Can I use Windows 10 (64 bit) drivers for Windows 7 (64 bit), when only drivers for windows 10 are available?
11 Answer
Can I use Windows 10 (64 bit) drivers for Windows 7 (64 bit)
Possibly.
Windows drivers are designed to be forward compatible, not backwards compatible.
WDM (Windows Device Model) drivers are designed to be forward-compatible so that a WDM driver can run on a version of Windows newer than what the driver was initially written for, but doing that would mean that the driver cannot take advantage of any new features introduced with the new version.
WDM is generally not backward-compatible, that is, a WDM driver is not guaranteed to run on any older version of Windows.
Source Windows Driver Model
However, you can try them and see if they work (please make a System Image backup first), but note the following:
The driver itself can be compatible without its installer being compatible. In other words, the actual INF files may work just fine in Windows 7.
However, the installer for the driver may check the OS you're running and stop the installation. In that case, you can sometimes run the driver installer in compatibility mode so that Windows reports that it's actually Windows 7 to the installer.
Another option is to simply find the INFs and associated files and install them using Device Manager.
Source Windows 10 drivers backwards compatible with Windows 7?
