Last7 Collection

This is kind of my feeling too

 

You are right. The responsiveness of the Win7 UI is just better than anything else (well maybe XP too). Plus the OS doesn't try to open apps with Modern apps like on Win10 -- even if you set the associations up it is still never perfect. Then there are fewer UI delays in Win7 than in Win10, so when you're a fast clicker and navigator, and are working on something, Win7 is more predictable and smooth. Just like in Win10, moving a small file always gives the same file moving dialogue that has a little animation and delay, whereas in Win7 it is instant. Plus the UI of Win7 is so much more beautiful. Having the glass effect in combination with nice background gives people a sense of space and perspective, which is a natural response for us. It aids in a feeling of organization for me. Win7, the last true desktop OS. With the ESU (extended service updates) bypass script it gives some new life to Win7 so we can hold out even longer

 

Wasn't quite happy with the update approach lately with ESU updates and such, it gets confusing to keep track of everything and making VM states up to ESU phase of updating, etc. So I tried out Simplix's UpdatePack for Win7. I think most people are aware of this pack and I've tried it out on a live install once or twice, but never as a basis to work from for total sysprep VM updating. Either something is really wrong, or I am super impressed by how good this pack is I mean, you just let this thing go and it will reboot 5 or 6 times, doesn't mess up the sysprep dialogue pop-up each reboot, and just updates Win7 like a true boss. It's so weird though, even though it includes the latest ESU updates until 2020.12 (so it must be updating it all for it to be able to install ESU updates), it only shows under 60 updates under "Installed updates" and WU is satisfied upon checking afterwards (I had to install C Runtime update and a few minor ones). And the disk footprint of WinSxS appears significantly smaller. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how all this is possible and I may amend some of my thoughts about it, but for now I have to say this Simplix Win7 update pack is some next-level stuff.

 

Yes, you can definitely use the simplix pack on the CosmOS install. And yes, install SetupS 20.03.17.0 (required for newer apps).

And if you want you can update the CosmOS iso with latest Repo apps (remember: make a copy of the original CosmOS .iso first). Or just leave the CosmOS iso alone and make an AppDisc instead with the template for new apps.

 

You'd have to integrate the updates into the install.wim, but this is more complicated with the CosmOS image since it has 4 image indexes. It would take some trials and testing. However, this thread does have some info about integration, under: Using UpdatePack7R2: >> 2) To integrate updates/hotfixes into Windows 7 distribution (install.wim)

This would be my recommendation: UNLESS you need the CosmOS image for installing on many PCs, I would just apply the simplix pack post-install. So install CosmOS and then run the pack afterwards, on live OS.

 

Are you talking about making the simplix pack into an automated ssApp installer? I doubt that this would be practical, because it would start installing updates and rebooting right away, so you can't install it through ssWPI or along with other apps. So it's best to just get that latest simplix installer (it comes out about every month or so) and install it. I'd recommend installing it first, after you install CosmOS (and a reboot) -- and after installing your system drivers first. Just make sure it works and updates everything; then, customize your install and install apps. After you do all that, you have the option of making a total system backup (the CosmOS LivePE includes imaging tools like Active@ Disk Image and TeraByte Image for that). This way, if your install degrades over time, you can just restore from your system backup image.

EDIT: The captured image from the sysprep VM of Win7 Pro x64 did come out smaller than my previous ones, by 0.3gb, using the simplix pack.

 

It is because the update collection is analyzed better and install-order of the updates is more efficient.

 

I'm looking into these now, I'll upload them to the Repo when done. Driver Booster mentions a Free and Pro version, but it seems that maybe the free is not so much free or more like adware at least. I'll do my best

 

So I've heard. I checked out SIMPLIX a long time ago myself. Apparently, there have been some improvements since then. LOL When reading through the 38 page MDL thread about the Windows 7 Image Updater that we talked about the other day, it mentioned that there were 3 different Win 7 update approaches that had threads at MDL:

• Windows 7 Image Updater - SkyLake\KabyLake\CoffeLake\Ryzen Threadripper
• MDL Win 7 Tool for SiMPLiX UpdatePack AiO ISO (with install.wim/esd) Creation
• Integrate7 script – automatically slipstream updates and drivers up to 11/2020!

In the Windows 7 Image Updater thread, SIMPLIX came up the most often in comparison, ie - SIMPLIX does this, why doesn't Windows 7 Image Updater? (SIMPLIX seems to have quite the following.) In general, the 3 tools seem roughly equivalent, but I don't know enough about any of them to be able to say if one of them has any features the others don't have, or if one of them does a function better or faster than the others.

[slightly off-topic]
I am considering getting a new computer. If I do, I want it to last a long time, probably until my phone or watch can satisfy all of my computing needs. :grin: With all the recent talk here at LastOS about potential new releases of Win 9, ie 8.1, new and old releases of Win 7, along with the inevitable necessity of Win 10 with the LastOS improvements, of course, and Ghost mentioning that his Ryzen system can run Win 7, while Freezer has been having issues at times with both Win 7 and Win 8.1 on newer systems, I have been doing a lot of reading. As it turns out, I have some extra time on my hands until after the first of the year, so it's a good time to do so.

Right now, I'm thinking I'll most likely get a desktop system, I just like them better, though yes, a laptop would probably suit my needs. I have a philosophical distaste for Intel, so I'll try to avoid them. I really like the idea of using Ryzen. Threadripper would be great to brag about having, but not being a gamer, I really can't justify the extra cost. And even with Ryzen, again not being a gamer, I'm trying to come up with how many cores (up to 16, with 32 threads), and which generation, gen 2 or gen 3, I can justify. The only uses I have that could realistically take advantage of the faster, bigger versions, are video and audio file conversion. But that decision can wait and I'm getting off topic.

As one more aside, I've seen some fascinating info about Apple:





Sometihng to consider for my wife?
[/slightly off-topic]

ANYWAY, back on subject.

In checking out how to install Win 7, and Win 8.1, I did find several good references:

This method uses the Gigabyte USB Installation Tool: to install Windows 7 on a MSI X470 Ryzen board:



This method shows installing Windows 7 on a X470 Ryzen board using the PC swap method:



I thought that a better video was this one, showing installing on a MSI X570 Ryzen board:



Here's some good basic instructions: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11182/how-to-get-ryzen-working-on-windows-7-x64
Here's another set: https://maxedtech.com/amd-ryzen-and-windows-7/
These are USB drivers that will probably work for USB 3.0, 3.1, or 3.2(?): https://www.win-raid.com/t4960f52-S...B-Controllers-of-new-AMD-Chipset-Systems.html
Beta USB 3.2 Drivers for Windows 7 for X570 boards: https://yadi.sk/d/elVdi3YjM6M-7A (password is: xiaofengmod) - [ I haven't compared these to the ones from win-raid, which are newer ]
And of course, to Remove "Unsupported Hardware" in Windows 7 (download latest stable release): https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc

Other than that, it seems that you also have to go to the various support sites for your hardware and collect the Win 7 or Win 8.1 drivers as appropriate. Sometimes the Win 7 ones will also work for Win 8.1 and vice versa. If you can only find drivers for Win 10, and a site such as win-raid can't help you, then you might have to use a different motherboard. So I would suggest trying to find drivers before you pick and buy a new motherboard. MAYBE one of the tools that find and install drivers can help, but that might only work for a system that is already basically running, so...

As Freezer and Ghost have pointed out, installing Win 7 is one thing, installing drivers to the installed Win 7 is another. I'm not sure if and how much that SIMPLEX and the other two methods above can help with either or both of those aspects. They definitely seem to help with integrating the appropriate updates to the install medium. [Trying to install Win 7 or Win 8.1 to a newer CPU with an integrated graphics controller will probably not work at all, even if you are trying to use an external graphics card.] If Trouba or Freezer has a recent system they have tried installing Win7 or Win 8.1 to, maybe they will be so kind as to share their experiences. Ghost seems to have a system that is just old enough to still have some Win 7 support, but still be able to run a Ryzen CPU.

I know that @mircea has an older system, which is why he is interested in Win7, but I'm sure that there are LastOS users with both older and newer systems, so the more that we all know about installing onto them, the better off we all will be.

 

The latest hardware I have is Z77 era, so that's pretty old. Well, the laptop is actually much newer but I don't use it and I installed Win10 Pro on it at the time (it has nvme drive and nvidia 1060 card inside).

So I haven't been able to really test the Win7 images with nvme and newer CPU support -- I've only been able to verify that the images install well on older PCs (in other words, it didn't break anything).

I've been looking into that method (the second on in your list) that integrates newer drivers and CPU limitation bypass and has install.esd support AIO, but I haven't built anything with this method yet, although I'll post on the forum somewhere if it comes to fruition. If that could somehow be combined with a LivePE it would be a killer combo but that may be hard to do.

But like you, if/when I upgrade PC parts at some point I'd really be looking into which parts best support running Win7 A really good thing would be NVMe drive boot drive support and of course available drivers for everything. What if you get stuck with one iffy driver for a piece of hardware but you don't have any other to install? Etc. I guess Win10 is always an option in that case

 

That's a old board, Ghost, released in 2007 or so, and I t think that board can still be used by Win 7, can't it?

But no, I wasn't trying to start posting all of our hardware. I just thought to post what I did here since anything that we can add to any of our Win 7 or Win 8.1 releases that would make the release usable on a wider variety of systems, while not breaking on older stuff, is a good thing, right? But you're right. If the thread starts to get hijacked into too much of a side discussion about specific hardware, then we'll split it off.

 

If it will work (drivers, cpu patch, etc.) it is going to on a per-case basis. So it will require testing and maybe edits as to which drivers to include. The best anyone on here can do is provide a base image and then individual users may have to make edits that will make it work for their particular systems. For some systems it may be a breeze while on others it may be a real pain to get it to function right.

 

I bow to your experience. But I hope we are able to help Freezer get it, both Win 7 and Win 8.1, to work on his system so he isn't forced to only work on Win 10.