Question Replacing MOBO with same brand - OS question

[slatchley1]

I found a used ASRock X99 Extreme6 LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard to replace my dead one. It looks like it had/has win 10 on it. How big a deal to delete the os and install win 7. I need win 7 to run my large format printers as I have never been able to get them to work with win10

 

[Darkbreeze]

It looks like it had/has win 10 on it.

The motherboard can't "have Windows 10 on it" because windows isn't stored, installed or otherwise relevant to anything having to do with the motherboard. If this is a whole system you bought, then perhaps it had it on the hard drive or SSD, but that is where windows would be located, on a hard drive or solid state drive, not on the motherboard. Motherboard doesn't really have a lot to do with it so long as there are drivers available for that specific motherboard chipset on the Windows version you wish to run.

In this case, Windows 7 has X99 chipset drivers available, although I don't recommend running Windows 7 anymore since official support for it ends in January and running it after that will mean running a system that is vulnerable to security risks once they stop providing security updates for it.

An option might be to run Windows 10 and run Windows 7 IN Windows 10 as a VM in order to use your printer. IDK for sure that that will work, but it certainly seems possible.

 

[slatchley1]

The motherboard can't "have Windows 10 on it" because windows isn't stored, installed or otherwise relevant to anything having to do with the motherboard. If this is a whole system you bought, then perhaps it had it on the hard drive or SSD, but that is where windows would be located, on a hard drive or solid state drive, not on the motherboard. Motherboard doesn't really have a lot to do with it so long as there are drivers available for that specific motherboard chipset on the Windows version you wish to run.

In this case, Windows 7 has X99 chipset drivers available, although I don't recommend running Windows 7 anymore since official support for it ends in January and running it after that will mean running a system that is vulnerable to security risks once they stop providing security updates for it.

An option might be to run Windows 10 and run Windows 7 IN Windows 10 as a VM in order to use your printer. IDK for sure that that will work, but it certainly seems possible.

Yes I do get that it isn’t really on the mobo but that win 10 drivers are as this came out of a win10 system so that was really my question ie how hard to start from scratch and delete all 10 drivers

Been thinking maybe should just buy a cheap used win7 system to print from and build a new win10 system

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is the model of the printer that you have had issues printing from in Windows 10?

 

[slatchley1]

It’s an HP Z3200 and I have been unable to get the HP print utility to work which allows me to profile papers, etc, etc

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to tell you on that one.

I'm assuming you've tried all of the drivers listed here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-designjet-z3200-photo-printer-series/3737543

 

[slatchley1]

Yup

 

[Darkbreeze]

Let me look into this some more. Maybe there is a workaround that works. Have you updated the firmware on the printer to the latest firmware?

 

[slatchley1]

I had. This was a year or so ago when my current (dead) machine first started having trouble I bought a nice asus ROG laptop and tried everything to get the printer to work and then tried to switch it to win7 only to find out, as you all know, that newer machines won’t accept win7

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, let me look into this like I said and I'll get back with you a little later.

 

[slatchley1]

Thx

 

[Darkbreeze]

I think you may be stuck doing exactly what you outlined, which is using an older system or building a system that will allow Windows 7 to be used. I've talked to a few people about this and looked at a variety of HP forum threads among others and I think the problem is not that the drivers don't work with Windows 10, because it seems like they do, but that the supporting software and utilities are based on code that was intended for use with Windows 7 and it seem to me like HP has simply abandoned the effort without bothering to update those applications and utilities with versions that are compatible with both Windows 10 and the printer itself.

Unfortunately without HP playing ball, it's almost impossible to resolve issues like this and since this is all Win7 era hardware and software, which means at best around 7 years ago, it's long past the point at which the manufacturer feels compelled to dedicate resources to resolving those issues.

Token efforts are all you are likely to see from them really. Sorry man, I don't have any other answers for you that are better.

The other problem is that with Windows 7, unlike Windows 8.1 and 10, the licenses weren't easily transferred to a new system if you installed a new motherboard because that effectively would have looked like a new computer to Windows. It can be done however. If you contact Microsoft, explain that you have had a motherboard failure and need to reactivate your Windows license on the new machine, it should not be a problem for you to simply connect your existing Windows 7 installation to the new hardware and have MS walk you through the activation process. Replacing a motherboard is not something that should permanently cause you to lose your legitimately activated copy of Windows so long as you still have that OS installation on disk or have your product key and can reinstall Windows 7.

 

[slatchley1]

Thank you for all your efforts on my behalf. I actually had to go through the win7 reinstallation process on this machine a year ago when it seemed dead but came back to life. It wasn’t fun. I’ve been lucky that I keep all of my photographs on externals or removables. The only real disappointment is that my c drive is an m.2 and I have had no luck finding an external case for it to get the info off of it. Don’t think I’ll do that again.

 

[slatchley1]

So that brings up another question. If I stick my m.2 (which was my c drive) into the new machine will I be able to read it and reinstall win7 back onto it?

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's tricky with Windows 7. That OS did not have any support for NVME boot drives when it was still the latest OS version, and since then it depends largely on the hardware. You should probably be fine, but obviously I can't make you any guarantees. It's certainly worth trying. It might be worth taking it to a reputable builder or service center to do the task for you if you are uncomfortable with the process.