Windows 10: Help with Dual Booting Driver Issues

Hello, all! New to this forum just signed up because I have a problem. SO. I have an HP laptop that came preinstalled with windows 10. I have made it so that I can also dual boot my system into windows 7. You know the drill, making a bootable usb and installing it to a different partition of my hard drive. It works perfectly fine except one thing. HALF OF THE DRIVERS ARE MISSING.

There isn't even a category for network adapters at all in device manager, so I can't access that to even connect to the internet. If I try and connect to the internet via control panel or whatever it just says there were no compatible methods of connecting or something vaguely along those lines. (Sorry I don't remember exactly what) And another strange thing is there is a group of devices in device manager called unknown with some called "ethernet controller", "network controller", something along the lines of a PCI adapter and 3 unknown devices. I tried going to the official hp support website from windows 10 and I downloaded the device drivers for my wifi adapter (realtek RTL8188EE 802.11 bgn wifi adapter) and tried to install them in windows 7 but it kept saying "device drivers were not successfully installed"

troubleshooters do nothing, and I'm thoroughly stumped. The same thing happened when I tried dual booting into windows 8.1 THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM. The devices work perfectly fine on windows 10, but simply don't exist in any other operating system I try to install (with the exception of ubuntu which I dual booted into perfectly fine before I removed it) I'm assuming that when I removed ubuntu I didn't do it completely and maybe that's why the devices are broken but I really have no idea. Any help is apreciated. Thank you.

(When I shift click restart and choose "boot from device" there is still an option for ubuntu, and grub2 is still in my bootloader however windows boot loader is just above it in priority if that helps at all)

:)

 

Help With Dual Booting without USB thumbdrive

Does it work with Linux distros? (Ubuntu)

I am trying to install it without a USB flash drive or CD (I don't have one handy)

 

Help With Dual Booting without USB thumbdrive

Can you go to a working computer running Windows 7 or later then try creating a bootable copy there?

Prepare Windows 10 ISO file

After you have downloaded the Windows 10 ISO, you need prepare it, this is especially important for Windows 7 users..

After obtaining the .iso file you can use the built in Disc Image burning tool or Microsoft .iso to
USB/DVD tool to create a bootable DVD or USB (requires a blank DVD or USB flash stick of at least 4 GB).



After downloading the .ISO file, right click it and click Burn disc image

Insert a blank DVD

Click Burn

Windows 8/8.1 users can mount the .ISO file and start the upgrade automatically. Learn more
here





Important:

If you are creating a bootable USB thumb drive, make sure the thumb drive is first formatted as FAT32.

Connect the thumb drive

Open Computer

Right click thumbdrive

Click Format

Make sure FAT32 is selected as the file system.

For UEFI based systems

If your computer is UEFI based, these are normally systems that come pre-loaded with Windows 8 or later, you will need to prepare the ISO file for such a configuration or you will receive an error message
during setup. The thumbdrive needs to be formatted as FAT32 and use the GPT partitioning scheme. To do this, you need to use
Rufus, a small tool you can download for free.




Rufus - credit: Pete Batard/Akeo

After you have installed Rufus:

• Launch it
• Select ISO Image
• Point to the Windows 10 ISO file
• Check off Create a bootable disk using
• Select GPT partitioning for EUFI firmware as the Partition scheme
• Choose FAT32 NOT NTFS as the File system
• Make sure your USB thumbdrive in the Device list box
• Click Start
• Close when complete

 

Let me understand correctly, things and driver don't work in Windows 7 but work in W10 ?

 

Yes exactly. I've tried fresh installs, and my iso files for the install were downloaded directly from microsoft so I don't think it would be corruption

 

Windows 7 might not have proper drivers than. Two OSs in dual boot can't share drivers, to each one it's own, Check with HP to see if they have drivers for W7 and install them in W7. Some of W8 or W10 drivers may work too but you would have to install them manually in W7.

 

I don't know if any Windows 10 drivers will work with Windows 7, but you can export all the third party drivers from Windows 10. Create a folder to hold the drivers. Like E:\Win10Drivers (drive letter and folder of your choice, just an example). Then open a Command Prompt (Admin) and run:

dism /online /export-driver /destination:E:\Win10Drivers

Then in your Windows 7 device manager you can right click on any hardware that has an exclamation point, or an unknown device and go to the options to manually upgrade drivers and point it to the E:\Win10Drivers folder (or whatever folder you created), make sure the box for subfolders is checked, and if one of the exported drivers is compatible it will load.

I seriously doubt, though, there will be any Windows 10 drivers compatible with Windows 7 - it usually will only work the other way, you might get a Windows 7 or 8 driver to work in Windows 10.

If the laptop is a newer model and was manufactured for Windows 10, the manufacturer isn't going to spend the money to make Windows 7 or 8 work on it.

 

I don't know about that HP but I'm using same drivers for AMD chipset and GPU, Same Realtek drivers for sound and network as well as printers etc.

 

I'm guessing, though, that you went from Windows 7 to 10? The OP wants to go the opposite way, from Windows 10 to 7.

 

I'm dual booting W7 and W10 on same computer. On different SSDs but still same thing.

 

And is it a newer laptop that the manufacture made after Windows 10 came out with Windows 10 loaded from the factory with no Windows 7 drivers available for from their website? At some point in time manufacturers simply stop supporting older operating systems and users who want to use older operating systems must either write their own drivers or hope they can stumble upon something compatible.

 

No, it's not a newer laptop but manufacturers often just keep on adding support for new components to older drivers. Those AMD drivers I have support couple of generations older GPUs than mine as well as newer generations and windows since Vista up to latest W10 insider edition. Same thing with Realtek.

 

Ok I will try that. The network adapter drivers I downloaded said that they were compatible with windows 7 x64 bit which is what I have. I'm at school right now prepping for exams. Thanks for the help.

 

Thank you I tried something similar but this seems to be way more feasible. This community has been great so far thank you for all the help guys!

 

Also note, the drive letter you create the folder to hold the drivers will probably change between booting Windows 10 and Windows 7 - your folder on E: drive in Windows 10 might be on C: drive in Windows 7.