Downgrade from Windows 11 at an old machine.

Fabler2 · Jun 19, 2023

Just a chance maybe you could you just use the mouse and OSK? to free a USB 2 port if you haven't got a USB 2 hub.

How to Set the On-screen keyboard to show up aut… | Cybernet

1. Start => Control Panel => Ease of access => Ease of Access Center Under Explore all settings, select Use the computer without a mouse or keyboar …

www.cybernetman.com

SIW2 · Jun 19, 2023

I have bodged a small win11 pe of sorts which doesnt have much in it but it does support 32 bit programs. Seems to work ok, the cosmetics are a bit rough but i cant be bothered fiddling with it any more.

i might upload it if anybody wants to have a look.

SIW2 · Jun 19, 2023

What I’m going to have to do if I can not get windows 7 drivers working

That machine supports win7 and dell provides the drivers so it is doable.

James · Jun 19, 2023

Fabler2 said:
Just a chance maybe you could you just use the mouse and OSK? to free a USB 2 port if you haven't got a USB 2 hub.

How to Set the On-screen keyboard to show up aut… | Cybernet

1. Start => Control Panel => Ease of access => Ease of Access Center Under Explore all settings, select Use the computer without a mouse or keyboar …

www.cybernetman.com

I tried this, yet despite the 2.0 port working for the keyboard, it failed to work for the usb drive. Maybe there is an issue with the drive - which I doubt, considering it worked perfectly with my main machine.

SIW2 said:
That machine supports win7 and dell provides the drivers so it is doable.

Yes, it should be, but how do I go about installing the drivers when the usb ports don’t work? I will have to find this out as I really want this to work.

zebal · Jun 19, 2023

James said:
but how do I go about installing the drivers when the usb ports don’t work? I will have to find this out as I really want this to work.

burn drivers to DVD? (perhaps together with Win7 ISO contents if you don't have spare DVD's)

James · Jun 19, 2023

SIW2 said:
shouldnt be difficult. what is the device id ?

Support for Inspiron 3252 | Drivers & Downloads | Dell UK

www.dell.com

Here is the driver I have put on the USB drive that isn’t working: Intel 7265/3165/7260/3160 WiFi Driver | Driver Details | Dell UK

James · Jun 19, 2023

zebal said:
burn drivers to DVD? (perhaps together with Win7 ISO contents if you don't have spare DVD's)

Nice idea, but unfortunately my main PC doesn’t have a disk drive. A laptop I have, which has a disk drive, could do this, but I don’t think I have a DVD-RW spare (re-writable).

UPDATE: I have just found a CD-RW, with 700mb, which is plenty for the driver. I will attempt to install drivers to this tomorrow, as I need to charge the laptop etc

James · Jun 19, 2023

Good news all. Thank you @zebal for the suggestion, but i tried the CDs

in the dell, and they are recognised. This means all I have to do is put the drivers on the cd and i will be good to go!

Fabler2 · Jun 19, 2023

James said:
Nice idea, but unfortunately my main PC doesn’t have a disk drive. A laptop I have, which has a disk drive, could do this, but I don’t think I have a DVD-RW spare (re-writable).

UPDATE: I have just found a CD-RW, with 700mb, which is plenty for the driver. I will attempt to install drivers to this tomorrow, as I need to charge the laptop etc

You're doing well

I installed Windows 7 on VMware player not so long ago. Talk about rose tinted spectacles. Played around with it and using IE etc, soon got bored of it and binned it.

James · Jun 19, 2023

Fabler2 said:
You're doing well

I installed Windows 7 on VMware player not so long ago. Talk about rose tinted spectacles. Played around with it and using IE etc, soon got bored of it and binned it.

The PC is mainly used for music, with a microphone. It is handy to have there and to have it on windows 7 is always nice as then I have that - on windows 7, my laptop - on windows 10, and then my desktop on windows 11.

Fabler2 · Jun 19, 2023

James said:
The PC is mainly used for music, with a microphone. It is handy to have there and to have it on windows 7 is always nice as then I have that - on windows 7, my laptop - on windows 10, and then my desktop on windows 11.

The Media centre should be useful then.

James · Jun 19, 2023

Fabler2 said:
The Media centre should be useful then.

Yup. If I am going to be honest, if it weren’t for the safety risks and me buying a windows 10 licence for it, I would install windows 7 on my main PC. It is smooth, nostalgic and has windows aero. Good old days of Microsoft.

Megahertz · Jun 20, 2023

Why you are all discussing upgrade to Win 7 on Win 11 forums?
The place to do it is at Installation & Setup - Windows 7 Forums

As NavyLCDR suggested on post# 8, you can find Win 7 iso on Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

To make a Win 7 USB boot able drive:

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the USB drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the USB drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert mbr
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
active
exit (to exit diskpart)

If you have a Win 7 installation iso file
On Win 7 use 7Zip to extract all files and folders from the Win 7 iso file to the USB drive.
On Win 10, mount the iso file and copy all files and folders to the USB drive.

If you have a Win 7 installation DVD
On another computer that has ODD, copy all files and folders from the DVD to the USB drive

To make it UEFI boot able you must add the \efi\boot folder

419872-windows-7-laptop-users-why-my-laptop-slow-efi-boot.jpg

To make it universal (all Win 7 versions), go to \sources on the USB drive and delete \sources\ei.cfg

Any computer 6th gen up will have a chipset that requires SATA, USB3..x and NVMe drivers that are not on the Win 7 installation files. You have to add those drivers to the Win 7 installation files.
Those drivers can be added using SIW2 tools. Update your Win 7 installation media - Windows 7 Help Forums

Use Simplix to install all the updates.

James · Jun 20, 2023

Hi all. Just currently attempting to write the driver to the disc.. hopefully all goes well. Will update you when internet is installed..

James · Jun 20, 2023

Hello. I have managed to get the exe to the w7 pc, but the drivers don’t seem to work

@SIW2 and @zebal (and @Fabler2)
You seem to be the most knowledgeable in W7

I opened the Dell drivers, clicked install, before receiving this error:

The specified program requires a newer version of Windows.

So this driver is obviously for W10, and I was wondering if there is a bypass to make it work with Windows 7?

Thanks in advanced.

zebal · Jun 20, 2023

James said:
So this driver is obviously for W10, and I was wondering if there is a bypass to make it work with Windows 7?

I'm having trouble figuring out the source of these drivers, searching this thread and just don't find any link?

James · Jun 20, 2023

zebal said:
I'm having trouble figuring out the source of these drivers, searching this thread and just don't find any link?

Dell website: Support for Inspiron 3252 | Drivers & Downloads | Dell UK

I found these drivers: Dell Inspiron 3252 Windows 7 64-bit Drivers – DELL Driver Download So I am burning them to the disc to see if they work..

zebal · Jun 20, 2023

James said:
I found these drivers: Dell Inspiron 3252 Windows 7 64-bit Drivers – DELL Driver Download So I am burning them to the disc to see if they work..

They must work since they are win7

I don't know what other drivers did you try to install though, if they're not for win7 then it makes sense they won't install.
you can always resort to expanding the driver archive and using device manager to install them instead of running the installer.

James · Jun 20, 2023

zebal said:
you can always resort to expanding the driver archive and using device manager to install them instead of running the installer.

Can you elaborate? I’m annoyed as link #2 downloaded as a .part file, which is not openable, and I can’t delete the files from the disc now!

zebal · Jun 20, 2023

James said:
I’m annoyed as link #2 downloaded as a .part file, which is not openable

.part file means download didn't complete, it's a leftover from your web browser download session
try downloading again.

some drivers come as zip files which contains driver files and executable.
if driver package is only exe file you can still try to open it with 7-zip and expand it, it will work only if package is self-extracting.
In which case in device manager right click unknown device and locate expanded archive to install driver.

otherwise it's executable and it either installs or not.

Downgrade from Windows 11 at an old machine.

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