Install Windows 7 Home Premium on a new Windows 10 machine?

[Fortran64]

Just got a new HP 260-A020, but I've used Windows 10 at the library for 3 weeks in the interim and have no use for the clumsy, stupid, overwrought thing even if not for its Big Brother reputation. (also security software 3 deep atop pull-the-plug paranoia, never had a hint of malware, so Win7 is plenty secure enough for a few years).
...The old hard drive is still good, so I'm planning to drop that into an external enclosure to recover 2-3 files which weren't backed up, use that first as the boot drive, and then for the time being as backup with Windows7 on the machine itself.

...EXCEPT - Warnings from Best Buy sales & Geek Squad, plus posts here about how a "modern" machine might not recognize the old drivers - not just LaserJet but serious stuff like video, network, HDD, USB etc.
...But over the months before July 29 I saw a hundred suggestions to put either 7 or 10 on a bootable drive/partition by way of hedging against the transition, and never a mention of this problem. So a native Win7 machine works fine with Win10 and new drivers but not vice-versa?  or did a Win10 download preserve the old drivers?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

There are too many unknowns to give you an answer regarding your plans.

I looked at the specs for that PC and I don't see why it can't run W7 if you have a W7 64 bit installation disk and product key.

You would have to enable legacy mode in the BIOS and disable secure boot in order to run W7.

Looks like you can get all of the drivers you need directly from the component manufacturer's websites (AMD and Realtek), and the wireless card driver from another HP PC.

The unknowns regarding what you want to do...

Most likely simply plopping the disk from the other PC in the new one will not work.  The boot files are different, etc.

Then there are potential legal issues...

If the hard drive you plan to install in the new PC has an OEM operating system on it, it is illegal to transfer the OEM operating system from the PC it was originally installed in, to another PC.

An OEM operating system is one that came with a PC when you purchased it (such as from Dell, HP, Gateway, etc).

You would only be able to transfer a retail operating system from one PC to another. 

In summary:  Can that PC run W7?  Most likely, yes.

Can you put the hard drive currently with W7 on it into your new PC and expect it to work?  Most likely not.

[Fortran64]

Thank you, and sorry I left this hanging. Thought I'd get right on it, and booga-bear that I am, figured I might extend the open thread when I ran into problems installing new drivers ... hey, I came from drag & drop Macs 15 years ago, was without a computer for about 10 years (not in prison, just very poor), and never even installed a software package on the Dell except via download or from an image backup.

...But I haven't got right back on it ... and since this is if anything slower than the 6 year old bottom-end Dell all-in-one (which had a dozen software packages, 50 desktop items and 1000 files this doesn't), I'm about ready to Craigslist it, eat any difference between that & the $300 I paid new, save the $120 cost of Win7 retail, and put the proceeds toward repairing the dead Windows 7 machine.

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...Except one last question, I suppose. Would OEM Windows 7 even be recognized on a new motherboard from the same manufacturer, or am I still probably out the $120 ?

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...Aside, apologies to the forum for trolling on Windows 10 in my original post - but (heh) nothing like suggesting that this all adds up to only a few $$$ less than a 2012 Mac Mini with Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6, which lacks most the Byzantinia I could do without even in Windows 7; ran DOS & XP at work and loved them).

...Again, thank you for the effort you obviously put into answering this. In fact, one way or other, I will almost certainly try to keep a Windows box around, and you've given me a good start toward getting there.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

An OEM edition of W7 would work but you would only be able to use it on that machine and it can never be transferred to another.

Once again, looking at the specs, that PC isn't going to ever be a speed demon.

I can't say that installing W7 is going to make the PC run a whole lot better.  Certainly not $100 bucks better.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A6-7310+APU

[Fortran64]

Not trying to establish a correspondence. In closing, thanks again for all your knowledge and for warning me away from trouble I didn't have a clue about.

...As for speed, I'm a little bemused to discover a brand new $300 minitower (6G vs 4G memory but lacking everything else from a very comparable $600 all-in-one) is no faster than the 6 year old machine. AMD 4 vs 2 cores, I'd hope with nothing more than factory startup items, it would at least boot faster. Not important - even if Windows 10 were the cause, speed is the least of my reasons for wanting Windows 7 on this native Windows 10 machine.

...More information than the forum needs, but my main reason for keeping Windows around is for superior online security software (the Mac would be offline), and to play with Linux & free Visual C++ from Microsoft - maybe turn my 75,000 line Hypercard magnum opus into distributable freeware for all the Latin students of the world.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

As I wrote the other day, if you can purchase a full version of W7 cheaply somewhere, that PC should be able to run W7  64 bit just fine by using the drivers available from the device manufacturer's websites.