UNSOLVED
Win 8.1 removal
Bought a new Dell Inspiron 15 3000 series yesterday, absolutely cannot get on with Win 8.1. I have a Win 7 home premium DVD with reg key. How easy would it be to install this on the new laptop. I am thinking of maybe sticking in a SSD drive and installing it fresh on that, and keeping the original hard drive just in case i need to return laptop under warranty. Would i run into any bios or driver problems. Any help appreciated.
Philip_Yip
11 Legend
•
16052 Posts
•
65915 Points
132
0
Posted March 26th, 2015 08:00
To install Windows 7 you need to change the BIOS settings to enable USB Debug (Disables the USB 3.0 ports that Windows 7 installation media has no support for) and disable SecureBoot (prevents Windows 7 64 Bit media from booting). The Windows 7 DVD needs to converted into a FAT32 Bootable USB set to install in the GPT partition scheme. See here:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/converting-your-dell-windows-reinstallation-dvd-into-a-reinstallation-usb/
Then if you get it to install you will likely be on your own regarding system drivers. Dell have stopped releasing Windows 7 drivers for new Home systems.
Personally I don't think its worth your time... First you should attempt to tame Windows 8.1. Theres a few changes you can make to make it usable:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/a-clean-install-of-windows-8-1/customising-windows-8-1/
Note also that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will both automatically update to Windows 10 in Late Summer so you need to ask yourself whether its worth the time to perform the install.
If you want to install the factory image on the SSD see here:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/dell-backup-and-recovery/
Windows 11 Installation Guide
Windows 7 Installation Guide