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- #Windows 7 loader extreme edition uefi install
- #Windows 7 loader extreme edition uefi driver
- #Windows 7 loader extreme edition uefi Patch
Therefore, we continued development of our preloader for Windows 7 by introducing a patch for NTOSKRNL.EXE to replace all instances of direct I/O via VGA ports with updates of framebuffer provided by UEFI GOP (in similar manner to Windows 8+). Also, Windows 7 OS kernel has several other functions, such as VidInitialize(), VgaInterpretCmdStream(), VidSolidColorFill(), SetPixel() etc, which perform direct I/O on VGA ports for drawing BSoD (blue screen of death).
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First of all, Windows 7 OS kernel has VgaIsPresent() function which may halt boot process indefinitely on the "glowing logo" phase if VGA-compatible GPU does not respond on the standard I/O ports (0x3C0-0x3DF). In addition to invoking VGA BIOS via INT 10H in VIDEOPRT.SYS, Windows 7 makes direct reads and writes to/from VGA I/O ports right from the OS kernel (NTOSKRNL.EXE). So, will it be enough to provide a custom INT 10H handler (by implementing a specialized UEFI preloader) to boot Windows 7 successfully on the modern pure UEFI systems? This custom INT 10H handler can rely on UEFI GOP to provide some sort of "mini CSM" (not a real thing, but just enough for VIDEOPRT.SYS to boot Windows 7).Īs our experiments demonstrated, this, unfortunately, is not enough.
#Windows 7 loader extreme edition uefi driver
Starting from Windows 8, everything has changed: INT 10H handler is no longer required by Windows to boot, BIOS emulator and entire VGA miniport driver both are gone, instead Windows basic display driver relies upon UEFI Graphics Output Protocol aka GOP. By the way, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server R2 never directly run the INT 10H handler installed by BIOS/CSM, instead they contain an emulator in the VGA miniport driver (VIDEOPRT.SYS) which runs 16-bit BIOS code in a sandbox, without leaving 64-bit protected mode and without halting other CPU cores. What is really important for Windows 7 is a VGA-compatible GPU with properly mapped I/O ports and INT 10H handler (the former depends mostly on the chipset and the latter is usually provided by firmware when CSM mode is enabled in the settings).
#Windows 7 loader extreme edition uefi install
For example, "bhyve" virtual machine manager in FreeBSD supports 64-bit editions of Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server R2, despite the complete lack of CSM support.Īnother really good example of running Windows 7 圆4 in the pure UEFI environment is Oracle VirtualBox configured for Windows 8 圆4 guest OS in UEFI mode: despite complete lack of CSM, its possible to install Windows 7 圆4 guest OS inside this virtual machine by using Windows 8 Setup ISO file, by replacing OS image file (\sources\install.wim) by the similar image from Windows 7, and by slipstreaming VirtualBox paravirtual VBoxVGA/VBoxSVGA drivers to that image. It's a well-known fact that Windows 7 works best in CSM mode, which, unfortunately, is not supported by the firmware of many modern motherboards and laptops.Ĭontrary to popular belief, it's possible to install Windows 7 圆4 to the pure UEFI systems without CSM support.