, in which you would get a 0xA5 BSOD. I am not sure about NZXT boards, as I have never had one, nor can I find anything about using Windows 7 on one (at least the Z690 ones in particular.)

Links:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/183194-windows-7-on-the-intel-alder-lakez690-platform/
(MSFN forum page on installing Windows 7 on Z690)

https://blog.simplix.info/update7
(Windows 7 update pack, that includes backported Windows 8 USB3 drivers, just drag and drop Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 ISO)

https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/ev…Driver_2.0.rar
(Modded Windows 7 driver for Intel HD/UHD graphics which should work for up to Z370/Z390, not sure if it will work for anything newer than Z390. You need to apply the registry file first and restart before installing. However, since this is an unofficial driver, I would recommend just getting a cheap dedicated GPU, such as the GT 710 or GeForce 210 even if you don’t need anything powerful, just so you can use an official Windows 7 driver).

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds121505-microsoft-hotfix-for-installing-windows-7-on-nvme-thinkcentre
(Microsoft NVME hotfix for Windows 7)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l2aQ9ZwCjHsQir7Mwlcer0YR3QF8miQn/view?usp=sharing
(Pre-made Windows 7 Professional x64 ISO with these updates and the USB3 patch)

You should not need SMBus drivers, or any other drivers for your machine to work at this point.

With all of these steps done, you should have a fully working Windows 7 install on your modern PC! Enjoy!
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There are 2 things I would like to point out in this video:

1. At around 15:05, I was talking about the NVME hotfix, and I said you need 7-Zip to extract it as it came as a 7z file. You really could use anything, it doesn’t have to necessarily be 7-Zip.

2. At the end of the video, I was going to show you guys the /”finished product/

Please take the opportunity to connect and share this video with your friends and family if you find it useful.