Ahh boy, I loaded the NVME drivers onto a SATA drive and attached it to the target PC. I booted the windows installation USB and pointed the install to the drive. NONE of the drivers allowed Windows 7 to see the SSD. I guess it really does depend on Windows 7 having "native" support. Puzzling as I am using a Win 7 PC now that has a PCIe SSD as the C: drive and I *never* hotfixed the Win 7 install disc. For now at least, I am done wasting my time on this; I purchased a Win 10 key and am waiting for the email. Hopefully, all of me software will work and I don't have to replace it.

Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

Jeff

@pepar
It is my understanding that the Microsoft hotfixes make the NVMe drive fully functional within Windows 7 (by patching the install.wim file), but has nothing to do with booting into Windows 7. When you boot into the Windows 7 installer from a USB3.0 flash drive, you will get a popup (A required CD/DVD device driver is missing...) that lets you know it can't find media it can read from. At this point you have to direct it to the USB3.0 drivers (on a USB2.0 flash drive or CD/DVD) so it can continue to read the install files from the Windows 7 USB3.0 flash drive. Intel USB3.0 requires two drivers (I don't know about AMD), and it won't see the second driver until the first one has been loaded and the "rescan" button has been pressed. At this point the installer can read the install files on your USB3.0 flash drive, but probably won't be able to see the new NVMe drive. So now you have to direct it to the Samsung NVMe driver, and then it will see the NVMe drive and allow you to install to it.

The problem here is USB3.0, which Windows 7 was not designed to use, because it didn't exist at the time. That's why I said I put the USB3.0 and Samsung NVMe drivers onto a separate USB2.0 flash drive. I think you have to patch the boot.wim file to add USB3.0 support to the installer. I just found a YouTube video that looks like it will work (haven't tried it yet), so you may want to check it out.

The install would only see X:\ drive, the virtual drive created to do the install. It didn't see the optical drive or USB drive (from which the Win7 install ran). It would see a SATA drive. As much as I am going to have another vodka because of the thought of it, I am posting this from the Win 10 install.

I will check out the video you linked in case I need to "degrade."

@pepar
I just finished attempting to use Gigabyte's Windows USB Tool that is supposed to automatically integrate the USB3.0 drivers, NVMe hotfixes, and Samsung NVMe drivers. But every version I tried would not access the USB3.0 drivers, and would blue screen when I attempted to install the USB3.0 drivers from a separate USB2.0 flash drive. In the end, I used just an unmodified OEM version of Windows 7 x64, installed the USB3.0 drivers when it asked for them, installed the Samsung v3.0 NVMe driver to make the secure erased 960 EVO visible, installed Windows 7, and installed the hotfixes and Samsung NVMe driver once I got to the desktop. So, I'm not seeing any good reason to integrate the hotfixes at this point. It would be nice to integrate the USV3.0 drivers and Samsung NVMe driver into the boot.wim file manually so I won't have to do it during setup. Maybe when I have more time.

When your install sees only the X: drive, that's when you plug in a USB2.0 flash drive that has the USB3.0 drivers on it. I can't speak for other manufacturers NVMe SSD's, but the Win7 install won't see a clean Samsung NVMe SSD (other than a 950) until you install the Samsung driver also.

@Fernando
Hello Dieter
As I mentioned in the last post, I secure erased a 960 EVO (and verified the secure erase), used an un-altered OEM Win7x64 SP1 ISO (from my Microsoft DVD, with no hotfixes or modifications of any kind), and installed Intel USB3.0 drivers during the Windows 7 install process when the popup message said "A required CD\DVD device driver is missing...". At that point I got to the "Where do you want to install Windows" screen, which showed no available drives or partitions. I installed the Samsung v3.0 NVMe "pure" driver, and the full unallocated space of the 960 EVO was now in the window and selectable. Windows 7 installed to it without any issues. It booted to the desktop, and I installed the two hotfixes (even though they didn't appear to be necessary at this point), and then the Samsung NVM Express Driver 2.3. This is not the first time I have installed Windows 7 without the hotfixes being integrated. Not to mention that only the install.wim file was actually modified when I integrated the hotfixes. It seems to me, that the install.wim file contains the OS installation files, and the boot.wim file contains the files necessary to start and run the installer. Therefore, the USB3.0 and Samsung NVMe drivers would need to be integrated into the boot.wim file, and the hotfixes (if they were necessary) would be integrated into the install.wim file. Which is why the boot.wim file is only 160MB, and the install.wim file is 2.75GB.

I'm not sure what else I can do to show that the hotfixes were not at all necessary during the installation of Windows 7. If you can see any flaw in what I did to achieve this, let me know. I checked the size of the .wim files in the ISO and confirmed that they were not modded (2.75GB without hotfixes, 2.79 with hotfixes).

@Fernando
It seems to me, that when the Samsung "pure" NVMe driver is installed during the Windows 7 installation (because the installer cannot see the SSD), that the Samsung "pure" NVMe driver is integrated into Windows 7 at that point. That seems to be the thought in this thread. Otherwise, the OS would not have booted to the desktop. I'm inclined to think that the hotfixes are for an existing Windows 7 OS, to support an added NVMe SSD. But, installing the Samsung driver in Windows 7 would be doing the same thing, without using the Microsoft NVMe driver (hotfix). So, if you have a Samsung NVMe SSD, do you need the Microsoft hotfixes? I think you can use the manufacturers drivers (as with any other hardware) and not use Microsoft's hotfix, which is essentially just a driver update.

Zitat von boanerges1 im Beitrag #9

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Zitat

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Who is the manufacturer of the SSD?

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it is from Lenovo
LENSE20512GMSP
LENSE20256GMSP

I think I was able to apply the hotfix that you are saying in my Windows 7 setup, it is now detecting my nvme SSD, however I am unable to select it as it is asking for a driver. I believe this is where I should select the correct driver for my nvme controller.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help...indows-7-and-wi

Here's a quick clip
https://vimeo.com/264582798

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I had the exact same issue - the windows 7 installer can even detect the NVMe-drive, but you can't install windows on it.
For my Windows 7 SP2.8-series I want to have native NVMe-support with using MS's two NVMe-Updates. I ordered a ssdpekkw 12 for this, that, for my surprise, supports installation to it in GPT and MBR, for testing/developing. It took me 6 really fu**ing frustrating hours to figure it out (due to my ADHD i can get annoyed pretty fast). To get it working like i wanted to - using Gigabyte's Tool or combining a Windows 10's ISO and a Windows 7's install.wim, which would both work, tested it - wasn't an option for me because but I want it to have as Windows 7-native as possible.
Here's how i did it:
It took me some 'attempt's' to really notice it but in MS's how-to there's an, at least for me, unusal way for slipstreaming this:
First you have to add the two updates as usual, but DIRECTLY AFTER slipstreaming the two updates, you need to copy the contents from your mount-directory to the sources-directory that you use to create your ISO later:

dism /mount-wim /wimfile:w:\extract\sources\boot.wim /mountdir:%mount% /index:2
dism /image:%mount% /Add-Package /PackagePath:%v1%Updates\%arc%\NVMe
dism /image:%mount% /add-driver /driver:%v1%driver\%arc%\usb3 /recurse /forceunsigned
xcopy /s /y %mount%\sources w:\extract\sources
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:%mount% /commit

Hope this helps, interested in replys.

Zitat von Paulos7 im Beitrag #36

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@Fernando
Hello Dieter
As I mentioned in the last post, I secure erased a 960 EVO (and verified the secure erase), used an un-altered OEM Win7x64 SP1 ISO (from my Microsoft DVD, with no hotfixes or modifications of any kind), and installed Intel USB3.0 drivers during the Windows 7 install process when the popup message said "A required CD\DVD device driver is missing...". At that point I got to the "Where do you want to install Windows" screen, which showed no available drives or partitions. I installed the Samsung v3.0 NVMe "pure" driver, and the full unallocated space of the 960 EVO was now in the window and selectable. Windows 7 installed to it without any issues. It booted to the desktop, and I installed the two hotfixes (even though they didn't appear to be necessary at this point), and then the Samsung NVM Express Driver 2.3. This is not the first time I have installed Windows 7 without the hotfixes being integrated. Not to mention that only the install.wim file was actually modified when I integrated the hotfixes. It seems to me, that the install.wim file contains the OS installation files, and the boot.wim file contains the files necessary to start and run the installer. Therefore, the USB3.0 and Samsung NVMe drivers would need to be integrated into the boot.wim file, and the hotfixes (if they were necessary) would be integrated into the install.wim file. Which is why the boot.wim file is only 160MB, and the install.wim file is 2.75GB.

I'm not sure what else I can do to show that the hotfixes were not at all necessary during the installation of Windows 7. If you can see any flaw in what I did to achieve this, let me know. I checked the size of the .wim files in the ISO and confirmed that they were not modded (2.75GB without hotfixes, 2.79 with hotfixes).

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@PitKoz - Here's two ways to do clean install on HDD/SSD, then clone to NVME, maybe this will at least save you some hassles/headache from trying to use the "upgrade" methods

Clone SSD to NVME (Clean installed, or current in-use OS) - This will work for Win7 or Win10 (I know for sure "My Way" will work for Win7 or Win10, have done both myself during my first NVME tests)
[Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS (330)
Installing Clean Win7x64 on M2.2280 PCIe Gen3x4 SSD A-DATA SX8200 Pro << My way

@Lost_N_BIOS
This I can do easy installation on NVMe it is done swiftly, but upgrade is not working. Neither upgrade to 10 from 7 nor within same system edition. Win 10 did upgrade itself to 1909 or so (last edition), Enterprise LTSC did not, nor Win 7.

Upgrade is not suggested for Win7 or Win10, in a normal situation I would advise against that anyway (on HDD/SSD even). Do clean install, clone, done.
If you must "Upgrade-method" is 100% required for you due to some workround you needed, do all that on the HDD/SSD, then follow my guide to clone to NVME

If you mean Win10 doesn't seem to be updating/upgrading from within OS Windows Update options, sometimes you have to wait a while (or force via certain methods), they aren't always pushing out updates to everyone in the world at same time.