Installing Dual boot Windows 7 and Pop_OS

Framework Laptop 16
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Hello dear you all, My question is pertaining Installing Dual boot Windows 7 and Pop_OS. Since I mentioned Windows 7, I’ll not be posting this to the Linux only subforum.

My computer is a Framework Laptop 16 DIY Edition (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series) Graphics Module (AMD Radeon™ RX 7700S)

I have a DVD disk with installation of Windows 7 OS Ultimate version, as well as a DVD reader connected to the computer via USB. I assume that I would have no problems installing this OS onto my computer? Yet for a desired dual boot system, what should be the best way to proceed? To install Windows first and then Linux, or vice versa? Also, how much of hard drive partition should I give for each OS? I have Primary Storage WD_BLACK™ SN770 NVMe™- M.2 2280 - 2TB and Secondary Storage WD_BLACK™ SN770M NVMe™ - M.2 2230 - 1TB. How should I allocate my operating systems partitions? Both onto the Primary Storage or onto the Secondary Storage, or one onto the Primary and another onto the Secondary? I should probably mention that I want to also experiemnt with installing other operating systems in addition, such as Kali and Qubes OS.

But now I just want to ask about Windows 7 and Pop OS. Specifically those two. I will not be using Ubuntu or Windows 10/11. My concern here also is that I have a Graphics Module (AMD Radeon™ RX 7700S). For Windows 7 and for Pop OS, how do I install the drivers? I want to use the Graphics Module in both of these operating systems. Both for games and also for programming, such as using Microsoft DirectX, Vulkan for Linux, and also any GPGPU programming such as Intel SYCL, CUDA, or OpenCL. does anyone have information about installing the AMD Radeon graphics drivers for Windows 7 and Pop OS?

Please apologize for any “silly questions”, although I have a technical background, I do not have much experience installing and configuring operating systems onto a computer, or similar “IT tasks”. Thank you dear ladies and gentlement for your attention.

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Windows 7 is quite the old os at this point, and it’s been EOL for a while. Given the FW16 is a very new device comparatively, I’m not sure if you’d even be able to get drivers running (although maybe you’d be able to?)

Either way, I’d recommend just installing Pop_OS, since even if you can install windows 7 fine and get it working, there is a lack of security updates available, and many software will refuse to run on 7 (such as chrome and steam).

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What version of Pop OS should I install? If you go to the official site, there is a version with NVIDIA drivers, as well as a version for Raspberry Pi, however I don’t see a version with AMD drivers for that graphics card.

Can you provide me with a guide a link how to install the AMD drivers on Windows 7 also? That would be a big help, thanks.

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AMD GPU drivers are in the linux kernel, so you don’t need to download anything special. The first of the 3 options (“Download 22.04 LTS”) is what you want.

I have no doubt that someone out there has figured out how to get Win7 working properly on a Framework 16 or comparable hardware, but there isn’t an official guide for it because it is no longer supported even by Microsoft. For your sake, I hope one of the very, very few people who’ve attempted it sees this thread.

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By the way, for using the discrete graphics on Pop OS, you’re going to want to know this:

If you aren’t using the video output on the GPU itself, you may have to do that for some programs.

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if you really want to run Windows 7 on the Framework Laptop 16, the best way will be running it in a VM. The only Windows version officially supported by the laptop is Windows 11, and even 10 doesn’t have official drivers. Though there are people that have figured out ways to get 10 mostly working on the laptop, Windows 7 was never supported by drivers, so an emulation layer will likely be needed to even boot the OS.

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10 is “not supported by framework” for the sole purpose of Framework not willing to be dealing with the (rather small? or rather significant?) population of users’ problem.

image
image1192×685 108 KB

My feet is still firmly in Win10, but I have a Win11 install, in the case that “all [_] broke loose”. And also Linux, but I am quite unconvinced, however intriguing it might be. I don’t want to have to create my own OS through the mountain of patches. Just make one that work.

AMD have large enough a population, it doesn’t care. AMD have Win10 driver for the chipset. And the graphics.
You can get the generic graphics from AMD, but Framework’s custom drivers work a bit better when it comes to sleep, and other things.

Windows 7 doesn’t even have USB 3 support. I suppose you can inject USB 3 support.

I also don’t think it have a NVMe driver. So any PCIe attached device (your SSD) will also not show up. Suppose you can patch this, but then you probably should also ask whether this is worth it or not.

We are talking chipset driver (missing), graphics driver, USB driver … I don’t even think Windows 7 have the concept of a USB-C DP Alt Mode.

What is it you want Windows 7 for?

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I have a DVD disk for installing Windows 7 Ultimate 4-bit version.

I put it into a Guamar External DVD Drive, which is connected to my computer via USB cable.

When I turn on my Framework laptop for the first time, it takes me to a screen with multiple options: Continue, Boot Manager, Boot From File, Administer Secure Boot, Setup Utility.

Continue pauses for a second, then gives me a black screen with the text:
No bootable device — please restart system

If I select Boot Manager it displays be a list of EFI Boot Devices
one of them is “EFI USB Device (hp DVDRAM GT80N)”

I select it.
It shows a pop up message with the text:
EFI USB Device (hp DVDRAM GT80N) boot failed.

Then it takes me back to the main menu.

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I found out how to solve this problem. According to some other user, Secure Boot needs to be disabled. So I went into the boot settings and disabled it.

Now I have a different problem. It seems that the Windows 7 installation disk is recognized. But it encountered some sort of bug.

The following text is printed to the screen inside of a little console window that takes up 1/8th of the entire screen size:

Windows Boot Manager

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

  1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer.
  2. Choose your langauge settings, and then click “Next.”
  3. Click “Repair your computer.”

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

Status: 0xc000000d
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inacessible.

ENTER=Continue ESC=Exit

Trying to Continue does nothing. Trying to Exit also does nothing.
And what is that status? Is it some kind of pointer?

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What is it you want Windows 7 for?

I just want a simple, uncomplicated version of Windows to run my Windows apps in. Namely, to run exe files, for programming Windows system applications in C++/C# using the Windows APIs, for programming DirectX graphics applications, for programming AutoHotkey scrips, and for reverse engineering exe files and Windows games using Ghidra.

Everything else I can use Linux for.

Why Windows 7 specifically? I’ve used all the versions of Windows from XP going forward, and in my opinion Windows 7 is the best one in terms of usability and openness. It’s the last great version of Windows. The versions of Windows that came after that are just crap.

Maybe I could use Windows 8 instead, but I really don’t like the UI, and I’ve heard that it’s loaded with spyware and bloatware too.

if you really want to run Windows 7 on the Framework Laptop 16, the best way will be running it in a VM. The only Windows version officially supported by the laptop is Windows 11, and even 10 doesn’t have official drivers. Though there are people that have figured out ways to get 10 mostly working on the laptop, Windows 7 was never supported by drivers, so an emulation layer will likely be needed to even boot the OS.

I’ve already listen my desired use cases for why I want Windows. For programming Windows system level applications using the Windows APIs. I mean creating applications using the APIs that are mentioned in this Youtube tutorials.

And also this one.

I want to make my own games using DirectX, hardware accelerated graphics, utilizing the full power of the graphics card.
I also want to reverse engineer games using IDA and Ghidra.

I don’t know, will using a VM for Windows 7 work? I don’t think it’s going to cut it. I need real access to the underlying hardware here. IF it’s so good such that you can’t tell the difference, I would use a VM. But I don’t know … Can I use the same Windows 7 installation disk to install my OS onto the VM?

There’s no way that I would ever use Windows 10 or 11 ever again. They’re too complicated, have too much cruft, and spyware! I don’t want my computer an open backdoor for the 3 letter agencies to come in on whim. I’m not touching that with a 10 foot pole. Windows 8? I don’t know, but I’ve heard that it’s just as bad with that aspect, and I really don’t like the UI, although I’ve used Windows 8 before and it was fine. I don’t know how could I install it on the Framework laptop, as I don’t have the disk for it, and if you said that only Windows 11 is officially supported, then I guess it makes no difference whether it’s Windows 7 or 8 in this case?

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It probably isn’t a memory address. I’m guessing it’s a generic NTSTATUS error code that doesn’t indicate anything useful, unfortunately.

I wonder if this is a USB driver issue. As mentioned by Xavier_Jiang, Windows 7 lacks USB 3 drivers. This means that any USB 3 controllers (or newer) will not be usable. The installer (retrieved initially by BIOS) will be unable to access its own files because the USB device is on a USB 3.x/4 controller, I’m guessing.

I went ahead and got a sketchy Windows 7 ISO, tried to boot the installer, and got the same error as you. Then, I got another sketchy Windows 7 ISO with USB 3 drivers patched in, and tried to boot the installer … and it booted …

Oh, don’t worry, with how far behind on security patches you’ll be, they’ll have an even easier time getting in.

Real talk: the type of low-level threats that might actually target you and your system will have an easier time if you’re missing the years of security patches.

I don’t think it’ll be a problem in terms of performance. However, it sounds like you’re going to want to direct GPU access in your VM, which might take a little work to configure. It sounds like it would be worth looking into.

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I don’t think it’ll be a problem in terms of performance. However, it sounds like you’re going to want to direct GPU access in your VM, which might take a little work to set up in some hypervisors. Look for instructions for your preferred hypervisor software.

I want direct access to:

  • registers
  • GPU, both raytracing and GPGPU
  • System calls and OS functions
  • Windows registry keys
  • All and any hardware devices such as
    • the framework keyboard and macropad
    • any attached USB devices such as
      • webcam
      • memory stick or external SSD
      • Arduino and any other embedded systems such as IAR to upload C++ code onto

I want all of the above features to be accessible programmatically via C/C++ code.
I want to do real Windows programming of device drivers, kernel modules or their Windows equivalent.

If running Windows 7 within a VM would be seamlessly identical to running Windows 7 on the hardware directly, then I’ll take it. It just needs to be literally seamless, not in a small window inside of a Linux desktop. It has to work just as well without of any noticeable latency overhead, although given that my framework laptop has a powerful CPU/GPU, it shouldn’t matter.
I’m also concerned, are there any Windows executable files that will not run in a VM, especially developer tools or system administrator tools? I do a lot of programming/sysadmin stuff, mostly for learning and following tutorials. What I do is very varied, and I’m trying to learn as many technologies as possible. Suggesting to me to use another technology to develop an application is unacceptable, as it is not my primary goal to develop an application for selling, but to learn the technology and create a project or an application as a way of learning that.

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I understand if you’re not interested in learning things unrelated to your goals, my apologies for being pushy. It seems like every path is challenging here. Adjusting to the newer Windows seems the easiest but that’s your call. Win 7 doesn’t seem too promising but I might try it myself to see if there’s anything I can do to get it to work.

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I won’t have Windows 10 or 11. That’s my deal breaker.

Windows_spyware

Is there a version of Windows that’s uncomplicated, without all the bloat, the cruft, the spyware, just a simple OS like Windows 7 was? Or like the many Linux distributions?

I think that we should have an open source version of Windows, and then have multiple different distributions forking off that. So like Windows Mint, Windows Ubuntu, Windows 7 remade, stuff like that. So the open source programmers would be able to look through the code and get rid of all the spyware, and still include essential stuff such as drivers for modern hardware interface and support for running all Windows applications, even those dating back to the XP era. So an open source version of Windows, fully compatible with the Microsoft one in terms of ABI and other interfaces, and having multiple distributions of it.

The fact that we don’t have that yet reflects at the sorry state of our programmers today. Why no one has ever thought of that or attempted something like that yet. The open source community just isn’t good enough. There are no more good OS programmers like Brian Kernighan and Terry Davis.

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I think you want Windows 3.1 if you want uncomplicated.

If you think Linux is uncomplicated try dealing with the problems of trying to install something only to find that it relies on some module that is from a couple of linux versions back, but you can’t get hold of the module, or it won’t compile for this version of Linux, or …

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Correction: there is an open-source implementation of Windows known as ReactOS that is in the progress of being written.

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Yeah, that happens. But still I find modern versions of Linux more usable and uncomplicated than modern versions of Windows. I find Windows 7 more usable and uncomplicated than modern versions of Windows. I don’t want to put up with all the AI slop, spyware, and adds in the OS itself. And I definitely don’t like companies who want to lock me into their monolithic restricted platform.

I wonder if it’s usable to the extent of Windows 7? I mean for programming purposes, specifically Windows systems programming and GUI programming, using Win32 API perhaps and other related ones. And for DirectX programming? Does it support a graphics driver for the AMD graphics card?

I think that I’ll probably end up having my Windows 7 inside of a VM. Can I use the same Windows 7 installation disk to install into a VM? How does that work?

Like others have said, latency or performance is not an issue. The real issue here is direct access to the hardware. I need the Windows 7 in the VM to have direct passthrough access to the CPU registers (all of them, even the AVX/SSE/SIMD registers), the GPU itself for raytracing and GPGPU. And I also want the ability to passthrough and use selected USB hardware devices that are plugged into the Framework laptop, such as peripherals for example webcam, printer or scanner with Windows 7 drivers, Arduino and any other embedded systems such as IAR to upload C++ code onto.

I have a scanner that’s really good but it only has drivers for Windows, not Linux. I want to use it. I also have the IAR embedded workbench for doing embedded systems development. Most of the embedded development tools are also Windows only. I have to attach the actual embedded system via a USB connection to put the code onto it.

And also, if I am programming my macropad and keyboard using C code with QMK, developing a custom firmware for it, then that custom firmware sits inside of the keyboard and macropad, is that right? So it’s not tied to the OS? Will it be able to work with the Windows 7 virtual machine as well?

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Anyway, since this topic is about installing both Windows 7 and Pop!_OS onto the Framework 16 laptop, I guess that some people would find it useful to see the partition scheme that I selected for the Pop!_OS.

Pop_OS_partitions
Pop_OS_partitions1920×1446 149 KB

As seen in this image, I selected a boot/efi partition, a combined root and home partition, and also a swap space partition. mira, the layout shown here.

I wonder if I am installing the Windows 7 onto a Virtual Machine, where is that data getting stored? I mean the Windows filesystem for that virtual machine, all the applications on it? Is it getting stored in the same partition as the Pop OS, or do I have to create a new another partition for it? If the latter part is true, then it would be almost the same as installing Windows 7 onto the hardware itself? What is a computer really, from a software and applications point of view, is it just a partition that’s located somewhere? And if the former part is true, then I think that the green colored partition that I’ve already allocated should be enough? If not, I can always reallocate it and give it more space on the hard disk using gparted, right? Would it be fine or would there be any problems with that? What do you think, Jacob?