Installing Windows 7 alongside Windows 10 ?

[YNM]

Yeah, as bizzare as it sounds on the title, for compatibility reasons I need to run a program on Windows 7, and in an attempt to do so I'm trying to install a new Windows 7 32-bit OS on my laptop.

The laptop has a preinstalled Windows 10 64-bit OS, and I've added Kubuntu 18.10 64-bit. As a note, said program does not run under WINE although for a completely different reason.

I did tried to make a VM, however the program needs to handle a 100 GB database, of which I have no idea how to transfer it into the VM.

The problem seems to be codec-related - it basically ties videos (in .avi format) with GPS coordinate traces.

As of now, I've gotten myself a bootable USB drive, however :

- If I try to install it from within Windows itself, they complain that there's "not enough space on the boot drive";

- If I try to install it through BIOS boot-up, there appears to be a problem with USB 3.0 drivers. I already tried to download the GIGABYTE patches, and also the drivers provided by Intel, to no avail.

I haven't tried with an actual DVD however (the laptop has an optical drive), so that's one more option.

Could anyone shed me a light on the problem ?

Edited September 11, 2018 by YNM

[Nuke]

there isnt a spare drive bay by chance is there? do laptops still have those?

anyway while investigating a new pc build and wanting to turn the old pc into a media center i looked at using a small ssd as a boot drive. drives in the < 128gb range are pretty cheap. should be enough for your os and database.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Nuke

[steve_v]

26 minutes ago, Nuke said:

there isnt a spare drive bay by chance is there? do laptops still have those?

This, if you have the option. Windows is notoriously ornery about coexisting with other operating systems on the same disc, even other copies of windows.

 

22 hours ago, YNM said:

If I try to install it through BIOS boot-up, there appears to be a problem with USB 3.0 drivers.

Presumably you mean that the machine will boot from USB, but the windows installer can't see the ports?
Done the whole dism thing to add your USB driver to the install media?

[YNM]

8 hours ago, steve_v said:

Done the whole dism thing to add your USB driver to the install media?

The GIGABYTE patches are that. Earlier I also tried with PowerISO's graphical DISM tool because I wasn't sure where to position the files (downloaded an instruction from intel on how to do them through command line but not getting it). Also I tried to just locate the drivers straight from the prompt, but it still refused. Apparently it does recognize the USB3 ports briefly though as my mouse worked for a while (until I moved it to another port and it doesn't work after.)

8 hours ago, Nuke said:

there isnt a spare drive bay by chance is there? do laptops still have those?

Not sure... probably no given how snug the whole thing fits in when I opened it to remove some debris (though I don't look at it properly). It's a Lenovo Ideapad 500-14ISK. Also I need something that can be done in a week.

 

I've bought an empty DVD-RW but the optical drive is a bit difficult to get through so far.

Doing it on a VM seems to be the easier answer, but I'm not sure about the performance...

[Nuke]

i was skimming the service manual and i only see 2 drive bays, one optical one drive. i didnt see an m.2 slot or anything like that in there. you can however get an adapter to turn the optical bay into an extra drive bay. they are pretty cheap (granted you still need a drive), but you would be giving up your optical drive, so its a tradeoff. from the service manual it looked like the drive can be removed with just one screw, so it should be easy to swap if you want to go back. me personally i havent installed an optical drive for any other purpose than to fill a hole in my case in the last decade or so (one computer its not even hooked up, its just acting as drive bay cover).

Edited September 13, 2018 by Nuke

[Harry Rhodan]

On 9/11/2018 at 4:02 PM, YNM said:

I did tried to make a VM, however the program needs to handle a 100 GB database, of which I have no idea how to transfer it into the VM.

Depends on your VM. Either there's an option to actually share a folder between guest and host or you could transfer or access it through LAN with a shared network card.

[YNM]

On 9/13/2018 at 7:58 PM, Harry Rhodan said:

Depends on your VM.

It's just Virtual Box. Now I've seen how to do it, although it'd be better if I could have dual boot of win7 and win10.

 

UPDATE : I've now configured the shared folders in VirtualBox, and has transferred the installer over, although for now there's a problem with the files. Seems like this will be the setup for the time being.

 

I'd really like to know if anyone has managed to do it though.

Edited September 14, 2018 by YNM
updates

[YNM]

Status update :

Now I have Windows 7 back ! x64 though.

 

So it turns out that modern hard drives are very likely to be formatted under the GPT partition handler, while Win7 x86 can only handle MBR. So I had to throw that out.

Then I got myself a win7 x64 DVD, as I heard they're 'compatible with UEFI and GPT', so... it is compatible with GPT ! But to do that I have to install it from inside Windows 10, if you boot straight from the disk it will complain that the drive is formatted under GPT (and asks for MBR).

A few hours left running, waiting for the installation and configuration to finish... nil.

I couldn't figure out why exactly it never finished installing. I broke the installation process by forcing the laptop to shut down, and I was greeted by the dual boot option, then booted into Windows 10. Looking on the partition that was installed with win7 did show the system files and everything, just like a properly installed one. But I was never able to boot into the system itself.

I can't quite find the proper solution online, so I turned my laptop in to the university IT technicians. And they did figured out how to do it - it turns out it's not entirely compatible with UEFI, so a legacy boot option is still required. This may very well vary between models and makes.

Plus, you should be warned that there are a lot of drivers that needs to be installed so all the peripheries and hardware works with win 7. So if you want to try this yourself, I suggest you should seek further guidance either from someone on the internet who definitely has the same hardware, or just someone else who knows the stuff IRL. If these win7-compatible driver are not available, it means you can't really use your laptop for the task.

Edited November 3, 2018 by YNM

[0111narwhalz]

4 hours ago, YNM said:

Now I have Windows 7 back ! x64 though.

Why exactly does one want a 32-bit OS for… anything? Legacy programs?

4 hours ago, YNM said:

Plus, you should be warned that there are a lot of drivers that needs to be installed so all the peripheries and hardware works with win 7. So if you want to try this yourself, I suggest you should seek further guidance either from someone on the internet who definitely has the same hardware, or just someone else who knows the stuff IRL. If these win7-compatible driver are not available, it means you can't really use your laptop for the task.

If you're going to go for driver hunts, you might as well use Linux.

[YNM]

1 minute ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Why exactly does one want a 32-bit OS for… anything? Legacy programs?

Legacy programs.

1 minute ago, 0111narwhalz said:

If you're going to go for driver hunts, you might as well use Linux.

In this case the program in question absolutely does not work in Linux, even under WINE.

(this is the program and no we're not using the latest version.)

[0111narwhalz]

2 minutes ago, YNM said:

no we're not using the latest version.

The next question, I guess, is "why aren't you using the latest version?" Old license that ran out or got it on a disk or something?

[YNM]

11 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

The next question, I guess, is "why aren't you using the latest version?" Old license that ran out or got it on a disk or something?

It's a transient need, wasn't even worth getting the license (30 day trials was more than enough) and we were just given copies.

I know a lot of you are going to be bewildered but trust me this seems to be quite the case given we might work with old stuff. It's kind of why you see mainframe stuff often still runs extra ye olde software just before y2k. If it works it ain't worth a change. After all we're not trying to do computer science, we're just trying to get real physical stuff done so mucking about with license or upgrades or incompatibility is not worth it. And I smell that there's a likelihood I'll have to do the same kind of sorcery in the future so it's good to have a more permanent solution.

To those who still don't get it, call it a curiosity.

Edited November 3, 2018 by YNM