GUIDE: How-to Install Windows 7 on the Current HP Spectre x360

[spectrefan2qe]

My pain is your gain. This took forever. Windows 7 works perfectly on this machine.

Downsides: I haven't found a working touchscreen driver. Everything else works flawlessly. Reward offered for anyone who can find a working one.

1) Pre-download all the drivers from HP's website and put them on the flash drive from step 2.

2) This was the most annoying part. You will need to create a bootable USB-drive with Windows using Rufus or Windows' bootable media creation tool. Good .iso's: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6bNnleDp7llcGdMR3FEcjRjTGM. Verified checksums: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/how-to-obtain-a-windows-.... There are instructions out there for adding the USB-3.0 drivers to the windows installer. Here's a great one: http://codeabitwiser.com/2014/03/how-to-install-windows-7-with-only-usb-3-0-ports/ You will need to do this or else the flash drive won't be visible from the windows bootloader. You will also need the driver for the solid state drive so Windows can see it. Intel SSD's will work with their NVMe drivers, very easily. Toshiba SSD's you'll need to add this hotfix: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2990941/update-to-add-native-driver-support-in-nvm-express-... to add NVME support (note: with no drivers, just the hotfix) to the Windows 7 installation media. Only after Windows is installed, you can put the Z3 or RD400 driver from Toshiba and either will work.

3) All the HP drivers from the HP site work perfectly despite claiming they are for Windows 10. None of the Intel drivers work, with the exception of the wireless one I think.

4) You need two remaining very important drivers, the USB-C one, and the video card. For the video card one, you modify one line to fake out the driver for the video card one generation older and tell it that it's for Windows 7. Works flawlessly. Instructions: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Software-and-How-To-Questions/HP-Spectre-Win-7-Drivers/td-p/6... (includes Bluetooth suite! Also check BT_19.40.1_64_Win7)

5) Hibernation will give you a BSOD. Here's your fix: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2908783/data-corruption-occurs-on-iscsi-luns-in-windows

6) Any non-essential stragglers that are not registering in device manager at this point (thermal framework, etc) can be found by search the device ID from Device Manager

Enjoy your perfect OS!

[KabirChugh]

Here is the Complete Guide to install Windows 7 on HP Spectre x360

[andy824]

Hi KabirChugh, where is the link?