Can I install Win-7 in New System with Win-11 ?

Hi,
I bought a new Dell workstation 3660 with
i-7 12700
2 NVIDIA T-600 Cards To Run 8 Monitors
Win-11 Pro
3 M.2 512GB NVME & 3 SATA 4TB 5400 RPM.
Eight 24 inch Monitors ( 1920 x 1200 ) Resolution

I am facing several issues like Font size + Clipped Fonts in Windows explorer file & folder names if I try to increase Text size or scale + 2 Monitors out of 8 has different resolution, Microphone does not work or detect etc. Very similar issues faced by people in this forum. I did post on this forum & people were very generous with their time but issues still remain.

Currently I am using 10 year old Dell workstation T-7500 with 12 Monitors & no issues for last 10 years. But now cpu & other fans are making noise & age gets to me so I bought the new Dell 3660 Workstation.

4 different Dell engineers have been working on it for last 2 weeks with no results.

I have never used any newer versions of Windows like Win-8 or 10. I have to finish the current project that I am working & feel very comfortable with Win-7 even without any updates since 2020.

So my question is can I install Win-7 on a different New M.2 NVME SSD & use it in current new system that I just bought with specs shown above ? And if yes or no, what problems would I run into it ?

Thank You.

First - new pc may not have drivers for W7.

Secondly W7 is no longer supported and a security risk.

If you really have to use it, I recommend you put it in a virtual machine.

cereberus said:

First - new pc may not have drivers for W7.

Click to expand...

I have a 500GB HDD 7200rpm with Windows-7 & drivers & updates which I use to clone another HDD in case if something goes wrong with Current 500GB HDD.
Could I use that to transfer Win-7 to new M.2 512GB NVME 2280 & if yes how ?
The new machine does not recognize any of my current 500GB & 3TB HDDs

cereberus said:

Secondly W7 is no longer supported and a security risk.

Click to expand...

Yes, I know that. I use ESET antivirus. Would my internet router help thwart any incoming viruses ? I also use Malwarebyte's anti malware.

cereberus said:

If you really have to use it, I recommend you put it in a virtual machine.

Click to expand...

I don't know how to do that. Any guides, tutorials etc on it ?

Thank You


Hi,
I bought a new Dell workstation 3660 with
i-7 12700
2 NVIDIA T-600 Cards To Run 8 Monitors
Win-11 Pro
Eight 24 inch Monitors ( 1920 x 1200 ) Resolution

I am facing several issues like Font size + Clipped Fonts in Windows explorer file & folder names if I try to increase Text size or scale + 2 Monitors out of 8 has different resolution, Microphone does not work or detect etc. Very similar issues faced by people in this forum. I did post on this forum & people were very generous with their time but issues still remain.

Currently I am using 10 year old Dell workstation T-7500 with 12 Monitors & no issues for last 10 years. But now cpu fan noise & age gets to me so I bought the new Dell 3660 Workstation.

4 different Dell engineers have been working on it for last 2 weeks with no results.

There are some 12th Intel gen computers running Win 7. To install Win 7 on a computer like yours isn't an easy task. You have to add some drivers (SATA, USB3.x and NVMe) to the Win 7 installation drive.
The right place to post a thread for Win 7 help is Installation & Setup - Windows 10 Forums

As Win 11 and Win 10 share same license, why don't you downgrade Win 11 to Win 10. Easy task. All you have to do is to create a Win 11 Drive image backup and do a Win 10 Clean install

Re. virtual machines - loads of guides how to use virtualbox or vmware on web.

You could use Hyper-V if you have pro - see Hyper-V virtualization - Setup and Use in Windows 10

It reminds me of the old Windows Vista days. As you may know Windows Vista was made deliberately slower than Windows XP to help boost new PC sales. At the time many panicked and rushed to buy a new graphics card with WDDM (Vista) drivers or a new PC just to install Vista. Many others that bought a new computer or laptop with Vista preinstalled wanted to downgrade to Windows XP to boost performance and use a much more familiar interface. Of course most manufacturers didn't offer XP drivers for new Vista models to discourage them downgrade. This didn't mean that the machines were not XP compatible, of course they could run Windows XP, if you manage to install it and find appropriate drivers for all the hardware. To do that we had to download most of the drivers directly from component manufacturer (Intel, AMD, Realtek etc). We should also make sure we downloaded the SATA controller drivers are Windows XP Setup could not detect the hard disk. We used the nLite utility to incorporate the SATA (and any other driver) into the Windows XP ISO. After we had this custom ISO with the SATA driver built-in, we burned that on CD and proceeded to install Windows XP. After installation we installed all the drivers one-by-one starting from the chipset driver and then the graphics driver. I actually made a profit back in 2010s by installing Windows XP in my customer's Vista computers.

Here we go again... Make sure you download a Windows 7 64-bit driver for every component of your PC. Use nLite to incorporate these drivers into the standard Windows 7 ISO. Create a bootable USB Flash drive with Rufus using this ISO. If your computer can be configured to boot in Legacy BIOS mode, then disable Secure Boot, and make sure you enable the Legacy boot mode in UEFI Firmware (BIOS). While restarting your computer press F12 to enable the Boot menu. Select your flash drive and start Windows 7 Setup. If you have incorporated the NVMe driver in the ISO, Windows Setup should detect the disk and allow you to proceed. However some NVMe disks don't support booting in Legacy BIOS mode. If you see such a message during Setup, try creating your USB Flash drive in UEFI (GPT) mode instead of MBR (CSM) and install Windows 7 in UEFI mode. I haven't done it personally, but Windows 7 can be installed in UEFI mode. Not sure if making the USB in UEFI mode with Rufus is enough or you need some more hacking though. Just Google it if needed. Please post your results. I you finally managed to install Windows 7 and what did you do with the drivers. In case that Windows 7 64-bit graphics drivers are not available, download the Windows 8 or 10 64-bit drivers, prefer the ZIP file. Then extract all contents from the ZIP file to a folder and go to Device Manager, Display Adapters and try to manually force the Windows 8/10 driver by browsing to the folder. Please don't forget to post if you managed to force the Windows 8/10 graphics driver in case you had to go that route.

I'm going to try this and see if it works.