Guide - How to install Windows 7 x64 on Acer Spin 5 laptop

I checked the available modified UHD drivers that exist, I see that this one https://www.win-raid.com/t4348f52-Win-x-Coffee-Like-UHD-Video-driver-1.html#msg81241 has your device id 3EA0 (UHD 620 Whiskey Lake i5-8625U). You should try my method with this driver, I think it will work!

 

Thank you very much! Well I'll give it a second chance!

 

Any news? I have found out that they released a new modified driver which includes 3EA0 as your device id for the UHD video driver: https://www.win-raid.com/t4348f52-Win-x-Coffee-Like-UHD-Video-driver-2.html#msg95160 Maybe this is better than the previous one which should also work! These 2 driver versions (there are mostly targeted to Coffee Lake and Whiskey Lake version) are different from the one I used (this is mostly targeted to Kaby Lake versions)

 

There is a whole new approach to avoid disabling vga and slipstreaming a signed video driver: uefiseven. See here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/uefiseven-easily-boot-windows-7-on-uefi-class-3-devices.82137/ Basically it emulates INT10 from CSM in order to make VGA run. This way you can finish the installation without needing a video driver that had to be custom signed if modified.

You also get working BSOD, checkdisk and safe mode using this, because standard vga works.

I think you can slipstream this patch into the efi folder and the install.wim en boot.wim from win7 iso and install it as usual without needing a win10pe and all the commands.

 

Hey Bloodhand,
Im currently in the middle process of installing windows 7 on my Acer spin 5 with i7-8550u cpu. Ive been following your i7 forum steps, and have found to be stuck at step 56-57, where your ment to apply the image.wim. to the W partition created before. I know for sure that i created the W partition on the main SSD and that the install.wim file is on the HDD secondary. However when i try the prompt it comes up with: error 87, the parameter is incorrect. I also have made sure to change the ‘Z’ to my disk number which is 2 and pretty much all the steps i think have been replicated. See attached the two pics and fyi i am better than the average person at computing but certainly no where near the level the people forum arw, i just really want windows 7 on my spin.
any help would be appreciated thanks,

I can show the dism logs if you want

 

The pictures were probably deleted so I don't know what the problem should be. I suspect a mistype of the command or something? You said you replaced "Z" with "2" from your disk number. Using disk number is wrong, you need to use the drive letter of your disk where the image is located.

 

Thanks for this guide! It worked like a charm on my Acer Aspire E1-531. Of course I installed Home Basic by mistake so am fixing that right now. Gonna try this on my Acer Aspire A315-21 later.

 

Is there any way to get the broken options such as safe mode working? I take it all we would need to do is rip the vga.sys from a Windows 7 iso, but in the guide we used a command that disabled it, meaning we would need a command to reenable it. If anyone has a solution to this, please do share. I did try a method linked above, but it did not seem to work, but this one did.

 

Yes, it's possible. I wrote about it a few posts above: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...cer-spin-5-laptop.829379/page-2#post-11040650

For this you need to leave vga sys in place and also don't remove any entries of vga in registry, or you can reverse the modifications and add the uefiseven. With this you can also install the uhd video driver after you are done with the win7 installation, so you don't need to create the cerificate and sign the modified driver anymore. Basically using uefiseven you can just install win7 the classic normal way, it will boot succesfully without any modification and it will use the standard vga driver until you install the uhd one.

On my Spin 5, there is something different in the way uefiseven loads so that I need to press enter while booting to proceed. The creator of uefiseven tried to help me with various modified versions, but none worked. So i'm back to the old method of removing vga, I personally don't use safe mode.

 

I saw that and tried it, but it did not appear to work on my laptop, an Acer Aspire E1-531. It got stuck at some point on "Starting Windows". What was weird is that I could still see the Windows logo animation playing, even after it had formed the logo. I let it sit for a while and it did nothing so I had to use your original method. I do have an Acer Aspire A315-21 that I'd like to try this on, but don't want to lose access to safe mode and BSOD.