Windows 7 Installation 101 question

Which disk do I install Windows on?

I had installed Windows 10 and need to go back to 7. It was a clean install.

I know the logical answer but I want to be 100% certain.

 

you're highlighting the right one but that's not the right way to do it man. This will leave all your old boot files and system partitions intact.

Do a diskpart / clean command

Please refer to this guide for details and feel free to ask me if you have any concerns:

NBR Windows 7 Clean Installation Guide

Once you install the OS, in the welcome screen, turn OFF Windows updates and then use the Simplix Pack to update it offline. After running the pack for the first time it will install about 80 updates then reboot, then it will install more updates. Keep doing this until there are no more updates to install.

Mind you, at the final stage, it always runs a Disk Cleanup command, just cancel that as the last 4 updates would keep showing up again and again if Disk Cleanup was run

 

I appreciate the advice but I am literally physically tired from trying to fix my computer. Roadblock after roadblock. I do not have the time or desire to follow more instructions.

What are the consequences of installing Windows and leaving all partitions?

 

Well the only consequence is after the installation is done and it reboots, it might not boot into Windows so you'd then have to wipe the drives using diskpart and create a partition manually which will automatically re-create those system partitions for you.

to make your life easier, I copy/paste the steps that you need so you won't have to sit and hunt for them:

5- Choose the setup mode (Custom)



Drive Partitioning:

1- It is imperative that you only have on drive attached to your computer once you are installing Windows, be it Windows 7, 8, or 10, Windows has a nasty habit of placing the boot files on the 2nd drive and/or 2nd partition if it finds one. Thus, we need to ensure we only have one drive attached to the system when we are installing Windows and we need to create only one partition; so if you plan on partitioning your drive into C:, D:, etc. for now, we only want to create the C: Partition so everything will go into C: including the boot files.

Having the boot files installed on a 2nd partition or 2nd drive not only slows down your boot time if the second drive was a slow HDD, but also will create headaches when creating an image backup of your system.

Example: You install Windows, setup everything, then backup your C: partition to another partition. When the time comes and you want to restore that image, it would be missing the boot files since they are on another partition/drive. So if your boot files ever get corrupted or infected by some virus, you would have to format and start from scratch.

Update: solution to install Windows while multiple drives are present without having the boot files placed on the 2nd or 3rd drive present in the system: How to properly install Windows on a system with multiple drives

2- Once you get to the partition wizard screen which shows you the connected drive and any partitions if they exist, press SHIFT + F10 to pull up the Command Prompt Window.

3- Once you are at the command prompt, type: diskpart then hit Enter

4- Type list disk then hit Enter

5- You will now see the number next to the disk you are trying to install Windows on, if you followed the guide and only had one drive connected, then it would be Disk # 0 unless the USB Flash Drive was detected as Disk 0 so your HDD/SSD would be Disk 1, keep your eyes open.

6- Type select disk 0 then hit Enter to make that disk the working disk which diskpart is going to perform its actions on

7- Type clean then hit Enter



8- Now that our disk is wiped and is neither initialized as an MBR Disk nor a GPT Disk, we can go back to the Windows Drive Partition Wizard.

9- Press refresh on the bottom left of the Window.

10- Select the empty/unpartitioned space of your drive then click on NEW



11- Now we need to enter the size of the disk. If you want to setup the disk as a single partition, then just leave the default size alone. If you want to create 2 or more partitions out of your drive. Then enter the number in MB of the partition size you want to allocate for C: which would be the Windows OS Partition.





Note: The way I do it, and because I don't like seeing my disk size as 100.2 GB for example or 99.9 GB, I will show you how to get the exact size to create the partition.

Example: Let's say you want to create a 200GB Partition for C:

Using a calculator, enter 200.1 x 1024 which would give you a value of 204,902.4 MB

Now add 228 MB to that value because Windows needs to create a few other partitions before C: like system and MSR

So your end result would be 204,902 + 228 = 205,130 MB

So now you can enter 205,130 in the size of the new disk and create it, you will notice that you will get a C: partition of exactly 200.1 GB

Why did I add the 0.1 GB? because if the partition was exactly 200.0 GB then Windows will display it in Computer as a 199.9 GB partition. So that 0.1 GB we added is to get an exact 200GB Partition. If you have OCD like me, this will not allow you to sleep at night

12- Now select the partition where you want to install Windows then hit Next as shown below:

 

I have to say that is pretty easy. I will give it a try.

ty

 

indeed, just a couple of commands then you're done

Lemme know if you need more help

Cheers

 

Never mind. I am installing from a USB and needed to change the boot order.

 

I have an issue.

My system originally had Windows 7 on it. I decided to install Windows 10. I needed to go back to Windows 7 due to hardware issues. I lost the W7 microsoft product key sticker.

I used Jelly Bean and it gave me what I believe to be the OEM product key. I was told it would work with this ISO. It does not. There was a skip button on the product key page. When I pressed the skip button it still installed some version of Windows.

It doesn't recognize the LAN adapter so I can not access the internet. Do I need to access the internet for Windows to accept a product key if it works?

How do I do this?

 

1) The proper way to extract the built in product key from your BIOS:

To find out your Windows 10 Product key that's injected in your computer's motherboard:


Download the latest portable version of RWEverything and launch it as admin


Click on ACCESS > ACPI Tables


Then go to the MSDM Tab:





Now you can use that key to install Windows but do note that if the key is embedded in your computer's motherboard BIOS, then chances are that when you start the Windows installation, it won't even ask you for a key since it will grab the key that's embedded in your computer's motherboard and install the appropriate edition.

If during the installation, it did not give you a choice to choose Home or Pro Edition, that means it picked up the key in the BIOS automatically and installed the appropriate version


2) You do need to be connected to the internet to verify and activate the product key which you have in order to activate Windows. If for any reason the activation fails, you will need to call Microsoft and go through the IVR system for phone activation

Lemme know how it goes

 

Good news: Windows 7 is installed.

Bad news : LAN and Wireless adapters are not working. Is that because no updates were installed? Shouldn't the Windows drivers allow them to run? Do I need to go to the Lenovo website to download them?

I am going to use Simplix Pack for the updates. I am going to use the USB to transfer the program to my machine. Do I need to format the USB to be able copy files to it? What is the easiest way to do this?

 

Perfect

What is your LAN Chipset and WLAN card? I can link you directly to the latest Windows 7 drivers. If you can't remember, at least try to remember if it's an Intel or Atheros/qualcomm card

After you've downloaded all the drivers or before, you can run the simplix pack. Let it do all the updates, then reboot, then run it again, it will search for more updates, then reboot, and so forth, until there are no more updates to be done and keep Windows updates disabled as you want nothing from that filth.

Mind you, when you reboot after installing updates with the Simplix pack, you will notice that Disk Cleanup runs before you get into the Windows desktop, just hit cancel otherwise some of the installed updates might get deleted which will cause them to reappear again in the Simplix pack the next time you run it and you'll be in an endless loop, checking for updates, finding the last 4 updates, rebooting, then disk cleanup runs and deletes the for some reason and so forth. So just cancel out of the Disk Cleanup

Awaiting your LAN/WLAN mode so I can link you to the correct/latest drivers

 

Thank you.

Do I need to format the USB stick to copy files to it?

Am I better off downloading the Lenovo drivers?

Below are the specs for my machine.

Machine Type: M90z AIO ; Product: 3091CTO (Custom), CPU: i5-650, Video Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics, Memory: 4.00 GB, Network Card: Intel(R) WiFi Link 1000 BGN, OS: Windows 7 Home 64-bit

 

You don't need to if it has enough space. Just make a new folder called Drivers and make sure to unblock each file you download from the properties as I explained above

Yes you are better off downloading the official drivers from Lenovo since this is a very old laptop and you might not be so lucky with finding any updated drivers.

Check these WiFi Drivers though they are the latest from Intel for your WLAN card: https://downloadmirror.intel.com/27041/a08/WiFi_Win7_64_18.40.4.exe