Installing Windows 7 on a new EFI based laptop, cannot enter Windows 7 setup utility?

Question

I recently purchased a new brand new ASUS Vivobook from Newegg that came with a Windows 10 installation. I have been trying without much luck to install Windows 7 so that the computer is useable.

For reference here is the laptop EFI information. Aptio Setup Utility - Copyright 2016 American Megatrends, Inc. Version 2.17.1249 (It is also listed as "Version 301").

To create my bootable USB I have been using a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate iso along with Rufus v11.

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I have tried multiple online guides and multiple setups in Rufus and have since become very confused. I had a long post with every setup I had used and each outcome but in the past 5 hours I've been doing this got lost in the details.

I just now found this SuperUser answer which I wish I had found months ago when I tried to install Windows 7 on my desktop PC. I had success installing it on my desktop PC but the details were lost in the process.

What I have learned from this answer is; what I see as important now,

Windows, though, does tie the two together for its boot disk: Windows will boot from MBR disks only on BIOS-based computers (or when using CSM/BIOS/legacy mode on an EFI-based computer) and from GPT disks only on EFI-based computers.

So my first question is, is there any reason you would want to use one of these installation "paths" over the other?

Something that I "had to do" when installing Windows 7 on my desktop was to move a file named something along the lines of bootx64.efi and an entire directory within the USB once it was created. I cannot find the guide I used at the time but I have found a similar forum post.

Where does the moving of this file tie into the SuperUser answer linked above? What is the purpose of moving it?

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So just to keep the ball rolling on my end I am going to start trying to install Windows 7 on my EFI based machine in EFI mode. Seeing as I do not know the answer to my first question above yet as to why I would want to use EFI mode versus CSM/BIOS/Legacy mode the reason I going forward with EFI mode is because "newer is better".

So from what I gather the proper way to do with is to create the bootable USB with the settings in Rufus as Partition Scheme: GPT partition for UEFI and File System: FAT 32 (default).

Now that I have this USB setup I have tried the following EFI settings

Try 1

• Secure Boot: Disabled (Reason: Windows 7 does not support)
• Fast Boot: Disabled (Reason: Just seems like it should be)
• Launch CSM: Disabled

Result: Windows Boot Manager error screen with the message

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. ... File: \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD" ... Info: An error occoured while attempting to read the boot configuration data.

Try 2

• Secure Boot: Disabled (Reason: Windows 7 does not support)
• Fast Boot: Disabled (Reason: Just seems like it should be)
• Launch CSM: Enabled (Reason: No good justification)
• Launch PXE OpROM policy: Disabled (Reason: When Launch CSM is enabled this new option appears just keeping it default for another try.)

After I saved these settings and rebooted into the EFI there we now two boot options given for the USB. One is pre-pended with "UEFI" and post-pended with "Partition 1" the other is simply the name of the USB drive ("Lexar USB Flash Drive 1100"). I selected the first option.

Result: The Windows 7 installation started! Though when the setup starts I am met with the message

A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now. Note: If the Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you can safely remove it for this step.

An odd thing that I also noticed is that my laptop touch pad mouse does not work, I also do not see a mouse pointer on the screen. Though I can use keyboard to advance through the options and select options.

If I select Ok on the message box I am given another message saying that no drivers were found (I don't have any on my USB).

Seeing that I don't have the CD/DVD drive drivers for this laptop handy and I am not sure why they are required for the setup I decided I might try selecting the boot option that is not prepended with UEFI.

Result: A message is displayed

Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press key

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So I have actually managed to make some progress and atleast boot into the USB drive, though I need to find the CD/DVD drive for my laptop... I am working on finding them now to see if I can advance with the current bootable USB setup any further. If I cannot find the driver quickly I might try the CSM/BIOS/Legacy mode installation path; again because I have no real reason currently to try it one way or the other and I have no idea what the "PXE OpROM policy" option is and I don't think it would yield any new results.

So in the meantime I am going to post the two initial questions and possibly more questions about the CSM/BIOS/Legacy mode installation path if I do go that route.

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EDIT: I could not find the drivers easily so I decided to try to go with the CSM/BIOS/Legacy installation route and reformatted the bootable USB to Partition Scheme: MBR for UEFI and File System: FAT32. I used the same EFI settings as in my second try. I was given the same boot options also with the same results for both.

So from what I can tell I need to find the CD/DVD driver for my laptop to get any further in my installation. But I have thought of one final question.

Are any of my issues related to the current Windows 10 installation? Once I find the drivers, are there any foreseeable issues as a result of the Windows 10 installation?

So assuming I have done everything correctly and my process should not be changed the three bolded questions still remain for me.

Answer 1

Windows, though, does tie the two together for its boot disk: Windows will boot from MBR disks only on BIOS-based computers (or when using CSM/BIOS /legacy mode on an EFI-based computer) and from GPT disks only on EFI-based computers.

Close, but not quite.

Computers with a BIOS program in their firmware often only recognise MBR formatted disks. Computers with a very modern BIOS might very well also recognise GTP. Most of the time though BIOS indeed means only MBR.

At the same time it means several other things, like old fashion INT BIOS calls, a normal text interface, settings stored in viotile storage (as in, remove a bettery and the information gets lost). Etc etc

Modern intel devices use UEFI. Which usually boots from a file on an EFI system partition. That partition is on a GPT formatted disk and has a very specific ID.

It stores the information on where to boot from in NVRAM. If it does not find that information it will fall back to /EFI/BOOT/Bootx64.EFI

So my first question is, is there any reason you would want to use one of these installation "paths" over the other?

Yes, several reasons: For starters modern hardware sometimes does not support legacy (BIOS|CSM) boot methods, or supports it but lacks BIOS INT call support. IN which case an old OS which uses these will not work on the newer hardware.

The preference is easy:

• Choose the workng path if you use an ancient OS.
• Choose GPT (qand EFI) if you have a modern OS and do not want to be limited by the MBR limitations.

Where does the moving of this file tie into the SuperUser answer linked above? What is the purpose of moving it?

That is a second question. You should really ask those as separate post, and check if they are not already answered.

Note that windows 7 is not yet fully EFI ready. If you create an USB pendrive to boot in EFI mode you will have to manually move the boot file. This should not be needed on nintendo OS (aka windows 8) or later.

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Try 2

Secure Boot: Disabled (Reason: Windows 7 does not support)

Correct. Tehre is no reason to ever enable it. It ocne was a decent idea to lock your PC down to only official/verified bootloaders, but the master keys have leaked. There is no advantage to turning this on anymore. (Even when the PS supports it)

Fast Boot: Disabled (Reason: Just seems like it should be)

I do not thing that fastboot does anything with windows 7. It does on windows 10. If it is beneficial is another question. Boot tiumes go down. Shutdown no longer is a real shutdown. Not fun when you multi-boot.

Launch CSM: Enabled (Reason: No good justification)

CSM are the BIOS compatability shims. You should not need them with a modern OS. Notthat windows 7 is modern, but it should run with these diaabled, making a setupo much cleaner.

Launch PXE OpROM policy: Disabled (Reason: When Launch CSM is enabled this new option appears just keeping it default for another try.)

This option does not matter. It is merely asking you to 'try a network boot: yes/no"

After I saved these settings and rebooted into the EFI there we now two boot options given for the USB. One is pre-pended with "UEFI" and post-pended with "Partition 1" the other is simply the name of the USB drive ("Lexar USB Flash Drive 1100"). I selected the first option.

Good choice. That starts the EFI install

Result: The Windows 7 installation started! Though when the setup starts I am met with the message

A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. 

A driver is missing. Quite often this is the USB3 driver (windows 7 does nto ship with USB3 drivers, so you will need to add these to your USB pendrive.

Also note that adding them to a USB pendrive will not work since you will need to load them from the pendrive before you can read from the pendrive. Luckily these are tools out there which make this easy to do. (even on MS's own website, since this was a big problem when people tried to install windows 7 on Skylake systems, and Skylake CPU/Chipset/desktops) did not ship native USB2 anymore.