Some of the latest Intel hardware isn’t taking kindly to clean installs of Windows. This has always been the case to a degree as most hardware requires lots of driver installations after you lay the base OS down, but in the last year or so it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get the base down due to the fact that USB 3 ports are the only kind on the hardware, the latest PCI-based storage drivers often don’t exist, and enabling legacy USB 2 support in the BIOS seems to be changing and options are more limited.
My organization and clients aren’t clamoring for Windows 10, even if Microsoft is trying to force feed us so most people are wanting (or have to) stick with Windows 7.
Having recently worked with a couple of the very cool new Lenovo M900-Tiny desktops (use PCI-connected M.2 storage + SATA, up to 4 core + HT i7, up to 32GB RAM, etc.) but they have no USB 2 ports so it’s time to rethink the installation process for laying down a clean copy of Windows 7.
First, get your Win 7 Pro SP1 ISO, save it to a scratch space on your local Windows computer. I like c:\software\ or c:\temp\ but it’s up to you.
Break out an 8GB+ thumb drive that you’ll keep for this. I labeled mine and will keep it in my hardware testing/service kit on a keyring.
Download the Codeplex Windows USB/DVD Download Tool - Home
Launch that and follow the prompts to convert your ISO into a bootable installer for Windows 7 (I also did one for Server 2012R2, might work with others too).
Then, get Intel’s tool for adding the USB 3.0 drivers to the USB installer you just made.
Download Windows 7* USB 3.0 Creator Utility
Run that as administrator (right click on the executable, run as admin), follow the prompts and it will tell you when it’s finished, seems to take about 15 minutes.
Pull out the flash/thumb drive and boot your new hardware from it and install away, this solves the USB 3.0 thing that seems to take so long to sort out through acrobatics with the BIOS.
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