Guide - How to install Windows 7 x64 on Acer Spin 5 laptop

Since the owner lounge for Spin 5 is closed, I created a new topic.

See here how to install Win7 x64 on Acer Spin 5:
1) General guide: https://pastebin.com/d4hN4ih0
2) Guide only for i7-8550u CPU: https://pastebin.com/H0cWhQHH

The guide consists in multiple solutions for each step that I gathered around the internet, I only adapted them to the needs.

This guide includes links to all necessary files (including Win7 x64 drivers, hopefully they work with all models, I could only test on mine which is a SP515 with i7-8550u CPU).

The main idea is simple: Acer Spin 5 has an UEFI Class 3 BIOS, which means no CSM. Windows 7's Standard VGA driver needs CSM to operate, so on a UEFI Class 3 BIOS it has to be disabled, otherwise it won't properly boot. But when you do this, you get no video during the installation, because during that the Standard VGA driver is used. Fortunately, there is a way to get video by integrating the integrated Intel graphic card driver so that the installation would automatically load it and get video output, but that happens only after the driver is loaded, so the first part of the installation will remain under black screen. The problem is that there is no official driver for UHD series on Windows 7, so the one for HD series has to be modified to be made compatible with UHD, fortunately that is possible. By modifying the inf file, you always lose the official signature and unfortunately Windows doesn't load unsigned drivers during setup. Therefore in order to get the driver loaded and get video output, the driver must be signed. Officially signing is very expensive and by unofficially signing you have to manually include the certificate into the Windows installation before it even starts to install. Luckily, that is certainly possible by integrating it via it's mounter registry. Some say that using test mode and disabling driver signing might also work, but there is too much uncertainty and something might go wrong and in the end test mode would appear everywhere. More than that, Windows 7's BCD boot files are incompatible with UEFI Class 3 BIOS, so they have to be replaced with those from Windows 10, luckily they match with each other. Finally, activating Win7 under UEFI is unusual, but made possible.

 

Update: I tested a newer version of the Intel Video Driver (21.20.16.4860, older was 21.20.16.4839) and it works better, with the old one I got occasionally black screen which was actually BSOD (because of missing vga you can't see blue screens). The bastards from intel have just removed the driver from their website (original URL was: https://downloadmirror.intel.com/27360/a08/win64_15.45.23.4860.zip), but luckily there is always a backup (thanks to softpedia: https://us.softpedia-secure-downloa...0599796/drivers/video/win64_15.45.23.4860.zip). Just use the same method of editing the inf, then the 2 dll files and then signing. If you have windows already installed, you can update the driver manually in device manager with this one, if you get black screen you can force shut down and power on again, it will work. If you want to remove the old driver from the system to free up a few hundred MB, use the information from the first answer from here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions...-remove-a-device-driver-in-windows-7/27768776

 

found a method, nothing to see here

 

I read your posts on the other forums. So you wanted to install win7 too on uefi class 3 bios. Did you just adapted my guide to your hardware or did you do something different? I'm just curious

 

well basicly as simple as this:
win7image+drivers integrated to .iso ( correct usb3+nvme+nvidia gpu) + updates up to 14.1.2020 + integrated updated installer (win10 based, see link below)
nvidiainstallers exe filed must be unpacked and properly handled (change correct filetypes .dl_ --> .dll and so on.
transfer your win7.iso to your winPE usb sticks 'ISOS' folder
installed windows 7 from winPE environment
After first boot -> power off, winPE with win7 isousb stick removal from laptop. -> put in to win10 stick and went to cmd and disabled vga and entered bcdedit commands..
after the vga is disabled, I just waited 10minutes with black screen then windows 7 booted and window "finalizing your settings screen" appeared.

little guide I made for myself so I would remember next time..

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MbQJh9-aUA7OScMjtwuGruaJk80DsTWT

 

Great! It's slightly different, but the basic principle is the same. Thanks for sharing!

 

Tried to install Windows 7 on my asus vivobook uefi class 3 with i5-8265U a few weeks back, but that was before I saw this post. Will give it a new try with these instructions.

 

Succeeded?

 

No... It was way over my head... Tried but did not work, must have missed something. I do have nVidia 250MX in optimus, most probably that is the problem. Must find a Windows 7 driver for it. I really dont use the laptop since I can't stand Win10. Tried Linux but that is also not for the faint of heart.

 

It has nothing to do with nvidia card, that is your 2nd video card, you install a driver for it after you have windows up an running with win7. You sure have 2 videocards showing up in device manager under windows 10, then most likely you have the intel one from the cpu and the dedicated nvidia. In this case you must get the dev/ven ids from device manager of windows 10 for the uhd video card and maybe use a different driver to integrate or modify and integrate, because the one that i used would support only kaby lake, your cpu is whiskey lake. I think you must try different drivers until you get one or ask here: https://www.win-raid.com/t4348f52-Win-x-Coffee-Like-UHD-Video-driver.html

However this guy succeded installing win7 on his laptop which has the same cpu as yours: https://www.win-raid.com/t5807f52-Request-Need-Win-x-driver-for-Synaptics-Touchpad-SYN.html . You could ask him which driver he used and his method. Maybe his laptop has no uefi class 3 so he didn't have to disable vga and use standard vga driver, but since you have class 3 you need to properly integrate his video driver after you sign it with my method, otherwise it won't work.

 

I checked the available modified UHD drivers that exist, I see that this one https://www.win-raid.com/t4348f52-Win-x-Coffee-Like-UHD-Video-driver-1.html#msg81241 has your device id 3EA0 (UHD 620 Whiskey Lake i5-8625U). You should try my method with this driver, I think it will work!

 

Thank you very much! Well I'll give it a second chance!

 

Any news? I have found out that they released a new modified driver which includes 3EA0 as your device id for the UHD video driver: https://www.win-raid.com/t4348f52-Win-x-Coffee-Like-UHD-Video-driver-2.html#msg95160 Maybe this is better than the previous one which should also work! These 2 driver versions (there are mostly targeted to Coffee Lake and Whiskey Lake version) are different from the one I used (this is mostly targeted to Kaby Lake versions)

 

There is a whole new approach to avoid disabling vga and slipstreaming a signed video driver: uefiseven. See here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/uefiseven-easily-boot-windows-7-on-uefi-class-3-devices.82137/ Basically it emulates INT10 from CSM in order to make VGA run. This way you can finish the installation without needing a video driver that had to be custom signed if modified.

You also get working BSOD, checkdisk and safe mode using this, because standard vga works.

I think you can slipstream this patch into the efi folder and the install.wim en boot.wim from win7 iso and install it as usual without needing a win10pe and all the commands.

 

Hey Bloodhand,
Im currently in the middle process of installing windows 7 on my Acer spin 5 with i7-8550u cpu. Ive been following your i7 forum steps, and have found to be stuck at step 56-57, where your ment to apply the image.wim. to the W partition created before. I know for sure that i created the W partition on the main SSD and that the install.wim file is on the HDD secondary. However when i try the prompt it comes up with: error 87, the parameter is incorrect. I also have made sure to change the ‘Z’ to my disk number which is 2 and pretty much all the steps i think have been replicated. See attached the two pics and fyi i am better than the average person at computing but certainly no where near the level the people forum arw, i just really want windows 7 on my spin.
any help would be appreciated thanks,

I can show the dism logs if you want

 

The pictures were probably deleted so I don't know what the problem should be. I suspect a mistype of the command or something? You said you replaced "Z" with "2" from your disk number. Using disk number is wrong, you need to use the drive letter of your disk where the image is located.

 

Thanks for this guide! It worked like a charm on my Acer Aspire E1-531. Of course I installed Home Basic by mistake so am fixing that right now. Gonna try this on my Acer Aspire A315-21 later.

 

Is there any way to get the broken options such as safe mode working? I take it all we would need to do is rip the vga.sys from a Windows 7 iso, but in the guide we used a command that disabled it, meaning we would need a command to reenable it. If anyone has a solution to this, please do share. I did try a method linked above, but it did not seem to work, but this one did.

 

Yes, it's possible. I wrote about it a few posts above: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...cer-spin-5-laptop.829379/page-2#post-11040650

For this you need to leave vga sys in place and also don't remove any entries of vga in registry, or you can reverse the modifications and add the uefiseven. With this you can also install the uhd video driver after you are done with the win7 installation, so you don't need to create the cerificate and sign the modified driver anymore. Basically using uefiseven you can just install win7 the classic normal way, it will boot succesfully without any modification and it will use the standard vga driver until you install the uhd one.

On my Spin 5, there is something different in the way uefiseven loads so that I need to press enter while booting to proceed. The creator of uefiseven tried to help me with various modified versions, but none worked. So i'm back to the old method of removing vga, I personally don't use safe mode.

 

I saw that and tried it, but it did not appear to work on my laptop, an Acer Aspire E1-531. It got stuck at some point on "Starting Windows". What was weird is that I could still see the Windows logo animation playing, even after it had formed the logo. I let it sit for a while and it did nothing so I had to use your original method. I do have an Acer Aspire A315-21 that I'd like to try this on, but don't want to lose access to safe mode and BSOD.

 

You either did not revert vga and efi settings to how it used to be before the modifications or simply uefiseven doesn't work with your device. You should ask manatails for debug on mydigitallife forum.

 

Just thought I'd make it known that the Google Drive link for the Medicat Mini Windows 10 NAKED ISO within the Pastebin link is dead. You can find it elsewhere, but it is broken up into 6 zip files ending with .001, .002, .003, .004, .005, and .006. If you download the .001 file, extract it with 7zip. and then build it up with an ISO maker such as IMG Burn, you can then burn it as it states in the guide, but this is a lot of work whereas having an already build ISO would be better as you wouldn't have to build it up, you can just download and burn it.