24-b017c dual boot with Win7 possible?

[jkatman]

that BT driver worked!

I had to have the installer skip searching on windows website it sped up the driver installation.

those 3 left over 'other devices' are the only things left needing drivers.

I'm heading off to work now and I'm just going to leave windows update running, it should grab any/all windows updates while I'm gone (I hope).

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is good news.

I believe you need this driver for the PCI Sinple Comms Controller.

This package provides the Intel Management Engine Components Driver for supported desktop models that are running a supported operating system.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp75001-75500/sp75384.exe

I don't know what the WD SES USB device is.  Do you have an external USB hard drive connected to the PC?

I cannot find any driver for the Intel RealSense Camera except the W10 driver on your PC's support page.

You can try that one, but I doubt it will work.

[jkatman]

Yes I had my external drive hooked up hence the WD SUS driver

thanks again, the PCI sinple comms controller driver fulfilled its duty!

the Intel SR300 camera on the other hand seems to be a doozy. Only drivers out there are for WIN10 it seems and will not  install on W7. Not a big deal though.

I went on intel's site and installed their Driver Update utility, there were some newer W7 drivers for BT and USB3 device driver NUC Kit I just installed.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

Didn't pick up/detect anything on the SR300 cam  =(

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

It is unfortunate that we could not get the driver for the webcam.

Shame on Intel for not developing a W7 driver for it.

Lots of folks are using W7 still.

[jkatman]

For anyone else in the same boat as I [to run WIN7 on a 24-b017c] here's some compiled notes of what I went through and experienced to get WIN7 installed and working on this machine.

Originally, my goal was to create a dual-boot system (WIN10 + WIN7) leaving WIN10 intact and dormant while WIN7 would become the primary OS for specific client reasons (important apps that are incompatible in WIN10). I jumped the gun at a speicifc point of the dual-boot setup procedure and totally killed the dual-boot goal. Now its purely a  WIN7 system....but thats ok afterall. Onwards with those details...

Things you will need:

- 1 empty USB drive (16gb is what I had)

- A WIN7 .ISO image (perferably WIN7 SP1)

- WIN7 drivers pre-downloaded (as a precaution)

- Several free programs mentioned later..

• Drive setup & Boot Record / Parition Table style woes

I had to shrink the WIN10 drive volume for WIN7 installation room. I split the drive in half via Disk Management. Formated the new allocated WIN7 space to NTFS and labeled it WIN7.  Being that the 24-b017c comes factory with WIN10 home installed, this means the drive has a GPT partition table style. WIN7 wants to see and be installed on an MBR table style (not GPT) - at least from what I experienced during the WIN7 setup hard drive selection. Googled around and found that converting GPT to MBR was the fix.. BUT... I didn't pay attention to the fact that converting GPT to MBR can wipe the whole drive's existing contents out upon the conversion. I performed the conversion via command line whilst in the WIN7 setup phase and after it completed, only saw only one friggin hard drive available for WIN7 installation. You could say I was white as a ghost after realizing what happened. Luckily, nothing was really on WIN10 that I needed to save or have backed up since this is a brand new computer. So, a lesson was learned to back up before doing any kind of boot record/partition conversions!

 I should've ran 3rd party software (within WIN10) to convert the WIN7 partition to MBR, as this program apparently allows you to mix partition table styles (windows command line conversion doesn't allow mixing options - learned this after the fact).

The free software I was going to try but didn't was this program:

http://www.disk-partition.com/download-home.html
So, install and run/try out AOMEI partition assistant (free version) after you create partition space in WIN10's Disk Management. I assume it works in allowing the mixing of partition table styles (please respond if it does!)

• Creating a Bootable WIN7 USB drive

With this step you should be in Windows 8.1 or higher

Thanks to Paul for all he's done, he originally directed me to downloading this utility (which is actually a later step):

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility

PS: this utility only runs in WIN8.1 or higher

WIN7 doesn't have USB3 NUC drivers for the recent Intel Skylake chipset integrated into itself. With this app, you essentially need to "inject" or integrate these drivers into your bootable WIN7 USB drive. What happened with me is that I was using a WIN7sp1 disc in the optical drive and it would always hang when the WIN7 installer would load up the language selection screen and the USB mouse + KB would go totally dead. I can't inject these drivers onto a WIN7 dvd so USB drive it is.

So, with your WIN7 ISO file on hand (on the desktop doesn't hurt), follow these instructions exactly (especially the bootsect details) for creating a WIN7 USB drive:

https://www.kyleabaker.com/2011/12/29/create-a-bootable-windows-7-x64-install-flash-drive-from-32-bi...

Once your USB drive is setup, unzip the Creator Utility app and run it. Point it to the root of your USB drive then click the "CREATE IMAGE" button. You can view the log while its doing its injecting. Allow it to finish (takes around 7-10mins). 

If all goes smooth (as it should) your bootable WIN7 USB drive is ready and WIN7 installer will recognize USB peripherals at the Language Selection install screen!

• WIN7 Drivers, Bios Prep, WIN7 Installation

As a precaution I suggest that you download all of the required WIN7 drivers (and place onto an external drive) before the WIN7 installation in the event you lose your WIN10 partition or some other annoyance happens. You can bypass this suggestiong if you have a 2nd computer on hand tho.

Again thanks to Paul for these 24-b017c WIN7 driver links!!
All of these drivers worked on my system. Only caveat is that one driver is NOT available for WIN7 and that is for the SR300 web cam. 

- First install the Intel chipset driver and restart the PC. The 2nd one down on the left is the auto install file.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20775/Intel-Chipset-Device-Software-INF-Update-Utility-?pr...

- Graphics driver:  3rd one down on the left is the auto install file.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26228/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-and-Windows-7-8...

- Audio driver: Accept the agreement. Download and install the 2nd driver on the list.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownT...

- Ethernet/LAN driver: Download, unzip and install the 2nd driver on the list.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTy...

- Wifi Driver: 2nd driver down on the left.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26242/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-and-Drivers-for-Windo...

- Card reader driver: Download, unzip and install the 1st driver on the list.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=15&PFid=25&Level=4&Conn=3&DownT...

- Bluetooth Driver:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp77001-77500/sp77324.exe
(make sure to uninstall any BT items in teh device manager before running SP77324)

-  Intel Management Engine Components Driver:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp75001-75500/sp75384.exe 

- Optional: you can install Intel's driver update utility and scan the system for latest Intel drivers:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html 

After you've downloaded said drivers, reboot system, and go into the BIOS and make these changes:

1. Disable SECURE BOOT (win7 doesn't support this)
2. Enable LEGACY mode
3. Adjust the boot order so the USB drive is first
4. Save & exit

Once the system comes on it should boot off the USB drive and you'll get the familiar WIN7 installer screens. Carry on with the installation. When you get to the end of the installation and the system reboots itself, make sure you go back into the BIOS and change the BOOT order sequence back to default (moving the USB drive after the main hard drive ). Othewise you'll get stuck in a WIN7 installation loop if you leave the USB drive as the first boot item.

Install the win7 drivers and you should be good to go!

You should probably leave Legacy mode on as well. If you disable it, WIN7 may not load.

Windows Updater Tips:

After my installation of WIN7SP1 and device drivers, I downloaded the WIN7SP1 update roll up. If you're unaware of this, its a slew of past WIN7 updates in one installer package (up till July 2016). You can download it from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3172605

Run windows update to get the latest updates after the roll up is installed.

Hope this helps others and thanks again Paul!

- 

[jkatman]

Quick update....

I forgot to originally mention that my client bought TWO of these 24-b017c systems. Upon setting up the 2nd system last week, I had success in setting it up as a dual-boot system!

As mentioned in the details above, I used the AOMEI partitioning assistant software (freeware version) to split the paritition and for the GTP to MBR conversion BUT found out you need their PRO version in order to perform the GPT to MBR conversion!! There's always a catch!  Lets just say I was annoyed by that and located a pro version by 'other means'.  

Anywho, the PRO version 6 (specifically 6) did the paritioning splitting and partition table conversion flawlessly. Make sure you get version 6 though -- version 5 supposedly has partition table conversion issues from what I read (unless that user forgot to enable some kind of legacy mode in his bios).

So, once the MBR conversion is done you will have to enable legacy mode in the bios or else the computer won't boot into any OS under non-legacy mode (also disable secure boot). 

You can then carry on with the suggested method in my last post for the installation of WIN7 free of partition table issues!