Question Upgrade motherboard and CPU (AMD) but remain with Windows 7

[loninappleton]

This is a legacy question because I am the legacy sort having older gear now failing. I am cautioned that motherboards of newer vintage may have compatibility problems with Windows 7 requiring driver updates and whatnot. I am not knowledgeable in all that. My newest board is old by current standards: MSI 760gm with AMD Phenom. Other builds on my small homenet are older than that.

I stick with Win 7 for rebuilding my homenet Worgroup when needed. Though I have tried Win10 it has more bloat than what I am using now (win7 is not free of a lot of unwanted 'services.') My tryout of Win10 was brief.

My first look to a moderate upgrade to AM4 is the AMD Athlon 3000G. I understand this to have onboard video-- no vidcard to buy. Budget is indeed extremely important since I should upgrade all three nodes of the home net.
But I'll settle for one new build now. That means I have to get CPU, MB and DDR4 memory. I run systems bench style-- no need for a case recommendation. My power supplies are 350 Seagate and at my level of computing, even with always on operations (I have one) there should be no need for changing those.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The only APUs on AM4 that support Windows 7 are Bristol Ridge (A6-A12), and they are often not supported anymore by modern AM4 mobo BIOSes because they are so old and obselete.

Athlon 3000G, should likely NOT support Win7.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My advice is to ditch Win7, but should you want to embrace it, go with AMD FX CPUs.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If the bloat in win 10 is what's holding you back, the solution is simple. Use a guide to a streamlined win 10 install. You can remove quite a bit, including a bunch of the telemetry.

Bryan did one that gives you the basics. You can search up more detailed stuff, but he gets you a good overview of the process.

Alternatively, Santiago has the Ghost Specter tutorial -

 

[lyonwonder]

The only reason to run Win7 in this day and age is if you have old apps or old games that refuse to run on Win10 or have some old specialized peripheral that isn't supported on modern Windows, and even then I'd recommend running Win7 in a VM or a secondary computer that isn't normally used for the Internet.

For running Windows 7 you're best bet is a second-hand Haswell LGA 1150 Core 4xxx with DDR3 or even Skylake LGA 1151 Core 6xxx with DDR4, though 7xxx Kaby Lake and first generation Ryzen 1xxx with a 300-series motherboard could probably work with 7 too even if its unofficial. Anything newer than what I mentioned won't run Win7 properly because motherboard drivers require Win10 and 11.

 

[Shmee]

I would go with a tweaked Windows 10, or some linux of choice.

 

[loninappleton]

Thanks for the replies though I was expecting email notifications (had to reset password too.) I will look at the how- to on slimming Win 10 but I find YouTube mouse pointer videos nearly intolerable. Can you recommend some print version with screen shots in a step by step manner?