Installing Windows in UEFI mode

Hey folks,

while reading the net I noticed, at a lot of people do install their Windows wrongish. Not that it does not work, but they are not exhausting all the new features Windows 8 and UEFI have to offer.

Why does this happen? First modern Bios offer a "compatibility Mode" which emulates a BIOS. Using this emulated Bios the Bootloader has to be written in the MBR (master boot record). Thus disks have to be partitioned using MBR. UEFI on the other hand only works with GPT partitioned disk and windows will format disk in GPT only if the setup is booted from an UEFI Bios.

See the problem? It is like a dog who is chasing his tale

Now the HowTO:

1. YOU MUST HAVE A x64 INSTALLATION
   
2. Finish your Winreducer (you do not have to create an ISO.)
   
3. Download http://rufus.akeo.ie/
   
4. Format USB Stick with partition scheme GPT
   
5. Copy files from the Winreducer ISO dir or from the created ISO to the USB drive
   
6. Enter BIOS at startup and set it to UEFI
   
7. Install
   

Some more info about UEFI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

Advantages of UEFI:

• Ability to boot from large disks (over 2 TiB)
  
• Faster boot-up
  
• CPU-independent architecture
  
• CPU-independent drivers
  
• Flexible pre-OS environment, including network capability
  
• Modular design
  

Common Problems:

Install.wim's size is more than 4GB
The install.wim can be splitted into 4GB without any problems. Use Dism with the following command. (Remeber to fix the directories to fit you)

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825096.aspx

Or use the winreducer feature to do it for you

How about using a optical drive??
I have been trying for weeks on & off to load Win7 x64 on a UEFI MB to a GPT table and it keeps installing as msdos no matter what I do.

It seems whatever the bootable device is, if it is not in UEFI mode that you are SOL. I have no special settings for the optical drives. The MB is in SATA and AHCI mode.

1. Is the problem using compatibility mode?
2. By using WinReducer will that affect any of this?

Gotta love forums where you don't get any input, just hundreds of "views".

After more research, something that is not clearly written anywhere that I could find, the O/S install media has to be UEFI capable. Versions edited by RT7 Lite apparently are not. You know this by using your MB's boot menu and looking for the optical drive the media is in. If you don't see a "UEFI" instance and a normal MBR instance of that drive (drive is listed twice), the media will be in MBR mode that will not allow it to be installed to a drive formatted to GPT which is why you bothered using a 64 bit O/S and buying a UEFI based MB.  

Booting from a DVD in UEFI mode doesn't appear to be possible, BUT it is possible to do this using a bootable USB memory stick with a little modification of the Windows files.

1. Locate: \efi\microsoft\boot in the directory on your USB installer 

2. Create the directory: \efi\boot

3. Copy: \efi\microsoft\boot directory to the \efi\boot directory (up one level).

4. Locate: bootmgfw.efi in the: "\Windows\Boot\EFI" directory on a system running Windows 7 64-bit (this is in an already installed O/S) .

5. Copy that to \efi\boot and rename it to bootx64.efi.

I tried that for a DVD, but it still didn't work. Only the USB stick procedure did.

Did anyone get this to work on a USB key formatted to NTFS?
My install.wim is 4.5GB ( after reducing  ) so wont fit on a FAT32 formatted USB key.
My mobo does not recognise a NTFS formatted USB key but does recognise FAT32.

Does your mobo support exFAT ?

Im not sure as I cant find anything that says yes or no. Its a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P.
I think I'll just have to ensure that my install.wim does not get bigger than 4GB. Uninstalling MS Office 2013 from it would probably be a good start

You can try this:

- download RUFUS
- put USB-Stick into your PC
- start Rufus
- choose your USB-Device
- choose MBR partition scheme for BIOS and UEFI computers
- choose exFAT


After quick format, close rufus, open cmd box and type in
recoverydrive.exe



You can now copy recovery data to your USB-Device.
Then try to start your computer with your USB-Device.

If this will work, you can create install.wim files bigger than 4GB.

Hope, this will help you.

Hi caphp.
Thanks for the info.
I will give that a try

Hey ya,

NTFS won't work and will never do.
Thats why you have to split the WIM file into 4GB once. I'll update the guide later.

Once I got my install.wim file to under 4GB, it was fine. Rocking a 32GB SSD installed in UEFI mode for my C-drive 

Well you can split the install.wim into 4GB parts, which was also integrated into winreducer on my request a while ago.

Can be found under "Save in WIM or in an ISO file" -> Advanced Options

Hello,

I've added UEFI boot support for both USB and DVD in WinReducer 8.1 - v1.02 !  

I've made some tests and it worked in VMware Player with UEFI boot activated (Tutorial Link) using an UEFI ISO created by WinReducer 8.1 !  
To be simple, you just need to add this line like in this screenshot :


Unfortunately with Virtualbox, it failed. But as I didn't select "Presets - Protect VirtualBox", I think that was a problem with missing drivers ...

Cool. I will test this as soon as I have free time

theKramer wrote:

Cool. I will test this as soon as I have free time

hi i create a uefi usb with rufus with the foloowing seting gpt partition schem and fat32 format .but the problem when i boot from usb it stuck on logo

Hello,

Which ISO are yo using ?

--> For Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, it should work out of the box for both x86 and x64 !

--> On Windows 7 x86, UEFI is not supported !

--> Windows 7 x64 needs to be configured properly otherwise it won't work !

You could try to create a working Windows 7 x64 UEFI ISO with WinReducer v2.99.1.7, available on the forum ...

Regards.

zesh_ii wrote:

theKramer wrote:

Cool. I will test this as soon as I have free time

hi i create a uefi usb with rufus with the foloowing seting gpt partition schem and fat32 format .but the problem when i boot from usb it stuck on logo

Hi zesh_ii.
This may be a silly question, but have you set your BIOS to use UEFI mode?
Also, is the USB key set as primary boot device?

theKramer wrote:

zesh_ii wrote:

theKramer wrote:

Cool. I will test this as soon as I have free time

hi i create a uefi usb with rufus with the foloowing seting gpt partition schem and fat32 format .but the problem when i boot from usb it stuck on logo

Hi zesh_ii.
This may be a silly question, but have you set your BIOS to use UEFI mode?
Also, is the USB key set as primary boot device?

no sir,ok i admit my bios setting was wrong but my point is when i installwin8 uefi then i didnt get any error/problm
in my acer aspire v5 bios i find jst 3 options that can i change 
1.uefi/legacy
2.achi/ide
3.boot options
i my setting is uefi ,achi and usb on 1st boot
thnx for help m very thankful to u thnx in advance