Dell does not support Windows 7 on the 3147, so your not going to get drivers for 7 from Dell. It looks like a major PIA if you can get it to install, then hunt down Dell drivers that might work
Thanks for the advice, Joe C. I wont know for sure until I try it, but I think most of the Win 8 drivers will also work for 7, except for the fold-over-to-tablet and gyro/screen-rotation, which I don't care about. (I'm only using this as a "basic" small laptop for its portability, not for its 2-in-1 capability). Maybe I'll try 7 with loader instead of bios mod and see what happens. I'm reading the forum threads to learn how to do that!
See if there is an option in your bios to disable secure boot and set csm to legacy, If not then you'll need to get a modified bios for that too. Windows 7 won't be able to install with secure boot enabled
when u get it installed use sdi-tool.org lite version to update drivers i think the trick is to make a win 10 usb and add 7 to it. ACPI v5 issues as someone posted
Thanks for the advice! Secure boot is off, legacy is set. I'm running Linux Mint on it that way now. I'd rather not mod the bios, but I'm OK to try other MDL-vetted solutions that don't write to bios. If something doesn't work I can wipe the drive and restore Linux or win8 from my images. Thank you for the drivers link. I'll check it out for sure. Bear of small brain here ... I don't know anything about ACPI v5 issues (I'll do a search for that). When you say to add 7 to a Win 10 usb, do you mean I should make a multi-install win10+win7 usb and then install 7 from it? Can you please point me to a thread I should read to understand that "trick"? Thanks again to both of you! Sorry to be such a noob about this. I'm quite willing to read and learn, but I'm getting lost in the weeds among so many threads! It's an interesting (to me) challenge to try to do this. New hard drive should arrive in a couple of days, so I hope to try it this weekend. If I succeed I'll be sure to report what worked, or what didn't work if it fails.
Try Disable UEFI and use standard ACPI.. I had same laptop who has one this model.. works charm windows 7
Thanks, atgpud2003! That's very encouraging. I'm making my install usb today while waiting for new hard drive to arrive, and I still need to read about ACPI. I'm clueless but enjoy learning! Did the win8 drivers from Dell work in win7, or did you need to find others? I'll appreciate any advice! Thanks.
Thanks, LatinMcG! Getting the drivers from the link you gave looks like something I can do, even with my noobie skills. Waiting for the new drive to try this. The 3147 is a pain to replace the drive, but if 7 installs OK I can just put my current Linux drive into another laptop that needs a drive. Linux doesn't make trouble about hardware changes! I've been advised that the 3147 probably won't activate 7 OEM since it has no SLIC 2.1 table, only MSDM, so I still need Daz ldr if not bios mod. Reading & learning!
It took me a while, but I'm back to report SUCCESS. Legacy, secure boot off, Daz. Dell's Win 8 drivers for the 3147 also work in 7, as I'd hoped. (Some of my older Dells were sold with choice of 7 or 8. The 7 vs 8 Dell drivers for those models are bit-for-bit identical.) Then Simplix updates, and done. I had first tested 7 in VirtualBox with default drivers. That worked OK but too slow, also problems with drag&drop between Linux host and VB 7. No thanks! Now my little laptop is dual-booted with Win 7 and Linux Mint peacefully co-existing, and my docs, music, etc in a separate partition accessible to both. Many thanks to all for your excellent advice!
Hi ktgrrl! I'll be as short as I can. I have 2 Dell Inspirons 3147. I want to install Windows 7 on both of them. I've scoured the internet for ways on how to do it. So far I haven't been able to. It seems you're the only one that has been successful. Will you please provide detailed info on how exactly you did it? I have the latest BIOS A12. I have all the other BIOS versions, if need be, I can revert back to any of them. I tried installing Windows 7 using the setup.exe, Rufus, WinToUSB, WinToHDD, WindowsEasyInstall, but to no avail. Legacy mode, secure boot off, wiping HD clean (entire space on HD or external HD unallocated) don't seem to be enough. Did you tinker with the BIOS? BIOS ACPI? MSDM/Slic 2.1 tables? the Windows 7 ISO? etc.? I just need to be able to install Windows 7, I'll take it from there including the activation. I know it's 3 years after your last post, but I beg of you, please help. If you do, I want to say in advance Thank You!
Hi Drew121, Sorry for the very tardy reply. I haven't been on MDL for a while, now a happy Linux user and very seldom use Windows any more. I do still have a few versions of Win (98, XP, and 7) on an offline-only desktop for a few old Windows games and utilities. I still use my 3147 laptop daily but I no longer boot it with Win 7 since I prefer Linux for almost everything I do (I'm not much into fast-action gaming, which is a joke on a 3147 anyway). Now when needed I run Win 7 in VirtualBox on my 3147 under Linux Debian (but you could do the same under Win 10). I really do recommend running Win 7 in a virtual system instead of booting your system into it, and preferably use Win 7 offline since its update support (such as it is) is ending very soon. (Obvious work-around is good malware protection.) But YES, I did get Win 7 on my 3147's before I mostly gave up Windows. I'll try to reconstruct what did and didn't work. It's been a few years since I thought about this, so my memory may be sketchy! Just so you know before you jump into this: a few 3147 all-in-one features don't work in Win 7 (nor in Debian or Ubuntu; it's about drivers): There's no auto screen rotation and no auto keyboard/mouse lock-out when you fold the 3147 back in tent or tablet mode. (IIRC, the screen can be manually rotated in settings, but I bought the 3147 for its small size and weight as a travel laptop with keyboard, not as a tablet, so I don't much care about tent or tablet mode.) Touch screen works in Win 7 though, with the Win 8.1 drivers downloaded from Dell, so I put some fingertip-sized icons on the task bar, including toggle for on-screen touch keyboard, links to browser and folders (docs, pix, ebooks, music, videos), and I set the taskbar to auto-hide so I could use the 3147 as a touch-only device in tablet mode with only the shortcuts I'd want in that mode. ALSO, it is true that the 3147 isn't ACPI compliant. This is a known issue with Baytrail and maybe some other CPUs. I'll go out in a limb here and guess that Dell and others finagled their BIOS or some other proprietary files to work around it when they shipped it with Win 8.1 and probably Win 10 (I never upgraded to 10 so I don't know). I know in Linux Debian I see an ACPI warning message every time I boot up my 3147, but it always starts up, sleeps, and shuts down OK, doesn't overheat, and AFAIK doesn't cause any problems. So as long as the laptop works and I make frequent data backups I've quit worrying about it! So here's what I did to install Win 7 on my 3147. From Windows I used Rufus to make a bootable Win 7 setup USB. No special files or tweaks, just untouched Dell OEM. I also downloaded for my archives all the BIOS versions and Win 8.1 drivers for the 3147 from Dell's support site. (Dell never offered the 3147 with Win 7, but Win 8.1 drivers for that model work in Win 7 with the exceptions noted above, probably because the "all-in-one" hardware came out after Win 8 became the standard for OEM PC sales). I think I updated BIOS to A12 but most of the BIOS updates were to fix Dell's problems with Win 8 and later 10 (mine shipped with A03 I think). I also downloaded Win 7 updates from MDL's no-telemetry thread and saved them on USB along with Win 7 drivers, browser installer, and a malware blocker. I didn't edit Slic/MSDM or tinker with anything. I never did allow the upgrade to Win10 when it was pushed out so vigorously, but I recall reading that it wrote some identifying/licensing changes there if installed. That may make a difference installing Win 7 afterwards. {***Edited: Not quite! See my msg previous to yours. I had to use Daz ldr after all. And I installed Win 7 as a dual-boot with Linux, not clean from a fresh drive. It DOES work fine in VirtualBox on Linux now that I know what I'm doing in VB. My bad/aging memory has failed me yet again, maybe because I've installed Win 7 and/or Linux on so many PCs when folks ran away from Win 10. Sorry for the confusion! ***} All I did was change Boot mode to Legacy and turned off Secure Boot, enabled USB boot so I could install from a USB stick. Doing that if your laptop currently has Windows 8 or 10 installed you'll probably get a warning that Windows will fail to boot! I ignored the warning because I was going to install a fresh system anyway. Then, since I didn't want to wipe out my then-existing Win 8.1 system ("just in case") I swapped out my hard drive for a new one. Started the laptop with my Rufus Win 7 USB stick and let it install Win 7 as usual. Then, still offline, I added from USB the already downloaded Dell drivers, Win 7 updates, browser installer, malware blocker. Turn off Win 7 updates, turn on malware blocker, then set up wifi and it should be good to go. I don't know if you can still activate Win 7 online since it's almost at EOL. If you have (or make) a Dell OEM it's already pre-activated for any Dell PC (but you might still need Daz for this laptop -- I forget now and can't find my notes on the installation). But if you install Win 7 in VirtualBox, IIRC you want Acer OEM instead of Dell because that's what VB wants! Sorry for being so long-winded. Best wishes for a successful installation. Hope I've helped!
well I've seen & heard XP systems can still be activated online in 2019, even though that one is way past EOL so I don't see any reason why Win7 can't still be activated thru internet as I think I've done it on a relative's PC that came pre-installed with Win7
Thanks, Good to know MS hasn't pulled the plug on XP activation. I really just intended a caveat if or when MS chooses not to activate a legit license sometime after a version of Windows (in this case Win7) has reached EOL. MS can change their policy any time they like. My insurance is to do a fresh install with drivers, patches, fave programs & all the bells & whistles I like, set my preferences, then clone to a backup drive stored on a shelf. Drew121 is doing a first-time install of Win 7 on his Dell 3147 (not a re-install), so I was thinking he might be installing Retail, not OEM. OEM is tied to a brand of PC, usually pre-installed with PC, and pre-activated even if fresh-installed on a different model PC of the same brand. For my Dell 3147 I used a Win7 Dell OEM disk, Daz, and the Win8.1 drivers for 3147 downloaded from Dell's support site. Activation wasn't an issue. Nowadays I'm nearly all Linux. but I do keep XP and 7 for a few old favorite programs. I haven't thought much about WinXP or Win7 installation, tweaks, upgrades, or activation for a few years. My memory for those issues is fading, so to avoid further confusion I think I should refrain from further commentary in this thread unless I can find and review my old notes against what I've reported here. I really can't say why some folks failed to make Win7 work on the 3147 and I succeeded (also apparently atgpud2003 in post 26 above), but if I discover or recall something helpful to add or change I'll say so. Meanwhile, best wishes for success to anyone else who tries!
XP should still activate fine if you have the current MS certificates present. Activation failures are due to outdated certificates, mostly.