Is it possible to downgrade OS to Windows 7 on Zbook17 G4

[AlexM67]

Now considering to buy a new Zbook notebook with 17" display and met a problem: all G4 products are shipped with Windows 10 64-bit, downgrade option not included. Since I still don't like Win 10, I need to know if there a potential possibilty to downgrade the system to Windows 7?

[banhien]

@AlexM67

Please consider and read

"I like Windows 10, but I prefer Windows 7. Is that a sin?

Microsoft thinks so.

Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela recently said that if you choose to keep using Windows 7, you do so “at your own risk, at your own peril.”

Why? Because “We worry, when people are running an operating system that’s 10 years old, that the next printer they buy isn’t going to work well, or they buy a new game, they buy Fallout 4, a very popular game, and it doesn’t work on a bunch of older machines,” Capossela stated. “And so, as we are pushing our ISV [independent software vendor] and hardware partners to build great new stuff that takes advantage of Windows 10 that obviously makes the old stuff really bad and not to mention viruses and security problems.”

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3030564/microsoft-windows/microsoft-uses-the-force-you-will-upg...

There are many articles about this and both newer Intel and AMD CPU CPU's only run Windows 10.

Regards.

[AlexM67]

My religion and my sins are my own business, so it is NOT an answer to MY question. Does it cause any difficulties to just say YES or NO (and explain the technical limitations if no)?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Below is the link to the quickspecs for the ZBook G4.

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c05381087.pdf

On page 5, there is a note...

NOTE: Your product does not support Windows 8 or Windows 7.  In accordance with Microsoft’s support policy, HP does not support the Windows® 8 or Windows 7 operating system on products configured with Intel and AMD 7th generation and forward processors or provide any Windows® 8 or Windows 7 drivers.

Can it be done?  Perhaps.

There is one known issue with the Kaby Lake platforms...Intel did not develop any graphics drivers for models with the 7th gen core processors, except for W10.

I am not an expert on the Z-Book models...I see that some models come with discrete graphics.  If the models with the discrete graphics don't also have the onboard Intel graphics (switchable graphics configurations), then you can probably use the generic graphics drivers from either nvidia or amd, as applicable.

Then for the rest of the drivers, perhaps the W7 drivers from the Zbook G3 would work, or from their respective component manufacturer's websites, such as for the ethernet and wireless.

In any event it would take a lot of work and experimentation, with no guarantee of 100% success.

So, it would be up to you if you wanted to give it a try.

You can make an image of the W10 installation using free software such as Macrium Reflect, and if your experiment is unsuccessful, then you can just restore the original configuration by restoring the image you created.

There is actually a way to modify an Intel W10 graphics driver to work on W7, but it is for a different model business notebook.

So it is difficult to say YES or NO as to whether or not this particular model can run W7 perfectly.

POSSIBLY would be the correct response.

[AlexM67]

Thank you for the proper explanaiton and **bleep** that MS!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

M$ is making it very hard to run anything but W10 nowadays...

It would be an interesting experiment.

If you decide to go with the ZBook and want to install W7 on it, let me know, and I will be happy to try and help you get it to work on W7.