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[GUIDE] Install Windows 7 in MacBook Pro Early 2015 with almost fully support(include track pad)!!

T

tl166115

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 3, 2016
85
10
Apple has shut down the support for Win7 in the newest Macs, What if you still want it?

How to install Windows 7 in a Early 2015 MBP with 99% support

P.S The way to install Windows 7(I mean just put in into your disk) I introduce is the fastest way I can find, and it’s sort of unpredictable. However davidcie’s way is safe. If you want to install it safely, try his solution of installation. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-install-windows-7-on-air-2015.1961618/ Nevertheless, as far as I am aware, I am the first person who solved the problem about the trackpad (maybe not wireless adapter?) driver issue with MacBook Pro in Windows 7（if anyone did this before me, then tell me plz) so don’t miss the driver part!
Forewords

Before this article, I must thank this gentleman, davidcie, who made this wonderful, lucid article: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-install-windows-7-on-air-2015.1961618/. He did a nice shot of installing Windows 7 in his MacBook Air Early 2015 and shared the way he did it on the article. It is literally the bible for our Early-2015 downgraders. What a tremendous work! He deserves my highest praise. However, while I was trying following his steps, I realized that some part of the installation can be easier, or needs to be changed when apply to MPB. And in that page, no noe was able to make the trackpad in MBP work with Right click. That’s why I am here. I need to thank the first person who tested part of this, David W, thanks for his patience and trust while dealing with a incredibly hard problem with someone he never met before, he also gave me some vital information for this. I also need to thank all of the people that davidcie mentioned in his article, without you guys, Windows 7 will not be almost fully supported in Early-2015 MBPs.


Before Install, you need to realize

The definition of this 99% support includes, but not limited to the support of those device or function:

A system with the drivers that don’t crash unless you mess it up.

Trackpad(It functions the same way it does in Windows 8/10)

Wireless Network

Keyboard with it’s F-Keys functions(e.g. Mute, Increase the volume etc.)

Graphic Card

SD Card Reader

Bluetooth Function

Facetime Camera

Volumes

Those functions are NOT SUPPORTED

Hibernate(It hangs if you try)

Force Touch(Since Apple claimed that Force Touch function isn’t supported in ANY Windows OS)

Light Sensor(Seems that there is one)

Another unknown PCI device which I even can’t find what it is.




Those version of Windows 7 can be 99% supported.

Windows 7 Ultimate (David uses this one)

Windows 7 Enterprise

Windows 7 Professional ( I use this one)

Any edition of Windows Server 2008R2


Technically, if you follow the instruction, those system could possibly be 99% supported. I haven’t test them yet.

Any Edition of Windows Server 2008


Those versions of Windows 7 could be supported with all of the function list before, but you MUST press F8 and choose “Disable the Driver Signature Enforcement” to achieve the goal.

Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7 Home Basic



Those OS are not supported, or at least no one found a way to do it so far.

Windows 7 Starter

Windows Vista *

Windows Thin PC

Windows Embedded 7

Any edition of WIndows XP and earlier Windows.

Materials you need

  1. A Early-2015 MBP, obviously

  2. Windows ISO image. If you have a genuine copy of it, then you should be able to download it somewhere in Microsoft website, if you can’t find it, then google one. (NO Ghost image version allowed, it’s not only (in 99% case) illegal but also unsupported)

  3. (Only apply to the people who deleted their recovery partition in Mac OS)2 USB Disks, but you can use one and format them twice. If it is still there(the way to check it is press Command+R when you turn it on, if you got something like”OS X Utility”, then you are good), then 2 is enough.

  4. Bootcamp Driver which can be downloaded by:
    1. Open the Boot Camp Assistant.

    2. Click “Action” on the top bar and select “Download Windows Support Software”

    3. Find a place to storage it.
  5. Another Computer with Windows on it (If there is Windows 8/10 on your Mac, it’s fine, but it’s going to get removed later.)

  6. Windows Product Key

  7. Rt7Lite(optional)
Disclaimer: I will not be responsible to any potential ramification. You MUST realize that any data outside the partition which Mac OS is installed will be obliterated,


Again you can skip this install processes if you want. If any part of this doesn't work since it is so unpredictable(just the installation), Davicie’s way worked fine and it is more safe than this. This is just faster and less concern(for me). And if you are using his way, back up your entire disk plz then go to the driver part after the installation.










Install Processes

  1. Get your Windows Installation Image Ready.

  2. Download the Latest Intel Graphic Card Driver or whatever graphic card you are using. Extract them.(If you click on the file it automatically extract it to a folder)

  3. Download VgaShim (download a release from GitHub or build from source). You get vgashim.efi and vgashim.bmp

  4. I suggest you to take a note about all of this files we use because if you misuse one it will not work.
Since part of the steps are the same to davidcie’s, let’s use his word because his expression is clearer. I will always indicate his words either by direct expression or put lines. Minor changes will be made if necessary. All of the original version of daviscie’s fabulous work can be found in https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-install-windows-7-on-air-2015.1961618/

_________________________________________________________________________________________

  1. Latest Intel USB 3.0 Windows 7 x64 drivers (v4.0.6.60 at the time of writing).

  2. Hotfix KB2775511 (this makes Windows happy about Apple Bootcamp drivers' digital signature) from Microsoft or web (google the exact filename AMD64-all-windows6.1-kb2775511-v2-x64_ec18cc10e27faf443c17e7a8073c9eba773eb13e.msu).

  3. Do_boot.wim.bat.txt and do_install.wim.bat.txt Prepare folders and files for integrating USB 3.0 drivers and the above hotfix into Windows 7: https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/do_boot-wim-bat-txt.621577/ https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/do_install-wim-bat-txt.621578/

    1. Create a C:\inject, C:\inject\drivers and C:\inject\hotfixes folders.

    2. Copy AMD64-all-windows6.1-kb2775511-v2-x64_ec18cc10e27faf443c17e7a8073c9eba773eb13e.msu to C:\inject\hotfixes.

    3. Unzip USB 3.0 drivers somewhere and copy contents of Drivers\HCSwitch\x64 and Drivers\Win7\x64 to C:\inject\drivers.

    4. Copy sources\boot.wim and sources\install.wim from your Windows 7 SP1 x64 CD or ISO to C:\inject.

    5. Copy do_boot.wim.bat and do_install.wim.bat to C:\inject.

    6. Your C:\inject folder structure should now look like in the screenshots.
  2. Perform actual integration:
    1. Make note of the size of your boot.wim and install.wim files.

    2. Right click do_boot.wim.bat and run it as administrator.

    3. Right click do_install.wim.bat and run it as administrator. You will be asked which of the Windows 7 install images (Home, Professional, etc) stored inside install.wim you want to modify. The script will also try to copy bootmgfw.efi to your desktop which you will need later.

    4. Make sure the size of boot.wim increased by about 10MB and that of install.wim by about 250MB.
  3. Prepare an EFI-compatible pendrive:
    1. Connect your pendrive.

    2. Open administrative command prompt.

    3. Run diskpart
    4. list disk

    5. Check what number was assigned to your pendrive by looking at disk sizes.

    6. select disk <number>
    7. clean
    8. convert gpt
    9. create partition primary
    10. format fs=fat32 quick
    11. exit
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back to my own words

  1. However, we only need the boot.wim file, the only thing we need from install.wim is the bootmgfw.efi.

  2. P.S The Install.wim generated from the batch works. But I am introducing this Rt7Lite-Unattended Installation, which saves time. If you don’t want this, skip it.

  3. Download Rt7Lite in http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/RT-Seven-Lite.shtml#download and there is an alternative link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq--onVE9j5bl9MTG1jdl9KamM/view?usp=sharing

  4. Install Rt7Lite

  5. Open Rt7Lite, Find the ISO file, Select whatever folder you want to extract, don’t extract it to your desktop, it’s a lot of files and they makes your desktop look ugly. it takes several minutes to load.

  6. After we finish loading, proceed to the next page, the core thing we need is the Integration. Go to that integration page, we already have the USB3.0 driver, the hotfix and the graphic card driver. Simply add the .ini file and right click them, then choose “Install.wim only”.

  7. You may want the other function like unattended installation. It saves time. Just remember, NEVER chose the target disk to install, NEVER! Also if you want to log in as the build in administrator, just check that mark and don’t care that longin counts option. Be careful to remove components.You can also intergrate office, anti virus soft, etc.

  8. After you are all done, back to the driver integration page and click apply. Then choose”Create ISO” This time it takes 15-30 mins.

  9. After this, you want to extract all of the content inside the ISO you created to your pen drive.

  10. Use the boot.wim created by davidcie to replace the one in your pendrive, it is in sources folder.

  11. ____________________Created by davidcie___________________________

  12. Copy bootmgfw.efi from your desktop to efi\microsoft\boot in your pendrive.

  13. Rename VgaShim.efi to bootx64.efi, VgaShim.bmp to bootx64.bmp and copy both files to efi\boot (you will need to create this folder).

  14. Then Disable OS X System Integrity Protection
May not be necessary but this is what I did at the very beginning. Follow any of the many guides on the web; davidcie used this one.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

  1. Use Disk Utility to delete all of the partitions except the one one for MacOs. Then add one partition which formatted by HFS(Remember, REMOVE FIRST, THEN CREATE). Remember how large it is. DON’T FORMAT TO FAT FILE SYSTEM BECAUSE IT WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED BY WINDOWS 7 SINCE THE DISK UTILITY CHANGES THE DISK INTO MBR+GPT FORMAT AND THAT’S UNACCEPTABLE. ALSO IT MAKES A 128MB UNALLOCATED SPACE BETWEEN EACH PARTITION. YOU MUST NOT MODIFY THIS SPACE OTHERWISE THE SYSTEM WILL NOT BOOT. If you have problem, go to the recovery mode (Command+R) as mentioned before. If you deleted it, that’s why I ask you to have two pendrives! :)Create a Mac OS Installation disk by this way. Also, if you previously install Windows 8/10 before, please use Paragon Hard Disk Manager for Mac to remove all of the Windows-Related partitions (INCLUDE THE HIDDEN STARTUP PARTITION). It provides 10-day free trial which is enough since we only use it for 10 mins. And the Paragon soft was useful in this part even you are not running Win before. I actually use it to remove the Recovery partition.

  2. Install Windows 7 by your pendrive. Choose the partition you created in before, you should format it in the Windows 7 installation disk because Windows can’t be install in HFS file system(Now it is safe to format) If your mouse doesn’t move then there is something wrong with usb3.0 driver, if something went wrong with unattended installation, that means you messed it up, edit lastsession.inf and the unattended.xml to fix the problem.

  3. When it happens to restart, don’t go to Windows. Instead, press the option key and boot into Mac OS. Davidcie said that we need to reinstall the Mac OS. But I don’t see any necessities as long as you only keep two partitions. (You may see more during the installation but it’s fine) Then:
________________________Created by davidcie_____________________________

Put VGA Shim In Place

  1. Boot into OS X.

  2. Open Terminal and mount the hidden ESP partition which holds the boot loader:
    1. mkdir /Volumes/esp
    2. sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/esp
  3. Plug your Windows 7 install media.

  4. In Finder copy the efi\boot folder from Windows 7 install media to the EFI folder on the ESP volume you just mounted.

  5. In the Terminal window run sudo bless --mount /Volumes/esp --setBoot
______________________________________________________________________



  1. If you cannot do “sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/esp”, Try to replace /dev/disk0s1 to /dev/disk0s2, if it still fails, try /dev/disk0s3…..Until a disk icon pop up. Also, please set your finder so that your desktop shows all of the disks.

  2. sudo bless --mount /Volumes/esp --setBoot backs nothing in terminal if it runs successfully. If it shows error. There is still an little chances to succeed in the installation. However, is usually means you didn’t remove all of the extra partitions at the first time.

  3. Reboot the computer, finish up the Windows installation. If the digital signature of winload.efi can’t be verified, disabled the driver signature enforcement. If something went wrong with BCD, then you didn’t clean up your disk(Tell me you installed Win before and it is still there.) If you can’t see anything, then you didn’t put the VGA shim in phase.

  4. You see the desktop? Excellent! But it’s not the time to celebrate. We still got:






Driver Installation

  1. Unfortunately, many of the drivers davidcie provided don’t work for MBP, maybe MBA? Idk.

  2. You should have download the bootcamp setup file. If you have not, back to the materials you need.

  3. You want to install the chipset driver, the management software and graphic card driver(If you do the unattended installation I recommended) first. In (wherever your windows support files keep)\bootcamp\drivers\Intel or drivers\AMD(GPU only) or drivers\Nvidia(GPU Only)

  4. Then is network. NITHER THE WIRELESS NETWORK DRIVERS IN THE BOOTCAMP NOR DAVIDCIE’S DRIVER FOR MBA WORKS FOR MBP WITH WINDOWS 7. I searched forever and I found one work. And HERE IT IS!~~~ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq--onVE9j5T1dNY3BlRWxEZms/view?usp=sharing
  5. Now, install “bootcamp.msi”(It is the boot camp control panel which is vital) and “AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi” You must install bootcamp.msi in (wherever your windows support files keep)\bootcamp\drivers\Apple. Otherwise trackpad right click and keyboard function keys won’t work. Thanks David W to tell me this.

  6. Strongly recommend you to install applenulldriver.exe. If you want bluetooth, install the broadcom bluetooth driver in (wherever your windows support files keep)\bootcamp\drivers\boradcom. If you want it to make sound, install both of the cirrus drive in (wherever your windows support files keep)\bootcamp\drivers\Cirrus


  1. So far so good? Now we enter the HARDEST part in the whole installation, sit up tight! Keep your eyes on the screen!

  2. We must DISABLE the DRIVER SIGNATURE ENFORCEMENT in order to install the trackpad driver. Ope1. Open an admin-cmd, then run

  3. bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON
  4. Bcdedit.exe -set nointegritychecks ON
  5. bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS.
  6. (Actually 5.5) I am not sure the order of the last two commands, so I would recommend you to run No. 4 again to be safe; however, I think I was fine without this step)

  7. I hope you are running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate. That’s because any edition lower than professional don’t have gpedit.msc

  8. Press Command + R. type, gpedit.msc in the box. Then enter. There should be a "group policy editor" pop up.

  9. Navigate to "User Config/Administrative Templates/System/Driver Installation.” Find “Code Signing for Devices Drivers.” Double click it and choose enable. Then set the option of "When Windows detects a driver that is not digitally signed" to "Ignore"

  10. Restart. Press F8 and then press enter, then immediately press F8 again. Choose ”disable driver signature enforcement(Only once for pro, enterprise and ultimate! And you can actually skip it it doesn’t matter but just to be safe. But if you run Any Win7 lower than Pro, you have to do this every time you boot Windows or the driver won’t work)

  11. Install Winrar, If you don’t like this software here is an alternative way to do after I introduce the way with Winrar, and that’s the way I did.

  12. Install All of the drivers in the \bootcamp\Drivers\ folder with exception of the drivers in AMD and Nvidia folder if you don’t have their graphic card. Also left the “AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller64.exe and “AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe” alone.

  13. Make sure you have installed bootcamp, it can be saw in the hidden icons in the taskbar.

  14. Use Winrar to extract “AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller64.exe” and “AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe”. Don’t extract them to the same folder.

  15. Open an admin-cmd and locate to one of the folders where you extract one of the driver(you can only do one in one time). Here is a example of the command
cd/

cd users/tom/desktop/Applemultitouchtrackpadinstaller64/

  1. You can also copy the path by looking their properties. And paste them into the cmd window

  2. Now run DpInst.exe /f /LM

  3. The parameter /F means enforced installation, and /LM means ignore the driver signature checking.

  4. An example of this, Ik it is confusing
    1. cd/
    2. Cd users/tom/desktop/extract/ (this should be the path you extract)
    3. Dpinst.exe /f /LM
  5. Install

  6. Then do another one

  7. Install
___________________

Alternative way to do it WITHOUT winrar is:

  1. Drag “AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe” to “AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller64.exe”. Yes, I mean drag, and there will be an error. Don’t close it. On the second line, there is a path of extracted file, it’s usually under C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Local\Temp\Rarsfx0\dPins.exe navigate to there.(P.S if you press command+R, and type %temp%, then you will automatically go to c:/users/your user name/appdata/local/temp/)Don’t close the error windows until you finish installing

  2. After you find the file, do the same thing in a admin-cmd

  3. Install

  4. Finish

  5. Now drag “AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller64.exe” to “AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe”

  6. Repeat the same action.

  7. You are all set. If you can’t right click, then you didn't install bootcamp or you didn’t disable driver signature enforcement. Also if you use the wrong file, it will not work. Trackpad driver for MBP(Not sure if work for MBA or not) can be downloaded in https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq--onVE9j5d2MyV2FoTm5QYWc/view?usp=sharing.

  8. If there is any driver else which can’t be installed. Try some driver detecting tools to fix them. But it’s not my case.
You are all set! Enjoy!

Something else

You can install Windows 10/8 after, just remember user disk utility to create partition. But don’t do insider preview, it’ll be all messed up. Which means you can’t boot.

Hibernate never works. Sleep works just fine. You may wanna run powercfg -h off. Which disableds the hibernate. Thanks @keysofanxiety to point this out.

Thanks to davidcie again!

Last but not the least, is some pictures which prove my success. http://imgur.com/a/FV1TF http://imgur.com/a/OaaoR
 
Last edited:
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Do you mean hibernate or sleep mode?

If hibernate doesn't work or causes issues, you can quickly disable it by opening an elevated command prompt and typing powercfg -h off

When deploying older W7 machines, we normally had hibernate disabled by default because it's a POS and sleep mode is what most people use anyway :)
 
keysofanxiety said:
Do you mean hibernate or sleep mode?

If hibernate doesn't work or causes issues, you can quickly disable it by opening an elevated command prompt and typing powercfg -h off

When deploying older W7 machines, we normally had hibernate disabled by default because it's a POS and sleep mode is what most people use anyway :)
Click to expand...
I mean hibernate. Not sleep mode. Sleep mode works just fine. Hibernate hangs like this. I think it is because of the EFI boot we use.
 

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tl166115 said:
I mean hibernate. Not sleep mode. Sleep mode works just fine. Hibernate hangs like this. I think it is because of the EFI boot we use.
Click to expand...

Great, thanks for clarifying. Best to run that powercfg -h off command to disable. May I ask if you could add it to your guide? :oops:
 
Congrats to @tl166115 for taking us all one more step towards freedom :) Shame on Apple for providing a driver with no proper signature (same story as their SSD driver crap)!
 
davidcie said:
Congrats to @tl166115 for taking us all one more step towards freedom :) Shame on Apple for providing a driver with no proper signature (same story as their SSD driver crap)!
Click to expand...
I met that before as well. applessd.sys is not signed properly. Same to their crappy trackpad driver. I must disable the driver signature enforcement permanently to make them work. Which is actually risky.
 
Thank you for posting this! I'm trying to install Windows 7 on a mid-2015 MBP with the AMD R9 graphics card, but keep having problems.
I followed your guide and created the installer USB drive, but when I try to boot from the USB drive, it hangs on this screen: https://i.imgur.com/3kLSG7j.jpg I let the computer run for a few minutes, nothing changes and the fans starts to run at very high speed so I shut it down.
Could that be a problem with the graphics driver?
 
AmethystZhou said:
Thank you for posting this! I'm trying to install Windows 7 on a mid-2015 MBP with the AMD R9 graphics card, but keep having problems.
I followed your guide and created the installer USB drive, but when I try to boot from the USB drive, it hangs on this screen: https://i.imgur.com/3kLSG7j.jpg I let the computer run for a few minutes, nothing changes and the fans starts to run at very high speed so I shut it down.
Could that be a problem with the graphics driver?
Click to expand...
Yes. Definitely. I think in mid-2015 drivers, we should apply some minor changes. Could you please tell me what derives and hotfixes you integrated into the boot.wim and install.wim? (notice that you may have to use Rt7Lite to do AMD drivers, but I an not sure. I am going to start test right now).
 
AmethystZhou said:
Thank you for posting this! I'm trying to install Windows 7 on a mid-2015 MBP with the AMD R9 graphics card, but keep having problems.
I followed your guide and created the installer USB drive, but when I try to boot from the USB drive, it hangs on this screen: https://i.imgur.com/3kLSG7j.jpg I let the computer run for a few minutes, nothing changes and the fans starts to run at very high speed so I shut it down.
Could that be a problem with the graphics driver?
Click to expand...

Hey my friend

It sometimes takes up to 4 mins to boot into the Win7 installation environment so you can try again.

I just realized that you have to use the batch which davidcie provides for the boot.wim. And you only need to integrate the usb3.0 driver and the hotfixes into boot.wim. And did you use format your usb drive to GPT? Did you copy all of the files which is needed to boot? Also pls don't install the Intel graphic card driver because you are using the AMD one. The correct path of the AMD graphic card driver is located in \Radeon-Crimson-16.7.3-With-DOTNet45-Win7-64Bit\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\C7305077.inf. And you can only integrate it into install.wim by the Rt7Lite. Or you can just install the graphic card driver later. Don use other driver!

And another way to do it is to use Rufus to create a GPT installation disk, then copy and replace all of the files mentioned in the article. You can google Rufus to download it. Also I tried something this morning and I realized that if you didn't put the boot files in place, the usb disk is not going to work, which is another possibility. I am going to put the boot and efi directory online so if you still have trouble, you can download it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq--onVE9j5cVRJVzU2cVRnZ1U/view?usp=sharing
 
Thank you for the detailed reply! I did put in the Intel Iris driver (come to think of it it's really dumb as Windows can't use the integrated GPU anyway).

What I did is as yours and davidcie's guide said, and used the .bat file to inject the .msu hotfix package and the Intel USB 3.0 drivers. And then used RT7Lite to inject the hotfix, USB3.0 and Intel Iris driver, created an iso, loaded it and copied the files over to the installer USB drive, replaced the boot.wim with that from the .bat file and finally the VGAShim files and the bootmgfw.efi.

I'll try the whole thing again, as the USB drive I used is quite slow, so maybe I should wait a bit longer and see what happens.
 
Also my Macintosh HD partition is encrypted, could that be a problem? Do I need to delete the recovery partition before installing Windows?
My partitions look like this: https://i.imgur.com/5C38ygu.png after I partitioned 200GB for the Windows installation, and the Macintosh HD partition is under a virtual volume.

Edit: I just tried it again, waited for 15 minutes and nothing happened.
 
Last edited:
AmethystZhou said:
Also my Macintosh HD partition is encrypted, could that be a problem? Do I need to delete the recovery partition before installing Windows?
My partitions look like this: https://i.imgur.com/5C38ygu.png after I partitioned 200GB for the Windows installation, and the Macintosh HD partition is under a virtual volume.

Edit: I just tried it again, waited for 15 minutes and nothing happened.
Click to expand...

Yes. If you encrypt your partition, you must decrypt it. You don't have to remove the recovery partition. I don't know that much about the virtual volume, however, that could also be a potential probelm as well. Another thing is, did you convert your USB disk into NTFS? If you operate correctly, you should get FAT32 instead of NTFS, NTFS won't work. Did you run the batches which used to inject the boot.wim as administrator? Can you screenshot the interface of the batch and let me have a look?
[doublepost=1474989509][/doublepost]
AmethystZhou said:
Also my Macintosh HD partition is encrypted, could that be a problem? Do I need to delete the recovery partition before installing Windows?
My partitions look like this: https://i.imgur.com/5C38ygu.png after I partitioned 200GB for the Windows installation, and the Macintosh HD partition is under a virtual volume.

Edit: I just tried it again, waited for 15 minutes and nothing happened.
Click to expand...
Sorry for whatever reason I didn;t receive an email so it's very late. My apologies!
[doublepost=1474989698][/doublepost]
AmethystZhou said:
Also my Macintosh HD partition is encrypted, could that be a problem? Do I need to delete the recovery partition before installing Windows?
My partitions look like this: https://i.imgur.com/5C38ygu.png after I partitioned 200GB for the Windows installation, and the Macintosh HD partition is under a virtual volume.

Edit: I just tried it again, waited for 15 minutes and nothing happened.
Click to expand...
WAIT! You CREATED an iso? Did you created it by Rt7Lite or something else? You'd better download a complete iso online or from msdn.
 
Last edited:
Thanks again for the reply, it's been a great help!
I'm sure I followed the guide exactly. The install USB drive is formatted to FAT32 using the cmd tool in Windows. And by created an iso I mean in the RT7Lite software after I injected the drivers to the original Microsoft iso it has an option to create a new iso with the injected boot.wim and install.wim, so I just mount the new iso and copy the files over.
I just decrypted my Macintosh HD disk and tried again to no avail, I think the problem might be with the virtual disk thing. I'm using macOS Sierra if that matters, I remember the CoreStorage thing back in 10.10 Yosemite being a problem for Windows installs, maybe it's similar? I'm going to do a full backup and clean re-install and try again.

Edit: Still the same result. Although interestingly, when I try to boot from my installer USB drive on a PC, it just loads into a blank black screen with a flashing cursor. I think there's something wrong with the files in the USB drive, I'll have to look into that.
 
Last edited:
AmethystZhou said:
Thanks again for the reply, it's been a great help!
I'm sure I followed the guide exactly. The install USB drive is formatted to FAT32 using the cmd tool in Windows. And by created an iso I mean in the RT7Lite software after I injected the drivers to the original Microsoft iso it has an option to create a new iso with the injected boot.wim and install.wim, so I just mount the new iso and copy the files over.
I just decrypted my Macintosh HD disk and tried again to no avail, I think the problem might be with the virtual disk thing. I'm using macOS Sierra if that matters, I remember the CoreStorage thing back in 10.10 Yosemite being a problem for Windows installs, maybe it's similar? I'm going to do a full backup and clean re-install and try again.

Edit: Still the same result. Although interestingly, when I try to boot from my installer USB drive on a PC, it just loads into a blank black screen with a flashing cursor. I think there's something wrong with the files in the USB drive, I'll have to look into that.
Click to expand...

Yes. I think that there is something wrong with your ISO file, because if you have a proper ISO files, it is supposed to bot correctly. It also might me necessary to disable the integrity protection. And i suppose the virtual disk will not be the main problem in your case. Because no matter what's your setting in the MAC OS, it doesn't affect the Windows, and plus, the your hard disk setting shouldn't be a big problem since the USB drive is an independent external storage. (I am no familiar with the "virtual disk so it is just my guesses) Based on what I know, if there is a flashing cursor while booting, that means some of the boot files are missing. Usually it will be something like bootmgr(even though I have no idea whether there will be a bootmgr or not in the EFI version of Windows). Also, if you keep pressing "V" when it is starting, which is the debug mode of VGA shim, you may find some interesting information. If you can see the debug mode scree, please send a screenshot to me. Also, you can download my version of Boot files and replace yours. I think it worth a try.

Your sincerely

Tom
 
I think the reason that the USB disk I made cannot boot on a PC is because it's a GPT disk, if it's MBR it should work fine. I checked the MD5 and SHA1 of the iso and it's the official Windows 7 x64 Ultimate with SP1 (X17-59465.iso). But this iso is a multiversion one so maybe that's the problem? I'll have to try the single version iso later.
I tried using Rufus to create the USB disk with the iso and then replace the files but that didn't work either, and when I tried to press V during the booting process it did nothing, the computer still hangs at the Windows logo screen as I posted. Also I did use the boot/efi folder you uploaded, and I noticed every file was identical to mine. What version of Windows were you using and what's the original iso filename?
As of now I used the disk utility in a macOS Sierra installer USB drive to wipe my whole hard drive clean, with two HFS+ partitions, and I haven't installed macOS yet, so that shouldn't be the problem. :(
 
Last edited:
AmethystZhou said:
I think the reason that the USB disk I made cannot boot on a PC is because it's a GPT disk, if it's MBR it should work fine. I checked the MD5 and SHA1 of the iso and it's the official Windows 7 x64 Ultimate with SP1 (X17-59465.iso).
I tried using Rufus to create the USB disk with the iso and then replace the files but that didn't work either, and when I tried to press V during the booting process it did nothing, the computer still hangs at the Windows logo screen as I posted. Also I did use the boot/efi folder you uploaded, and I noticed every file was identical to mine. What version of Windows were you using and what's the original iso filename?
As of now I used the disk utility in a macOS Sierra installer USB drive to wipe my whole hard drive clean, with two HFS+ partitions, and I haven't installed macOS yet, so that shouldn't be the problem. :(
Click to expand...

I am sorry that my replies didn;t work. I used Windows 7 Pro. Also even I haven't test it yet, but I don't think that MBR will work because of the issue with Intel motherboard. And I believe that you did choose to create a GPT partition, so my suggestion will be try my iso without install.wim. Simply copy the install.wim into the folder and see if that works or not.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxq--onVE9j5UlMyQmNvamkwb0k/view?usp=sharing
 
AmethystZhou said:
I think the reason that the USB disk I made cannot boot on a PC is because it's a GPT disk, if it's MBR it should work fine. I checked the MD5 and SHA1 of the iso and it's the official Windows 7 x64 Ultimate with SP1 (X17-59465.iso). But this iso is a multiversion one so maybe that's the problem? I'll have to try the single version iso later.
I tried using Rufus to create the USB disk with the iso and then replace the files but that didn't work either, and when I tried to press V during the booting process it did nothing, the computer still hangs at the Windows logo screen as I posted. Also I did use the boot/efi folder you uploaded, and I noticed every file was identical to mine. What version of Windows were you using and what's the original iso filename?
As of now I used the disk utility in a macOS Sierra installer USB drive to wipe my whole hard drive clean, with two HFS+ partitions, and I haven't installed macOS yet, so that shouldn't be the problem.
Click to expand...

Also, u can try the exact same way which davidcie uses bc that's the most safe way to do it. Just omit the driver part for the obvious reason. :(
 
tl166115 said:
Also, u can try the exact same way which davidcie uses bc that's the most safe way to do it. Just omit the driver part for the obvious reason. :(
Click to expand...

It seems that whatever I try the computer just cannot boot from the USB drive at all, it always gets stuck at the Windows logo screen, which is really weird considering there shouldn't be much difference between the early-2015 and mid-2015 models.
 
AmethystZhou said:
It seems that whatever I try the computer just cannot boot from the USB drive at all, it always gets stuck at the Windows logo screen, which is really weird considering there shouldn't be much difference between the early-2015 and mid-2015 models.
Click to expand...

Based on your description, there shouldn't be the problems with the drivers, which was our previous assumption. Now we have to look at the boot file. Technically, if Windows 7 stucks at the Windows logo, it is either drivers issue(rare, the boot manager stucks at some place while verifying driver signature.) or lacking CSM support(i.e the supporting function inside some Intel motherboard to the legacy OS like Win7 or Vista or 200R2 or anything else which doesn't support UEFI 3.0(Win 7 is in 2.0), often seen in new PC) However, there is no CSM support option, that's why we use the VGA shim files. Will F8 work? Try that as well. Also, you can try NTFS, that may possibly work(I think not but what if we have serendipity). Another trick I know is to creat a Win8 installation image, and put Windows 7's install.wim(You have to use davidcie's do_install_wim.bat to do the install.wim) (It could work since I have succeed once in a lenovo tablet) in it.
 
Hi,

Unfortunately on my mac 16.1 (late 2015) have failed to install win7.
The first problem is presented during the installation of windows, in fact inserting the USB pendrive (following the guide) appears only the windows logo.
I then decided to try to do the installation via the windows 10 cd, the cd boot is successful, shift + 10 and install Windows 7 via USB pendrive.

The installation is performed without problems - then I install El capitan - and I install vgashim in osx.

On restart run VGA Shim - but also leaving the mac for an hour remains the windows logo and does not boot in windows 7.

Could you please help me, let me know what you need.
I also tried with Davidcie but did not work :(

Thanks,
Marco
 
marco271093 said:
Hi,

Unfortunately on my mac 16.1 (late 2015) have failed to install win7.
The first problem is presented during the installation of windows, in fact inserting the USB pendrive (following the guide) appears only the windows logo.
I then decided to try to do the installation via the windows 10 cd, the cd boot is successful, shift + 10 and install Windows 7 via USB pendrive.

The installation is performed without problems - then I install El capitan - and I install vgashim in osx.

On restart run VGA Shim - but also leaving the mac for an hour remains the windows logo and does not boot in windows 7.

Could you please help me, let me know what you need.
I also tried with Davidcie but did not work :(

Thanks,
Marco
Click to expand...

Hi Marco

Unfortunately, Windows 10 has to be installed after Windows 7 in a partition created in Mac OS. And you must not do insider preview. I have succeed once with Win7+Win10 in the same disk but when I did insider preview later, it gets back to the case you met. Actually, if you attempt to install Windows 7 when Windows 10 is already exist. Windows 7 will not boot at all because the Windows 7 can't read Windows 10's boot file (BCD). I met this case as well and I tried for two weeks. And I ended up with failure. So I suggest you to back up everything in Windows 10 and delete the partition. :( Sorry!

A good sign for a success installation of Windows 7 is no error during the bless command in the terminal. When I tried to install Win7 with Win10 already on. It gave me a lot of error, and I couldn't proceed.

Yours
Tom
 
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