Can you install Windows 7 on a Intel compute stick?

Those sticks use either Atom Bay Trail or the newer Cherry Trail SoCs that never had official support under Windows 7. It's probably possible, I've not seen anything on others trying to install Windows 7 on devices with these Atoms before. I'd say that Windows 10 is probably better suited for these kinds of devices anyway. Linux distros are officially support on some of them as well.
 
Windows 10 would be even better to run on a devices like this. Specifically, outside of what heat mentioned, Windows 10 allows you to compact the OS files to take up less room on the tiny 32GB of storage.
 
bigdogchris said:
Windows 10 would be even better to run on a devices like this. Specifically, outside of what heat mentioned, Windows 10 allows you to compact the OS files to take up less room on the tiny 32GB of storage.
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W7 does this too.
 
Monkey God said:
Thats different, more of an automatic function for specific files. I am talking about compressing the NTFS file system in its entirety.
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The stuff we're talking about is for minimizing the footprint of a Windows install. NTFS compression isn't recommended for system files.
 
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heatlesssun said:
The stuff we're talking about is for minimizing the footprint of a Windows install. NTFS isn't recommended for system files.
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You're not very technical, are you? NTFS most certainly is recommended for the OS partition and has been since XP.

Stop trying to be Microsoft's marketing arm when you don't understand what you are talking about.
 
heatlesssun said:
The stuff we're talking about is for minimizing the footprint of a Windows install. NTFS isn't recommended for system files.
Click to expand...

What is this... I don't even... ;)

Considering NTFS has been the primary file system for Windows for a long time now - and it has always been the recommendation for NT-based versions of Windows because they're the ones that were designed for business/commercial use (you know, some level of actual administrative control over the system at the file system level which FAT/FAT32 cannot provide or support) until Vista came around and started using NTFS by default - I would have to say that seemed like a really odd statement from you considering your experience and knowledge with Windows systems.
 
Tiberian said:
What is this... I don't even... ;)

Considering NTFS has been the primary file system for Windows for a long time now - and it has always been the recommendation for NT-based versions of Windows because they're the ones that were designed for business/commercial use (you know, some level of actual administrative control over the system at the file system level which FAT/FAT32 cannot provide or support) until Vista came around and started using NTFS by default - I would have to say that seemed like a really odd statement from you considering your experience and knowledge with Windows systems.
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Huh, heatlessun comes around as windows know-it-all and now this? Is his account hijacked or was he always just a troll?
 
Monkey God said:
You're not very technical, are you? NTFS most certainly is recommended for the OS partition and has been since XP.

Stop trying to be Microsoft's marketing arm when you don't understand what you are talking about.
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Tiberian said:
What is this... I don't even... ;)

Considering NTFS has been the primary file system for Windows for a long time now - and it has always been the recommendation for NT-based versions of Windows because they're the ones that were designed for business/commercial use (you know, some level of actual administrative control over the system at the file system level which FAT/FAT32 cannot provide or support) until Vista came around and started using NTFS by default - I would have to say that seemed like a really odd statement from you considering your experience and knowledge with Windows systems.
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LOL! I left out "compression" and yes NTFS is not recommended for system files: http://www.howtogeek.com/133264/how-to-use-ntfs-compression-and-when-you-might-want-to/. And as for being technical, we weren't originally talking about NTFS compression anyway. And you probably DON'T want to use NTFS compression on an Atom based system with eMMC storage anyway.
 
Compression has its drawbacks for sure, and W10 does some cool stuff with it, but to say earlier versions dont compress the OS partition along with system files is just plain ignorant.

I dont like W10 in general, but it does have some advantages, like fast boot times.
 
heatlesssun said:
OL! I left out "compression" and yes NTFS is not recommended for system files: http://www.howtogeek.com/133264/how-to-use-ntfs-compression-and-when-you-might-want-to/.
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I can appreciate that website has to post articles to feed ads to survive like most but, that entire tidbit about NTFS compression not being recommended for system files is utterly ludicrous. Been using that for many years now without a single issue - yes that's my case scenario and no I can't say others might have had the same experience but what I can say is that you'll never find anyone at Microsoft that would dare say it's not recommended for system files in general or even specific case scenarios.

The type of advanced compression that Windows 10 offers (Xpress8K, Xpress16K, and LZX) is not the same thing as the standard compression style used from Explorer and is done from the command line on an as-needed basis (since it can be configured so granularly). They offer better compression than the typical NTFS stuff that's been around for a long time now (based on the original "DoubleSpace" compression that was part of MS-DOS 6 long long ago, just simple compression that offers up to 2:1 ratios but is incredibly fast in operation).

But saying compression is bad for any file system, that's insane, really. Hell, it even helps improve performance on today's monster processor based hardware, even with SSDs things get faster overall when file system compression is enabled, it doesn't hurt performance on modern machines, not at all.
 
Monkey God said:
Compression has its drawbacks for sure, and W10 does some cool stuff with it, but to say earlier versions dont compress the OS partition along with system files is just plain ignorant.

I dont like W10 in general, but it does have some advantages, like fast boot times.
Click to expand...

I never said that you can't compress entire volumes. But NTFS compression of system files in NOT RECOMMENDED. That's not what the Windows 10 image compression is anyway and it's not available in Windows 7. And I seriously doubt anyone would want to compress an volume on eMMC storage with an Atom SoC for performance reasons, which is why Microsoft came up with these new methods since a lot of Windows 10 devices run on this type of hardware.

And back the original problem with Windows 7 on this type of hardware, there is no official support. You'd only have desktop apps and on low end hardware there are performance reasons UWAs can have advantages. There a number of video content apps like Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc. that will perform better than web sites, especially ones that use Flash.
 
Monkey God said:
W7 does this too.
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NTFS compression and OS Compaction are two completely different things. So no, Windows 7 does not do what I was talking about.

I would never use NTFS compression on a system drive (C:\). I don't like using it on non-system drives if I can help it (except maybe log folders).
 
Tiberian said:
But saying compression is bad for any file system, that's insane, really. Hell, it even helps improve performance on today's monster processor based hardware, even with SSDs things get faster overall when file system compression is enabled, it doesn't hurt performance on modern machines, not at all.
Click to expand...

I didn't say that NTFS compression was bad for anything. I said it's not recommended for system files. Period. And we're talking about an Atom SoC based systems here, hardly a monster processor. Slow CPU and storage aren't going to work well with compression, that's the worst possible combination.

Don't know why some want to overanalyze this. The OP question was about Windows 7 on Atom Bay Trail and Cherry Trail Intel compute sticks. That's not officially supported. The new Windows 10 footprint compression methods are specifically for these kinds of devices, because of the small capacity and slow performance. And you really don't want to use NTFS compression on an Atom SoC combined with eMMC storage. Pretty cut and dry and non-controversial stuff here.
 
Think about all of the writes compression causes when every single file that is changed needs to be unpacked and re-written. That would cause havoc on this type of NAND.
 
Compute sticks are impressive little devices, but naturally fairly limited power wise. While compressing files under W10 makes perfect sense considering the storage capacity of the devices, wouldn't decompression suck up system resources making the device far less responsive?
 
If you install a 32 bit 8.1 copy, you might get the proper compatibility and all the drivers.

That being said, if you really want windows 7(I do too)

It can be done, Without video card drivers.. (Will use microsoft generic driver.)
You will need to use NTLite and build yourself a win 7 os install.
With NTLite you need to add eMMc and usb 3 Drivers into your install package.
There is also an "unofficial service pack you might want to slipstream"
Create your Iso
Use Rufus to 'burn' image to Thumb Drive
You can also cut packages out, creating a "lite" version of the OS.(could also mess up the install pretty bad)

The eMMc drivers will be pretty hard to find although I've read generic ones do exist.
The usb 3 drivers should be easy enough.

I have a couple intel sticks 2GB Ram, 32 gig eMMc, atom 8350.

I have installed 8.1 64 and 32 bit. + ClassicShell(gives you windows 7 start bar instead of stupid Metro)

If you ever find the proper emmc driver, please share..

I gave up on this same project after a couple days searching.. (might go looking again)Update: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1094911/Dfi-Bt551.html?page=57

People say that windows 10 is "faster", windows 7 is heavier. I say that is some BS..
Windows 10 might boot slightly faster but overall performance will be better on 7.
You can get window 7 to run stable on as few as 15-18 processes.
Try doing that on windows 10. You also get a much smaller install size, which is great for a 32gb drive.
 
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INEEDLIANG said:
If you install a 32 bit 8.1 copy, you might get the proper compatibility and all the drivers.

That being said, if you really want windows 7(I do too)

It can be done, Without video card drivers.. (Will use microsoft generic driver.)
You will need to use NTLite and build yourself a win 7 os install.
With NTLite you need to add eMMc and usb 3 Drivers into your install package.
There is also an "unofficial service pack you might want to slipstream"
Create your Iso
Use Rufus to 'burn' image to Thumb Drive
You can also cut packages out, creating a "lite" version of the OS.(could also mess up the install pretty bad)

The eMMc drivers will be pretty hard to find although I've read generic ones do exist.
The usb 3 drivers should be easy enough.

I have a couple intel sticks 2GB Ram, 32 gig eMMc, atom 8350.

I have installed 8.1 64 and 32 bit. + ClassicShell(gives you windows 7 start bar instead of stupid Metro)

If you ever find the proper emmc driver, please share..

I gave up on this same project after a couple days searching.. (might go looking again)

People say that windows 10 is "faster", windows 7 is heavier. I say that is some BS..
Windows 10 might boot slightly faster but overall performance will be better on 7.
You can get window 7 to run stable on as few as 15-18 processes.
Try doing that on windows 10. You also get a much smaller install size, which is great for a 32gb drive.
Click to expand...
Windows 7 is end of life and gets no security updates anymore. Using it online is a form of insanity.
 
B00nie said:
Windows 7 is end of life and gets no security updates anymore. Using it online is a form of insanity.
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It depends on what it's use is.. As a server, or a web browsing machine, I agree. For single program use.. eh.
 
INEEDLIANG said:
It depends on what it's use is.. As a server, or a web browsing machine, I agree. For single program use.. eh.
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For a single program and Windows firewalled with an external firewall or NAT, sure. Without a firewall Win7 is very suspectible to worms etc. network based attacks. Of course I would never connect a Windows box directly to the network regardless of the version.
 
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