[GUIDE] [DISCUSSION] [LIST] Windows Vista on modern hardware with UEFI.

[Moline]

You do not need to disable UEFI mode, only secure boot. Here's how to get Windows Vista working on Sandy Bridge UEFI or later.

► Show Spoiler

You will/may need: Windows Vista ISO, a USB 8GB or larger, a system with UEFI and secure boot disabled, Rufus, another laptop with USB SATA cable or Linux run from USB on the Windows Vista computer (if no USB SATA).

1. Grab a Vista ISO from here: https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=333.

2. Burn the ISO to USB 8GB or larger with Rufus as GPT.

3. Go here and follow this guide: https://vinaypundith.github.io/windows_7_efi_guide/

3A. You do not need a third party program to mount the EFI drive from within an existing Windows installation if you have a USB SATA cable. To mount it, search for CMD within the Start Menu, right click it, run as administrator, and then run the following commands. Do not add in the items within the () such as (efi part) and (replace b with your desired drive letter).

diskpart
sel disk 0
sel part 1 (efi part)
assign letter=b (replace b with your desired drive lettter)
exit
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
explorer.exe

Your drive should be now mounted. This is much easier than using Linux or a third party tool to view it. You may run into an issue where this may not work if you run this command on Windows 10. 7 and 8.1 will for sure work! Credit to superuser for this nifty command: https://superuser.com/questions/965751/how-to-access-efi-partition-on-windows-10

4. You have Windows Vista on UEFI mode! Congrats!

5. Now finish the setup with the Vista Extended Kernel, which you can learn how to setup here: https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=333

List of hardware that supports Windows Vista UEFI boot:

► Show Spoiler

• Ivy Bridge Core i5 and other Ivy Bridge

• Sandy Bridge (Not sure, and I don't have my Sandy Bridge laptop anymore, but if Ivy Bridge works, then I see no reason this shouldn't too)

Unsure/Needs Testing

► Show Spoiler

• AMD Radeon R4 Graphics and AMD Dual-Core 9220e Processor (Stoney Ridge) (Did not work with K4Sum1's 2020 ISO, produced a black screen after I put the drive back in after modifying the bootmgfw.efi file on the efi partition and booted. The Windows Did Not Shut Down Successfully options showed just fine and trying to boot into Safe Mode also freezes after loading a driver. Maybe someone has a solution to get UEFI working on AMD Acer Aspire A315-21)

• Intel Celeron n3050 Cherry Trail (Froze after it loaded the files. Not sure if using K4Sum1's ISO will work due to potential incompatibilities with USB 3 drivers between 7 and Vista)

• Intel 11th Generation Tiger Lake/Intel Core i5/Intel Iris Xe graphics: You might be able to work it if you mod acpi.sys and use an unattended setup (if it even exists in Vista still) to negate needing the USB ports, which wouldn't work anyways, as well as PS/2 ports, which you wouldn't have and trying to find an adapter that plugs into a port that does not require a driver are nill. With a laptop, the keyboard will work, but the mouse will not due to relying on I2C HID drivers instead of old-school PS/2 emulation.

Credit to K4sum1 on the UEFI and Extended Kernel tutorial as well as the Vista ISO. You can also use this thread to discuss as well. Since I don't have every single piece of post-Ivy Bridge hardware (except for one Desktop Haswell and one laptop Celeron N3050 Cherry Trail), it is impossible for me to test it on UEFI for those hardware. If you have any modern hardware with UEFI and would like to test, please do try it out and report back. Any info regarding success/unsuccessful installations will be compiled into a list.

[Moline]

Alright, so I tried this trick on the Acer Aspire A315-21 with AMD Radeon R4 Graphics and AMD Dual-Core A6-9220e, and it froze up after loading the Windows files (the bar was filled and still shown, but frozen). I do not think this is a USB 3 issue as there are two USB 2 ports and MBR formatted and booted Vista media boots and installs just fine plugged into one of those two ports (USB 3 works after the OS has booted). Not sure what is different between this laptop and the Dell Latitude E6530 as both have UEFI/Legacy. The one thing I do know is different is one is Ivy Bridge, which has Vista support, and the other is AMD Radeon R4, which as far as I know has no Vista support (correct me if there is, whether official or unofficial). Maybe that is the issue? Who knows. If anyone has any solutions, please do let me know! Gonna try 7 in this manner and see what happens. My results will be posted in the Windows 7 equivalent to this topic in the 7 forum.

[K4sum1]

1. Grab a Vista ISO (one with all the updates to 2017 EOL recommended).

https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=333

[Moline]

1. Grab a Vista ISO (one with all the updates to 2017 EOL recommended).

https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=333

I tried the ISO linked in your thread with UEFI7 and UEFI mode on the Acer Aspire A315-21 with AMD Radeon R4, but it still froze. Not sure what else to do other than Legacy mode, which does not allow more than 4 partitions.

[ruslanshchur]

Isn't it possible to enable CSM but boot in UEFI? (unless UEFI-only)

[Moline]

Isn't it possible to enable CSM but boot in UEFI? (unless UEFI-only)

Only in the early UEFI-laptops (such as Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge) and even then it depends on the manufacturer. For instance, my Dell Latitude E6530 with Ivy Bridge has this feature and is what I needed to make it work, but my Acer Aspire E1-531 with Sandy Bridge did not.

Also, Windows Vista will not install on Intel 11th Generation Tiger Lake/Intel Core i5/Intel Iris Xe graphics. While I didn't even try to install it, given the fact 11th Gen has no USB2 ports will make it not work. Even with putting the drive in another laptop, installing, and then moving it back will likely not work due to a likely non-ACPI compliant BIOS 0x0A5 BSOD. You might be able to get it to work if you patch acpi.sys and setup an unattended setup (if Vista supports that feature still), but it's iffy (and unattended setup is necessary as your USB ports would not work and you will most likely not have PS/2 ports unless you can find a PS/2 adapter that works with a port that does not need drivers (which is unlikely).

[ruslanshchur]

Isn't it possible to enable CSM but boot in UEFI? (unless UEFI-only)

Only in the early UEFI-laptops (such as Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge) and even then it depends on the manufacturer. For instance, my Dell Latitude E6530 with Ivy Bridge has this feature and is what I needed to make it work, but my Acer Aspire E1-531 with Sandy Bridge did not.

Also, Windows Vista will not install on Intel 11th Generation Tiger Lake/Intel Core i5/Intel Iris Xe graphics. While I didn't even try to install it, given the fact 11th Gen has no USB2 ports will make it not work. Even with putting the drive in another laptop, installing, and then moving it back will likely not work due to a likely non-ACPI compliant BIOS 0x0A5 BSOD. You might be able to get it to work if you patch acpi.sys and setup an unattended setup (if Vista supports that feature still), but it's iffy (and unattended setup is necessary as your USB ports would not work and you will most likely not have PS/2 ports unless you can find a PS/2 adapter that works with a port that does not need drivers (which is unlikely).

ACPI A5 Patch same as we have for Windows 7

acpi.sys 6.0.6002.24312 (vistasp2_ldr_escrow.180308-1636)



x86

From

84 C0 75 13
To

84 C0 90 90
From

C0 59 59 7D
To

C0 59 90 90


x64

From

84 C0 75 1F
To

84 C0 90 90
From

85 C0 78 2E
To

85 C0 90 90

USB 3.0 drivers (you need to install KB2864202 before installing USB 3.0 driver, otherwise, it will not work):

GenericXHCIDriver-x64.zip

(494.52 KiB) Downloaded 22 times

GenericXHCIDriver-x86.zip

(430.31 KiB) Downloaded 11 times