Confused about Win 7 Legacy or UEFI

[soloalpinist]

I'm on a Windows 7 Pro machine and I'm trying to find out if it is Legacy or UEFI.

I have accessed the "Windows> R" to the "MSInfo 32" window and it does NOT say whether it is Legacy of UEFI.
Under BIOS it says "Megatrend 2014" but nothing about whether it is Legacy or UEFI.

I'm in the process of installing another separate SSD to install Windows 10 to have a Dual Boot System and as I understand it both systems must be the same BIOS type and also both MBR as my Windows 7 is MBR. Is this correct?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Math Geek]

uefi/lagacy is set in the bios so it stays the same for both installs. it won't swap back and forth. you'll have to look in the bios t see what it is set to.

you can use both mbr and gpt if you keep the installs separate.

what i mean is you remove EVERY drive but the one for win 10 and get it up and running as gpt. then once it is working, you reconnect the other drives. you set the default OS in bios and press f8 at boot to change to the other one.

you do not get the single multi-boot menu this way which some people like to have. but it runs the same and a simple f8 let's you pick and chose.

i have a system running this exactly so i know it works. again though disconnect every drive except the one for win 10 or it will find the win 7 install and set-up that multiboot menu which limits options. plus you get all the weird partitions you can never figure out which goes with what and so on.

 

[kerberos_20]

uefi was added in windows 8, so win 7 is legacy, it can be instaled in hybrid uefi mode on gpt drive with efi partition, but int10h bios call needs to be also available (CSM on)

 

[soloalpinist]

uefi/lagacy is set in the bios so it stays the same for both installs. it won't swap back and forth. you'll have to look in the bios t see what it is set to.

you can use both mbr and gpt if you keep the installs separate.

what i mean is you remove EVERY drive but the one for win 10 and get it up and running as gpt. then once it is working, you reconnect the other drives. you set the default OS in bios and press f8 at boot to change to the other one.

you do not get the single multi-boot menu this way which some people like to have. but it runs the same and a simple f8 let's you pick and chose.

i have a system running this exactly so i know it works. again though disconnect every drive except the one for win 10 or it will find the win 7 install and set-up that multiboot menu which limits options. plus you get all the weird partitions you can never figure out which goes with what and so on.

As I stated I've been looking in BIOS and it specifies neither. ... I don't know why.

Will Windows 10 work fine with MBR... just to keep things simple?

 

[soloalpinist]

uefi was added in windows 8, so win 7 is legacy, it can be instaled in hybrid uefi mode on gpt drive with efi partition, but int10h bios call needs to be also available (CSM on)

So Windows 7 is never UEFI? Can Windows 10 be run with MBR to keep things simple? Also... I don't know what you mean by:

" but int10h bios call needs to be also available (CSM on)"

 

[kerberos_20]

So Windows 7 is never UEFI? Can Windows 10 be run with MBR to keep things simple? Also... I don't know what you mean by:

windows 7 is dinosaur, windows 10 can boot from MBR
int 10H

 

[Math Geek]

Win 10 works fine on mbr. No worries there

 

[geofelt]

Look at your bios display.
If it is simple monochrome format, it will be in legacy mode.
If it looks like a web page with colors, it is UEFI.
At some point, some motherboards enabled a choice between each format.
At some point, say the GTX7xx era, graphics cards changed from legacy to uefi.
I don't think the version of windows makes any difference.
If you have a legacy graphics card, it will not be recognized on a UEFI bios.
For that reason, some motherboards enabled legacy connection capability. CSM, I think it is called.
In a similar vein, some transitional graphics cards had a switch to enable either mode.