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"Does an i7 7700K on "Z170" motherboard work with Windows 7. Help Urgent!

IconicEyE
Level 7

‎08-06-2017 11:55 PM - last edited on ‎03-05-2024 10:08 PM by Community Admin

I have been searching for over a week for an answer to my question.
Ok so we all know that Kabylake Z270 is no longer officially supported by windows 7. Skylake Z170 is Officially supported since that is what I currently have. I have a friend that bought a brand new Kabylake i7 7700K in anticipation for the Z170 board he plans to buy at the end of the mouth. My brother needs an i7 for his soon to be built Z170(he loves windows 7) and I can sell him my 6700K and then buy a 7700K with $40 loss.

My Question is will installing the Kabylake CPU in my Asus Maximus Z170 board cause issues with Windows 7. My basic understanding and assumption is that Windows 7 support ending with Skylake Z170 is more of a motherboard chipset issue rather than the CPU.

I tried Googling this and was not able to find an answer. So does anyone here know if the Windows 7 support is only specifically for Z170 with a Skylake CPU even though Z170 Motherboard fully support's KabyLake CPU's and the Intel drivers for windows 7 supporet are only for the chipset so I thought maybe the CPU will have no effect on the Z170 driver compatibility for windows. What I hope to do is install a KabyLake I7 7700K into my ASUS Maximus Alpha.
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haihane
Level 13

‎08-07-2017 12:49 AM

My basic understanding and assumption is that Windows 7 support ending with Skylake Z170 is more of a motherboard chipset issue rather than the CPU.

Windows 7 is ending support with any intel processor after Skylake (6th gen intel core series), the chipset itself is unaffected, at least not z170.

one such youtube video here. What happens when you install Windows 8 on a Kaby Lake system?? (windows 7, windows 8, close enough. the point is all that matters)
no siggy, saw stuff that made me sad.
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IconicEyE
Level 7
In response to haihane

‎08-07-2017 12:37 PM

haihane wrote:
Windows 7 is ending support with any intel processor after Skylake (6th gen intel core series), the chipset itself is unaffected, at least not z170.

one such youtube video here. What happens when you install Windows 8 on a Kaby Lake system?? (windows 7, windows 8, close enough. the point is all that matters)


huh? He is the deal from what I was just told from numerous other forums. Windows 7 works perfectly fine with Skylake. The problem is if you put a Kabylake CPU in a Z170 Motherboard then Windows 7 update after March 2017 will refuse to download anymore updates, since it detects the kabylake CPU.

However there is an easy work around. Just download the Windows 7 updates, manually. Since Win 7 updates are essentially 1 package file, it's really not a big deal. Windows 10 is Cancer and my setup is geared towards Windows 7. Old saying goes if it's ain't broke don't fix it.
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haihane
Level 13

‎08-07-2017 06:22 PM

After skylake.
read it again. i provided answers to all your questions.
no siggy, saw stuff that made me sad.
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IconicEyE
Level 7
In response to haihane

‎08-07-2017 06:41 PM

I appreciate the effort you made with regards to the videos you provided. I had seen the first one already. Thing is I know your stance is Windows 7 = 8 in a sense but I needed to know with certainty how Windows 7 specifically would react. Eventually I found someone with a Z170 that swapped out there 6600K to a 7700K using windows 7.

The last thing I need to worry about is having a $400 CPU on my hand only to find out it's not compatible with Windows 7. Most people's recommendation to me was stop being stubborn and move over to Windows 10. Well I have Windows 10 on my other SSD. I have 3 OS's on each SSD, (#2)Win 7 and (#1) Win 10.

The Only reason I wanted KabyLake was due to it's ease of overclocking to 5Ghz. I am told most 7700K's can clock to 5Ghz unlike Skylake which I can only get to 4.7Ghz with the voltage already at a high level. I was thinking of Deliding my 6700K(with Rocket 88 tool and Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut) in hopes to reduce temps and potentially get another 100-200mhz in the OC.
My system has a Custom Watercooler with 4 PWM Gentle Typhoons on a 480mm Copper Radiator.
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Blue11
Level 7
In response to IconicEyE

‎08-08-2017 01:19 PM

I have win 7 Pro running on a Kabylake i7 7700 and Maximus VIII. But I had to turn off ALL Microsoft updates to get it to work.

With updates on, it would check with Microsoft, then put up a "This processor is unsupported" huge banner, and then it would hang the machine.

I was OK with it until it repeatedly hung the machine, which is utterly obnoxious behavior, even for a scummy outfit like Microsoft.

So it seems if you're willing to do updates manually, it will run.

It's likely I will downgrade to Win10 shortly, as much as I despise the coercive way Microsoft has handled this, because I don't want to do endless manual updates to Windows and Office, and because who knows what insidious traps Microsoft will put into security updates to force the issue when it's most inconvenient.
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