Installing windows 7 on a new windows 8 Lenovo (y580 to be exact)

I had tremendous issues trying to do it on a Samsung. I am just wondering if anyone has done it and if it is simple. I had problems with there being a lock on the bios, etc. Do Lenovo owners run into the same issue?

 

Just did this this this past weekend (on an X220). What a hassle! Took me hours.

I have been running Win 8 Pro and found that I need Win 7 (for a BMW tuning app) and I need Win XP (for a BMW coding app). I couldn't believe that Win 8 no longer supports a Win XP virtual machine like Win 7 does!

Anyway, I thought it would be simple to install Win XP or Win 7 on my second SSD. Win 8 does not like any boot managers so forget what you see out there about EasyBCD, BartPE, etc. I tried all those. I eventually found that, by trial and error, that my second SSD, because it was a GPT partition, I could not install Win 7 there. I had to convert it to MBR. After getting Win 7 installed there (including installing the Win XP virtual machine), it's all operational. Get familiar with diskpart to delete partitions if you need to do this.

No boot manager, and I tried some of the 'best' solutions, work with Win 8 AFTER Win 8 is installed. On the X220, I am able to hit F12 to get the boot menu and select the second SSD to boot Win 7. So it works, it's not convenient starting Win 7.

I really don't know if you can install Win 7 on the same disk as Win 8 (if that's what you want to do). Based on what I've seen, I don't see how you can do that.

 

OWell shoot. I mean I have a blank drive I can install it on but I'm afraid it won't recognize the drive etc. If I insert I totally empty correctly formatted drive will the windowsdisk when it. Boots from it, be able to install on it?

 

I tried for around 5 hours inserting my blank drive inserting my working windows 8. Because it is the only computer i have and each time
i give up. I research and see a way that COULD work.

But all of it ends up blank. I cant even boot the windows 8 installation media. That's how locked the bios is in my opinion. The only way
i could install windows on the new drive was to create recovey media and use that to install via resetting the os.. .


I strongly suggest you return it for a windows 7 configuration. Ain't worth the trouble. Windows 8
on a non touch laptop would be used the way you use a windows 7. It is essentially the same thing
other better ram management and bootup time.

 

I tried so many different things. You've reminded of an important change I made. I actually disabled the first drive (that has Win8) in the BIOS (it would have been a big hassle to remove it as it's an mSATA SSD under the keyboard). I then installed Win7 on the second drive. Assuming your second drive is not the same size as your first, you should be able to tell that you're installing on the right one. When I re-enabled the Win8 drive, it only boots to Win8 but I can stop that boot by pressing F12 to get a drive boot menu (it might be F12 for you too).

If you can take out your Win8 drive and install Win7 on the new drive, then you should have an easier job of it.

 

First did you try running the software on Win8 but in compatibility mode?


if that didn't work why not install VMware Workstation 8 which supports Windows 8 and run up a few virtual machines ? Spin up a Win7x64 VM and a XP VM then run whatever legacy software you need. Both work just fine on Win8 with VMware Workstation 8 or 9.

Worse case is get a USB3 external HDD drive, install Win7 on that and then do a selective boot using the bios and point to your external drive.

 

pardon me for not reading this entire thread, but with a windows 8 laptop, you can't just reformat the hard drive and install 7?