Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

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Roger Wilco Jr
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Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:45 pm

It's been months since the Windows 10 Anniversary Update wrecked my system. I plugged the HOTAS in again last night and I'm still having the CH Pro Throttle randomly disconnecting. It's barely possible to play this way, and a death sentence in combat. I only see three options.

1. Buy a different throttle. The Thrustmaster FCS would probably be my first choice, but I've not read great things about it and I'm not sure I would like the way it is setup.

2. Go back to Windows 7. As I understand it, this will basically require a complete reinstall of all programs.

3. Keep waiting for Windows to fix the problem.

I suppose there may be a fourth option - buy a new motherboard. But I've already bought a powered USB 3.0 (PCI) board and that hasn't solved the problem, so I think it's Windows problem and not a hardware problem.

Well, I'm tired of waiting and I want to keep my throttle if I can. It's a shame to have to go through so much trouble just to test whether it solves the problem. I don't think I've ever gone back to an earlier version of Windows that wasn't part of a system restore or supported rollback. Is there anyway to save most of my programs - specifically ED? I know I can save the install/setup files, and back up things like bindings, but that would still require massive downloads to reinstall the programs. Also, is there anything that requires Windows 10 to operate? I'm on the Rift and remember about something not being supported, but I can't remember if they were dropping support for XP or 7.

And maybe I should buy a new SSD and install on that, rather then trying to backup and restore 10 if this doesn't work?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby Loriath » Mon Nov 28, 2016 2:18 pm

Roger, I was fortunate enough to have a Win7 Image that I did with Macrium Reflect so it was painless. If you don't have such a thing, then I do suggest a FDISK, Format and install if you are going back. Akin to cleansing with fire. :P

But Get Macrium Reflect first. Free version lets you image the entire drive. Then you do a Base install of Win7 with all up to date drivers and Windows updates and all basic software you need. Then make an image that you can go back to in case it craps the bed again. It works with Win7/8/10.

I now have 2 images current. One is my "OMFG it all crapped the bed! I need to start all over again!" image that I can go back to that is a few months old, and a "Look at me being smart and making an image once a month of my current KNOWN GOOD SYSTEM! Ain't I just F'in Amazing!" image.

I put them on an external drive (1 TB as my Boot Partition is less than 500MB and the images are about 300 each) and made a rescue USB Thumb drive (Macrium can do that for you) that I can boot from to restore if needed.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

You may have some hardships going back to Win7 because you have no image now, but afterwards, its a breeze. Oh and do an image of Win10 just in case. Never know what happens later.
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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby GlobusDiablo » Mon Nov 28, 2016 2:28 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:It's been months since the Windows 10 Anniversary Update wrecked my system. I plugged the HOTAS in again last night and I'm still having the CH Pro Throttle randomly disconnecting...

...Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.


Ok. Spitballing. You're one hundred percent sure it's not your throttle that's faulty? These random disconnects are obviously hard to reproduce, so how do you know it isn't at fault?

Have you tried different usb ports? Some devices have trouble with 3.0, and some not. Sometimes it works just to use a different usb. I don't know if Win10 does anything to your usb ports, but it's worth a shot and easy and free to test. :)

Good luck Commander.
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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby TorTorden » Mon Nov 28, 2016 2:35 pm

Microsoft tech support has not encountered a windows installation problem that hasn't been "simply" fixed by reformatting and installing a fresh copy of windows...
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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby de Carabas » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:23 pm

If you've got the space on a drive why not partition it and dual boot? Or get another disk if you've space in the case.
You could have a Win7 install dedicated to E: D so you could keep it clean and free of other crap then switch back to Win10 for everything else.
That way if it turns out it was the throttle you've not destroyed your win10.
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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Mon Nov 28, 2016 5:35 pm

GlobusDiablo wrote:Ok. Spitballing. You're one hundred percent sure it's not your throttle that's faulty? These random disconnects are obviously hard to reproduce, so how do you know it isn't at fault?

Pretty damn sure. The throttle doesn't work on my Win 10 laptop and ED computers, but works fine on my Win 7 media PC and an old XP computer.

I've been keeping up with the Win 10 nags and have been backing up my installation onto my ShadowPlay data drive, but I think I may try the imaging software too just to be safe, in case I may want to restore it somewhere else. But I think I'll start with a new SSD and a fresh install of Win 7. :|
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Mon Nov 28, 2016 5:39 pm

de Carabas wrote:If you've got the space on a drive why not partition it and dual boot? Or get another disk if you've space in the case.
You could have a Win7 install dedicated to E: D so you could keep it clean and free of other crap then switch back to Win10 for everything else.
That way if it turns out it was the throttle you've not destroyed your win10.

Actually, I just re-read that, and although I don't think I have space to partition the drive, having the bootable Win 7 and Win 10 drives just might work w/o having to reinstall everything. The SSDs boot so fast that it would hardly be a problem. Hmmm.
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby thebs » Wed Nov 30, 2016 5:26 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
de Carabas wrote:If you've got the space on a drive why not partition it and dual boot? Or get another disk if you've space in the case.
You could have a Win7 install dedicated to E: D so you could keep it clean and free of other crap then switch back to Win10 for everything else.
That way if it turns out it was the throttle you've not destroyed your win10.


Actually, I just re-read that, and although I don't think I have space to partition the drive, having the bootable Win 7 and Win 10 drives just might work w/o having to reinstall everything. The SSDs boot so fast that it would hardly be a problem. Hmmm.
Native uEFI Storage booting (no Compatibility Service Modules, CSMs, enabled for BIOS compatibility) was designed to solve this problem. You can have multiple Windows BOOTMGR (NT6+, the only ones compatible with uEFI) installs on the EFI System Partition (ESP) on your first drive. From there, you can the separate Windows 7 and Windows 10 C: drives on completely different devices.

The only kicker is that you'll want to rename the booting label, as I think Windows 7 and Windows 10 default to the same uEFI boot label.

My colleague Rod Smith's rEFInd boot manager is an even sweeter solution. You only need to setup it in the uEFI firmware, and then it 'scans' any and all ESPs on all drives in the system, and enumerates and presents graphics for each OS. It's just so much easier to multi-boot with native uEFI Storage, and especially with rEFInd being the only entry in your firmware. It presents a nice menu for any and all OSes it finds in all ESPs on all drives.

It's the only way I've installed OSes since 2012. If your Windows 10 was pre-installed, you may already be using native uEFI with an ESP.
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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Wed Nov 30, 2016 7:52 pm

I don't recall seeing anything about UEFI on my desktop, but that means nothing. The possibility of dual boot with different drives sounds interesting. That way I may have a dedicated Win 7 system, but if for whatever reason I need to boot into Win 10 in the future, I might not need to switch drives around. But for the foreseeable future, and especially if this solves my problems, I won't have any interest in using anything other than Windows 7.
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Install Windows 7 over Windows 10

Postby thebs » Wed Nov 30, 2016 8:46 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:I don't recall seeing anything about UEFI on my desktop, but that means nothing.

ll pre-installed Windows 8+ systems come from the factory booting natively uEFI, using the uEFI Storage Services. You cannot "change" the mode, other than to re-install, when it comes to Windows. This is what gets most people when they go to install another Windows, let alone some Linux distributions that don't support uEFI.

If you go into the firmware, couple of things that will indicate uEFI ...
- Instead of a "Boot Drive" you will have a list of "Boot Entries" (like "Microsoft Windows")
- In the Support or other section, you will see "Compatibility Support Module" (CSM) disabled, at least for Disk/Storage

► Show Spoiler

If you look at the disk, it will ...
- Be formated GUID Partition Table (GPT) instead of MS-DOS aka Master Boot Record (MBR) Partition Table (aka a Disk Label)
- There will be a partition, usually the first or second, of type of EF00h for the EFI System Partition (ESP)
- The partition types now have two zeros (00) appended -- e.g., NTFS is now type 0700h, instead of 07h, etc...
- There is no such things a primary/extended-logical, but an unlimited number of partitions (Microsoft artificially limits to 128 max)

► Show Spoiler

The old PC BIOS Int13h Disk Services would 'target' Disk 80h (First Fixed Disk) and boot the Master Boot Record (MBR). This is also what happens when uEFI is setup to use the Disk/Storage CSM (provide Int13h).

uEFI now has a list of "Boot Entry" targets. These are boot loaders in the ESP. The ESP is a FAT partition, officially supposed to be FAT32, but FAT12-16 will work with most loaders as well (although the Windows installer might overlook non-FAT32). If you look at this partition, which Windows will purposely not assign a drive letter to (you can in Disk Manager), you'll see the layout of /EFI/OSname/ (or \EFI\OSname\ in DOS/NT backslash). If you look at the firmware again, and can look at the "raw" Boot Entry, you'll see the pathing to /EFI/... the boot path.

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:The possibility of dual boot with different drives sounds interesting.

But you can have the same drive too. The ESP makes this possible. The only 'shared' partition is the ESP. That's why native uEFI booting is much, much better ... especially with GPT offering up to an, universally agreed, 128 partitions.

Many times I have a small, 60-240GB SSD where I put the SSD (plus Linux boot/root), and then another disk (or two) with 1-2 Windows partitions on each. Those are the C: drives. The ESP is not assigned a drive letter. It's only use for NT6+ BOOTMGR with uEFI.

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:That way I may have a dedicated Win 7 system, but if for whatever reason I need to boot into Win 10 in the future, I might not need to switch drives around. But for the foreseeable future, and especially if this solves my problems, I won't have any interest in using anything other than Windows 7.

NT6.4 -- artificially called NT10 (which has introduced artificial issues) -- is utterly broken in lineage from NT6.1-6.3 (7-8.1). NT6.0 (Vista) was utterly broken in lineage from NT5.1 (XP), but at least Microsoft hired back a number of engineers, as well as a 'revese engineering team' to fix compatibility in NT6.1 (7), which was still the 'base' of NT6.2-6.3 (8-8.1).

Rant ...
► Show Spoiler

Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been probably the most botched Update I've ever seen from Microsoft in a desktop addition. The only worse one was on a Server 2008R2 SP1 ...

► Show Spoiler
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