I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

jetjock graced us with on 5/19/2021 8:44 AM:
> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>
Ref:
https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-420-and-Windows-7/td-p/3456543

The above link implies yes, assuming that Dell still supplies the drivers.

gl

--
Sailfish
CDC Covid19 Trends: https://www.facebook.com/groups/624208354841034
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On Wed, 19 May 2021 08:58:00 -0700, Sailfish
<NIXCAPSsailfish@NIXCAPSunforgettable.com> wrote:

>jetjock graced us with on 5/19/2021 8:44 AM:
>> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
>> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
>> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
>> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>>
>Ref:
>https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-420-and-Windows-7/td-p/3456543
>
>The above link implies yes, assuming that Dell still supplies the drivers.
>
>gl

Thanks, Sailfish. I know I pinged Paul, but it's always good to hear
from you!

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

jetjock graced us with on 5/19/2021 9:04 AM:
> On Wed, 19 May 2021 08:58:00 -0700, Sailfish
> <NIXCAPSsailfish@NIXCAPSunforgettable.com> wrote:
>
>> jetjock graced us with on 5/19/2021 8:44 AM:
>>> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
>>> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
>>> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
>>> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>>>
>> Ref:
>> https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-420-and-Windows-7/td-p/3456543
>>
>> The above link implies yes, assuming that Dell still supplies the drivers.
>>
>> gl
>
> Thanks, Sailfish. I know I pinged Paul, but it's always good to hear
> from you!
>
np, Paul also helped me by providing his expertise on a problem I had
elsewhere.

--
Sailfish
CDC Covid19 Trends: https://www.facebook.com/groups/624208354841034
Rare Mozilla Stuff: http://tinyurl.com/z86x3sg

jetjock wrote:
> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>
> >>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

Do you want to dual boot, or do you want
to nuke and pave the existing installation and
replace with Windows 7 ?

The way I would approach this, is to install
a blank hard drive and install Windows 7 on it.

Then, when the install is finished, I'd use macrium to backup
W7 C: and restore it on the W10 disk drive, as the fourth partition.
The Macrium boot repair (from the Macrium rescue CD) can complete
the boot menu preparation step.

That's how I got Win7 on the 3TB drive, next to Win10.
Win10 was the first OS for Windows installed on the drive,
I wanted a Win7 (on a 500GB drive) copied across, then
I used boot repair to make both items appear. It could
even have been done with EasyBCD 2.4.

*******

The "natural order" is to install Windows 7 first, then
Windows 10, if you want a dual boot. But we're trying to
do this one in the "non-preferred" order.

I tried the reverse order in a VM, and it did not go well.
I tried to place a fresh W7 to the right of W10, and it
failed to install because it refused to overwrite the
Win10 boot materials in the first partition.

That's why cloning over just the C: partition from a working
Win7 installation, to the later-OS disk, is the method
that is more likely to work.

Paul

On Wed, 19 May 2021 20:54:33 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
wrote:

>jetjock wrote:
>> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
>> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
>> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
>> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>>
>> >>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<
>
>Do you want to dual boot, or do you want
>to nuke and pave the existing installation and
>replace with Windows 7 ?
>
I would NOT be dual booting. I was just curious if Win 7 would be
able to run on a computer that has had Win10 previously installed if I
just installed it by doing a clean install on the drive that
previously had 10.

My gut tells me yes, but a previous thread that you were helping with
got me a little concerned that it wouldn't. I know that Dell does NOT
provide Win7 drivers for this PC, but since it would not be used for
anything other than what's mentioned above, I didn't know if that
would be a problem. Everything that would be connected is as old the
machine and drivers SHOULD be available from manufacturers.

>The way I would approach this, is to install
>a blank hard drive and install Windows 7 on it.
>
>Then, when the install is finished, I'd use macrium to backup
>W7 C: and restore it on the W10 disk drive, as the fourth partition.
>The Macrium boot repair (from the Macrium rescue CD) can complete
>the boot menu preparation step.
>
>That's how I got Win7 on the 3TB drive, next to Win10.
>Win10 was the first OS for Windows installed on the drive,
>I wanted a Win7 (on a 500GB drive) copied across, then
>I used boot repair to make both items appear. It could
>even have been done with EasyBCD 2.4.
>
>*******
>
>The "natural order" is to install Windows 7 first, then
>Windows 10, if you want a dual boot. But we're trying to
>do this one in the "non-preferred" order.
>
>I tried the reverse order in a VM, and it did not go well.
>I tried to place a fresh W7 to the right of W10, and it
>failed to install because it refused to overwrite the
>Win10 boot materials in the first partition.
>
>That's why cloning over just the C: partition from a working
>Win7 installation, to the later-OS disk, is the method
>that is more likely to work.
>
> Paul

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<

jetjock wrote:
> On Wed, 19 May 2021 20:54:33 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> jetjock wrote:
>>> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
>>> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
>>> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
>>> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<
>> Do you want to dual boot, or do you want
>> to nuke and pave the existing installation and
>> replace with Windows 7 ?
>>
> I would NOT be dual booting. I was just curious if Win 7 would be
> able to run on a computer that has had Win10 previously installed if I
> just installed it by doing a clean install on the drive that
> previously had 10.
>
> My gut tells me yes, but a previous thread that you were helping with
> got me a little concerned that it wouldn't. I know that Dell does NOT
> provide Win7 drivers for this PC, but since it would not be used for
> anything other than what's mentioned above, I didn't know if that
> would be a problem. Everything that would be connected is as old the
> machine and drivers SHOULD be available from manufacturers.

Some parts of the install would work.

SATA drives are likely to work. There are
drivers such as "MSAHCI" for example. But people
have also discovered small differences in performance,
between custom drivers and the generic.

The best way to test, is still on a blank drive.

*******

Heidoc has a Dell section now.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-and-office-iso-download-tool

But I don't know where the Dell images have come from,
whether they download directly from Dell (they should,
to be trustworthy). There seem to be no Home Premium ones
listed. These would be SLIC activated, by a Dell BIOS.
The Dell BIOS should really only activate one "flavor",
like any Home SKU or any Home Premium SKU. The business
machines may be set up for Professional. Ultimate is not
a part of this (I don't think Dell ships Ultimate with
any machines).

A Windows 10 Dell machine, doesn't need SLIC. It has a
single key stored in the MSDM ACPI table (which also
lives in the BIOS). Only an older machine would have
a SLIC table, instead of an MSDM table.

SLIC is about 10KB that says "this really really is a Dell".
And it's supposed to activate any SLIC-activated Royalty OEM
Dell images. An Asus computer, would have an Asus SLIC table
(and not activate a Dell OS).

This allows a number of OSes to run (WinXP, Vista, Win7).

It's at Win8 and Win10, where the machines switch over
to MSDM. The license key is only valid for one OS (with the
exception of the "free upgrade" from Win8 to Win10 allowing
the MSDM key to also make Windows 10 work).

It's going to depend on the vintage of this computer, whether
it's an older refurb or a brand spanking new machine,
as to how dabbling with Dell images would work out.

The Heidoc interface has a place to select a Model Number,
and this would allow drivers to be included (somehow).

I only noticed this feature just recently, and don't know
anything about it. Maybe Dell has a TechBench-like site,
but this to me seems unusual for Dell.

Paul

On Thu, 20 May 2021 13:11:44 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
wrote:

>jetjock wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 May 2021 20:54:33 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> jetjock wrote:
>>>> I have an old Dell XPS420 that has Win 10 installed. Would it be
>>>> possible to install Win 7 Ultimate SP 3 in it's place? It would only
>>>> be hooked up to an older monitor & printer and run a few older
>>>> programs so drivers shouldn't be a problem...would they be?
>>>>
>>>> >>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<
>>> Do you want to dual boot, or do you want
>>> to nuke and pave the existing installation and
>>> replace with Windows 7 ?
>>>
>> I would NOT be dual booting. I was just curious if Win 7 would be
>> able to run on a computer that has had Win10 previously installed if I
>> just installed it by doing a clean install on the drive that
>> previously had 10.
>>
>> My gut tells me yes, but a previous thread that you were helping with
>> got me a little concerned that it wouldn't. I know that Dell does NOT
>> provide Win7 drivers for this PC, but since it would not be used for
>> anything other than what's mentioned above, I didn't know if that
>> would be a problem. Everything that would be connected is as old the
>> machine and drivers SHOULD be available from manufacturers.
>
>Some parts of the install would work.
>
>SATA drives are likely to work. There are
>drivers such as "MSAHCI" for example. But people
>have also discovered small differences in performance,
>between custom drivers and the generic.
>
>The best way to test, is still on a blank drive.
>
>*******
>
>Heidoc has a Dell section now.
>
>https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-and-office-iso-download-tool
>
>But I don't know where the Dell images have come from,
>whether they download directly from Dell (they should,
>to be trustworthy). There seem to be no Home Premium ones
>listed. These would be SLIC activated, by a Dell BIOS.
>The Dell BIOS should really only activate one "flavor",
>like any Home SKU or any Home Premium SKU. The business
>machines may be set up for Professional. Ultimate is not
>a part of this (I don't think Dell ships Ultimate with
>any machines).
>
>A Windows 10 Dell machine, doesn't need SLIC. It has a
>single key stored in the MSDM ACPI table (which also
>lives in the BIOS). Only an older machine would have
>a SLIC table, instead of an MSDM table.
>
>SLIC is about 10KB that says "this really really is a Dell".
>And it's supposed to activate any SLIC-activated Royalty OEM
>Dell images. An Asus computer, would have an Asus SLIC table
>(and not activate a Dell OS).
>
>This allows a number of OSes to run (WinXP, Vista, Win7).
>
>It's at Win8 and Win10, where the machines switch over
>to MSDM. The license key is only valid for one OS (with the
>exception of the "free upgrade" from Win8 to Win10 allowing
>the MSDM key to also make Windows 10 work).
>
>It's going to depend on the vintage of this computer, whether
>it's an older refurb or a brand spanking new machine,
>as to how dabbling with Dell images would work out.
>
>The Heidoc interface has a place to select a Model Number,
>and this would allow drivers to be included (somehow).
>
>I only noticed this feature just recently, and don't know
>anything about it. Maybe Dell has a TechBench-like site,
>but this to me seems unusual for Dell.
>
> Paul

Thank you very much for the info. Your insight is always appreciated.

>>>>>>>>>>jetjock<<<<<<<<<<