Installing windows 7

Question

I am trying to install windows 7 x64 on my Dell xps 15. It is throwing this error though: "A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now. Note: If the Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you can safely remove it for this step." I unzipped the contents of this zip (downloadcenter.intel.com/.../Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver to a usb stick, but I still get the same error message. Please advise.

When I do a list disk in diskpart, nothing is showing up.

I also notice when I plug in the USB stick with the driver on it, the USB stick does not show up when I click the browse button.

ejn63 · Answer

If this is a Skylake system (6th generation Core CPU), see www.dell.com/.../SLN300564

Philip_Yip · Answer

Use up to date installation media such as Windows 10 RS1 or Windows 7 Media Refresh 2016: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3524/t/19999620

ejn63 · Answer

What exactly did you try?  What model system is this?

droidus91 · Answer

I tried this, and the HD still does not show up.

ejn63 · Answer

There's more to it than that - you also need the NVMe drivers loaded onto the install image. Assuming you have a valid, unused WIndows 7 product key (or purchased the system with Windows 10 Pro and therefore have downgrade rights), you need to follow through the entire procedure detailed here:

www.dell.com/.../SLN300564

and build a complete, new installation media set for Windows 7.

Also of note: because Windows 7 doesn't support the power management features of the Skylake chipset, expect the system to run hotter and the battery runtimes to be shorter than they are with Windows 10.

droidus91 · Answer

xps 9550.  The link in the article you referenced was what I used (downloadcenter.intel.com/.../Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility).

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Installing windows 7

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