Legacy > uefi bootloader

[Kid.Lazer]

I have a bunch of Windows 7-era Acer laptops at work that I am trying to install Windows 11 onto to give them a longer life (and just for fun). The problem is that they have an old-school bios that won't automatically boot from an efi partition (not selectable in the boot order). However, they WILL boot them from within the manual boot selection with F12, so it works, but it's not very user-friendly.

 

What I wanted to do was install a bootloader (like Clover) as an intermediary so the stock BIOS can load it, which will then automatically boot Windows.

 

Is clover my best option here or is there a better alternative? Please let me know your experiences!

[GoodBytes]

19 hours ago, Kid.Lazer said:

I have a bunch of Windows 7-era Acer laptops at work that I am trying to install Windows 11 onto to give them a longer life (and just for fun).

Those system aren't Windows 11 compatible. Expect a serious performance loss running Windows 11 on them due to the CPU lack of needed security acceleration hardware that Windows 11 expect the CPU to have. Battery life will also get a hit. 

 

Additionally, Windows 11 system requirement requires an SSD. The OS is no longer optimized for HDDs, and it already the case with the recent Win10 releases.

 

19 hours ago, Kid.Lazer said:

The problem is that they have an old-school bios that won't automatically boot from an efi partition (not selectable in the boot order). However, they WILL boot them from within the manual boot selection with F12, so it works, but it's not very user-friendly.

UEFI might be too new for the system, depending on the system age. Windows 7 barely supported EFI, and most manufacturer implemented a hybrid EFI designed specifically for Win7. BIOS update might help the situation if it is a later system which might also work with Windows 8.

 

 

[Kid.Lazer]

24 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Those system aren't Windows 11 compatible. Expect a serious performance loss running Windows 11 on them due to the CPU lack of needed security acceleration hardware that Windows 11 expect the CPU to have. Battery life will also get a hit.

I'm well aware of these issues, but it's not something I'm too concerned with.

 

25 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Additionally, Windows 11 system requirement requires an SSD. The OS is no longer optimized for HDDs, and it already the case with the recent Win10 releases.

These systems already have SSD upgrades.
 

26 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

BIOS update might help the situation

This is not an option as they never got any updates (at least nothing listed publicly)

 

27 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

UEFI might be too new for the system

Again, I am well aware, hence the entire point of this topic. The BIOS seems to not scan for EFI bootloaders initially when populating the boot priority list, but will discover them (and be able to boot them correctly) when manual boot option is selected.

[Kid.Lazer]

2 hours ago, Kid.Lazer said:

This is not an option as they never got any updates (at least nothing listed publicly)

This was incorrect. Acer did release new UEFI updates, but they locked down the upgrade process. The BIOS update program does a version check and won't allow the update, even if it's compatible (Legacy BIOS versions are 1.x, UEFI is 2.x). Apparently there is a way to disable the check with a hex editor, but I wasn't able to find a guide that matched the extracted file structure of my particular updater. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, be my guest!

 

 

BIOS_Acer_2.14_A_A.zip

[Kid.Lazer]

Problem solved!

 

After watching a Russian youtube video, and reading a very sparse "guide" I was able to figure out how to edit the BIOS and configuration files to bypass the version check. I just tested it out on one of the systems, and it now has all the UEFI boot options, which is great since I won't have to futz with a separate bootloader.

 

For future reference (since it wasn't included in the OP), this is an Acer Aspire V3-551, and I just updated the the BIOS from V1.04 to 2.14. I will attach the modded BIOS in an attempt to help others. However, if anyone wants to try this, PLEASE make sure this is the correct BIOS for your system. I am not responsible for bricked systems.

modded BIOS.zip