New Hardware Prevents Win7 Upgrade

I am looking to upgrade Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10. My copy of Windows 7 is itself a 32-bit upgrade DVD. So I propose to begin with a WinXP installation; use the DVD to upgrade to Win7; and then see if I can still find a free upgrade to Win10. If I only get partway through this sequence, that's OK: I still want to learn what I can about this sort of situation.

That mobo's BIOS setup has grayed out the option to Launch CSM. Evidently the CSM option is essential, for purposes of booting an older OS. I do want to find a way to do that.

One source seems to say that Launch CSM is grayed out because I am using the Intel CPU's integrated graphics. (See also ASUS.) The recommended solution is to use a "discrete graphics card that supports UEFI VBIOS to make CSM option configurable." That also seems to be the solution arrived at in an AnandTech thread.

I am visualizing a happy world in which I plug in a graphics card that I got for $25 on eBay, and suddenly I am able to run Windows XP and other forgotten things. I have only one question: does that sound right; if so, which (or what kind of) graphics card am I shopping for; and will Windows 10/11 mind if I mostly leave that card unused, instead typically plugging my video cables into the mobo's integrated graphics connectors?

Your win7 product key will activate either 32 or 64 bit win7 ultimate. If you ever want to do that, it is not hard to find
en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_677332.iso

However, win10 should accept the win7 product key, so no need to install win7 first on what we have to guess is an asus 500 series intel mobo.

It can be done Canonkong is using a gt 730 here :

Wow. A very impressive and helpful set of responses. Thank you!

A couple of issues. First, yes, sorry, I am remiss: this is an Intel Core i5-13500 on an ASUS PRIME H770-PLUS D4 with one 32GB stick of G.Skill DDR4 in a midtower ATX case. My boot drive (drive C) is a partition on a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA III SSD.

Adapting your suggestions, I started by making a drive image of the desired Win10 installation, already existing on another computer. I made the image using the free version of AOMEI Backupper Standard, and saved it on an external drive.

I used AOMEI on my bootable YUMI (could have used Kyhi) USB drive to restore that image to the partition on the M.2 drive in the target (ASUS PRIME) machine. For some reason, these tools did not recognize the external 500GB Samsung SSD where I had saved the image. They did see the image when I copied it to a 1TB internal HDD in an external dock.

Restoring the image gave me a bootable, not activated, but otherwise fully configured Win10 installation on the target machine. In Settings > Update & Security > Activation, I entered the product key from a Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit x86 Upgrade DVD. That worked: Windows was activated. So that was news to me: I didn't have to go through the steps of installing and upgrading WinXP and Win7.

Since I wasn't doing a clean install, I didn't run into the issue of having to skip key entry at the outset.

I already have Win7 ISOs, but you're right: a search leads directly to what appear to be others of its ilk for ready download.

Now, regarding the need/desire to be able to boot operating systems other than Win10. One issue is the video card. Brief searching supports your suggestion that, for my purposes, the GT730 (however ancient) may suffice to enable those alternate boots. They're $20+ on eBay (used) - or $65 on Amazon, if you want a new one with GDDR5 and no fan to wear out. I ordered a used one. Hopefully its fan will know enough to shut down when the card is not in use.

The other issue is the boot drive. As the choice of video card may imply, non-Win10 OSs will be used infrequently. Within my limited experience, dual booting (i.e., installing two or more OSs on permanent internal drives) can be a lot of hassle.

I've installed Ubuntu on a Samsung USB thumb drive. It seems the larger (e.g., 128GB) ones are faster than the smaller ones. Still not especially fast, but at least less painfully slow; adequate for my purposes. I lack experience on this new machine, but I assume hitting F12 will still work, for purposes of letting me choose among boot drives.

I probably won't need WinXP per se. I do have some need for Win7, but (unlike Win10) I haven't tried suggested ways to boot it from a USB thumb drive or other (e.g., SSD) external drive. Memory of Win7 leads me to wonder how well such methods work.

A convenient way to choose among OSs (especially Win10 and Win7) could be to have distinct SATA boot drives, swapped manually or via a swap bay (e.g., StarTech, $35). This approach would entail giving up my internal M.2 boot, which I'm not eager to do. But I'm not sure how else I might accommodate Windows 7.

I will say that eliminating the M.2 drive could let me boot anything, without F12 or other interference. I have an old machine with no internal drive. It is really convenient to just plug in the desired bootable USB drive, turn it on, and let it boot. But I suppose this would tend to call for a video card good enough for continued use.

That seems to be the situation at present. I'm open to comments on this plan generally, and ideas for booting Win7 in particular. Thanks again for remarks so far.

I would suggest integrating a couple of things into win7 install.wim. For example usb3 stack , the driverframework update that supports it (windows6.1-kb2864202-x64.msu) , and probably the sha2 update windows6.1-kb4474419-v3-x64.msu as well as windows6.1-kb3138612-x64.msu which allows windows update to work.

Quite easy to integrate those few things into the win7 image with dism++

I noticed that the intel rst drivers work better for hot swap in win7 than the ms supplied drivers, so I integrate those too.

I can zip all those up and upload them somewhere if you like.

Thank you for these follow-up suggestions and offers. I've got a couple other fires to put out - it's going to take me a while to get to the point where I can proceed. Hopefully this thread won't get shut down for inactivity before I return.

SIW2 said:

I would suggest integrating a couple of things into win7 install.wim. For example usb3 stack , the driverframework update that supports it (windows6.1-kb2864202-x64.msu) , and probably the sha2 update windows6.1-kb4474419-v3-x64.msu as well as windows6.1-kb3138612-x64.msu which allows windows update to work.

Quite easy to integrate those few things into the win7 image with dism++

I noticed that the intel rst drivers work better for hot swap in win7 than the ms supplied drivers, so I integrate those too.

I can zip all those up and upload them somewhere if you like.

windows6.1-kb4490628-x64.msu also needed to be integrated onto win7 install.wim as well