Once Windows 7 install just complete the process.
.
After the system is up and running go to Disk Management and verify that the space and partition style are GPT! You are done! Congratulations.
.
Three Things You Need to Know About UEFI
First, since most current UEFI capable motherboards are BIOS based with UEFI as secondary, you will not save any real time during boot. The boot time of the system I built was only 45 seconds, but the first 15 seconds of that was the BIOS check and hand off to UEFI.
Second, except for using GPT as the partition style for the boot disk, UEFI Windows is the same as BIOS Windows 7. Do not expect anything different in a UEFI Windows 7 OS.
Third, you can partition any disk as GPT and load a UEFI version of Windows 7. You do not have to wait to spend the big bucks on a large format drive to get UEFI. I actually pulled the 3TB drive out of the system and am using that 300GB Velociraptor drive in UEFI mode with a GPT partition. It works great and I am ready for an upgrade when the 3TB prices drop a little.
The 3TB is going in my WHS! Seriously.
.
Conclusion
Ok, so what did I learn? If you want a system drive over 2.2TB then UEFI is the way to go. As an enthusiast I will probably continue to go SSD for the system drive and use a generic drive for data storage for my daily use systems.
I will say, however, to build a Mini ATX HTPC system that could store every single movie I own on one disk would be awesome. If you want low power and high performance than the WD 3TB drive is the way to go.
FOR EXAMPLE: This board, the DQ45EK, is UEFI plug and play, and is $129 at NewEgg. This board would make a GREAT UEFI PC! This board uses a 775 socket so it is easy to find CPUs and RAM for cheap!
IMPORTANT: When looking for Intel boards you want to see EFI Plug and Play in the spec:
.
UEFI Resources
For a list of current motherboards that support UEFI download this PDF:
Class Two UEFI Platforms currently commercially available
If you want to learn more about UEFI then go to:
http://www.uefi.org/learning_center/
.
I want to the thank Samuel Tai from the Microsoft Answers forum for trying to help me with the loading issues early on.
See you next Friday night,
Timothy Daleo
I managed to install UEFI Windows 7 on my Intel DG41WV Motherboard by following the steps above, the only difference was that i managed to install it with an internal SATA DVD drive.
I popped the disc into the drive, rebooted the PC and at the boot menu it showed me
internal uefi shell : (name of my DVD drive).
It seems that the BIOS scanned the disc for the efi file. When the disc was not inside, there was no such option. Just a tip to those who don’t have a spare external usb dvd drive around.
Thanks for this tutorial, I manage to install the Windows 7 Prof as downgrade of Windows 8. Only the BIOS settings have to be change in order to boot to a UEFI Downgrade of Windows 7.
very detail and easy to read tutorial! I think i have more understanding on how to do that after reading this. I will try this out. Thank you!