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I recently purchased a ASUS VivoBook X556UQ-NB71 from Newegg and I'm trying to install Windows 7 on it but I'm having some issues. From what I can tell the issue lies with not having the proper drivers on my installation media for the Windows 7 installation setup to use.

I have went to the ASUS support site and started a live chat to try to locate the drivers. When I asked for a link for Windows 7 drivers I was told that the laptop only supports Windows 10. I can't believe this is true.

So I went to the Intel website and searched around in the download center for Skylake Chipset drivers for Windows 7, with no results.

Is it possible that newer hardware does not support Windows 7?

I have to assume that the download center does not have an executable that runs on Windows 7 to install the drivers. That the drivers do exist and are OS version agnostic but are only obtainable through executables that must run on Windows 10 to get them. Is this the case?

A follow up question is, is there a way to get the drivers I need from the current Windows 10 installation on the laptop and use them during the Windows 7 installation?

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  • If you don't mind me asking, why are you so determined to downgrade your operating system on a brand-new laptop?
    – Run5k
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 21:52
  • I'm hardheaded in my preferences. So basically, no good reason.
    – KDecker
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 21:52
  • There is nothing wrong with having your favorite configurations, but if that was the prevailing mentality we would still see the vast majority of the world using Windows XP... along with the extensive security vulnerabilities that come along with it! Trust me, I am a "creature of habit" also, but this seems like a tremendous amount of time & effort to devote towards something that really isn't necessary.
    – Run5k
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 21:56
  • If the software I want to use worked on Windows XP, I'd be on that..
    – KDecker
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 21:58

4 Answers 4

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Not only is possible that newer hardware only supports Windows 10, this is pretty much a done deal. For example, new Intel CPUs are not going to be supported on any Windows OS earlier than 10. It will probably be the same deal with chipsets. On many laptops, it already is.

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    Is there a way to tell if a specific CPU has this "feature" (read: bug)?
    – KDecker
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 21:50
  • @KDecker - Do your research. Any such feature will be reported by technical blogs. What I was going to say is that Microsoft and Intel, silently fall back from that hard positon, Windows 7 won't support say new power states but Windows 10 will going forward.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 22:27
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    @David Schwartz Microsoft stepped back on that point. They won't constraint users with newer (at least for Skylake which is used on op's laptop) hardware but will leave the decision about driver support to OEMs.
    – conquistador
    Commented Oct 31, 2016 at 8:08
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Skylake CPUs support a new feature called Intel Speed Shift where the CPU itself detects, ok there is nothing to do, let's clock down to save power and reduce heat. And here only Windows 10 supports this feature. So when time moves on, new hardware features are not supported by Windows 7, like UEFI Graphical Output Protocol and here Windows 7 still requires the old VGA Option ROM support to boot. Newer devices like Surface Pro doesn't support VGA and here you can't use Windows 7 at all.

If you don't like the Windows 10 UI/UX (like me), turn your Windows 10 into a Windows 7 by using some 3rd party tools.

  1. Install the Windows 7 Startmenu
  2. Install Glass8 to get the Aero Glass effect back
  3. Install OldNewExplorer to tweak Explorer to be more Win7 like (disable ribbon, change
  4. Install the Sidebar to have the old Gadgets back until Microsoft adds support for pinning the Live Tile to the Desktop

Now you have the under the hood improvements of Windows 8.x + the improvements from Windows 10, but use the fantastic UX of Windows 7 which is 1000 times better compared to the UX of Windows 10.

enter image description here

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Actually, it's the other way around. Software is designed to be run on particular hardware. It's Windows 7 (and Windows XP) that doesn't have the necessary drivers for modern hardware.

However, by hacking around, you can get it to install on your new laptop by slip-streaming the necessary drivers into the Windows 7 installation medium.(I used nLite to slipstream drivers into my XP install ISO and install 32-bit XP on my 64-bit modern laptop.)

The exact procedure and drivers needed depends on your hardware. And as Windows 7 relies on support from third-parties for drivers (i.e. no official support is provided), lots of trial and error is involved.

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While Microsoft has withdrawn the initial decision about not providing support for Skylake chipsets on older versions of Windows, it is still up to OEMs to decide if they'll provide drivers for said systems. Official ASUS support page for Windows 7 support on newer chipsets doesn't include the model of your pc so it is safe to say your pc supports Windows 10 only. You can still try to install Windows 7 on it and workaround the problems you may face by using drivers for similar hardware (by ASUS or other OEMs) but I would strongly recommend against it.

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