Windows 8 build 7700

6.1.7700.0.winmain.100122-1900
	Build of Windows 8
OS family	Windows NT
Version number	6.1
Build number	7700
Build revision	0
Architecture	x64
Build lab	winmain
Compiled on	2010-01-22
Expiration date
Timebomb	2010-03-01 (+38 days)
About dialog

Windows 8 build 7700 is the earliest available build of Windows 8, which was shared on 25 December 2019. Prior to its public availability, screenshots of this build were released by Russian Windows news website WZor on 29 January 2010.

It has been determined to be a Windows 8 build due to varying factors such as its relatively high build number, the presence of an early in-development version of Internet Explorer 9 and several non-user-facing changes to the operating system, such as group policy management changes, internal refactors to existing Windows functionalities and changes to the way code generation is handled throughout the build process.

Due to its earliness, this build identifies itself as its predecessor in various areas and still bears the 6.1 kernel version.

Editions and keys[edit | edit source]

Edition	Key
Home Basic	YGFVB-QTFXQ-3H233-PTWTJ-YRYRV
Home Premium	RHPQ2-RMFJH-74XYM-BH4JX-XM76F
Professional	HYF8J-CVRMY-CM74G-RPHKF-PW487
Ultimate	D4F6K-QK3RD-TMVMJ-BBMRX-3MBMV

New features and changes[edit | edit source]

Hardware compatibility[edit | edit source]

The Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) CPU instruction set is now required in order to run this build, dropping support for CPUs such as the Pentium II; although this is moot as there are no AMD64 CPUs that lack support for the instruction set.

Boot Manager[edit | edit source]

This build's Boot Manager introduces the following internal changes:

Improvements to serial boot debugging through the addition of a driver for the Maxim MAX311 series (MAX3110E/MAX3111E/MAX3100/MAX3222E) SPI UART.
LdrProcessRelocationBlockLongLong handles several architecture-specific relocations: IA-64, ARMv7, Thumb, Thumb-2, and MIPS.
Attempting to load an ARM Thumb executable under the wrong architecture will now return error code STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_WIN_32.

Miscellaneous[edit | edit source]

Compared to the previous known winmain build 7233, this build reverts the default Harmony wallpaper seen in the final Windows 7 RTM release back to the older placeholder betta fish default wallpaper seen in Windows 7 builds 7032 through 7231. The older Windows 7 release candidate EULA is also retained from previous builds. This suggests that Windows 8's development was forked from a Windows 7 Release Candidate build earlier than 7232.
Assertion strings have been changed to hide the full object path. In addition, some executables are signed by Windows Main Build Lab Account (in short: wmbla) like later Windows 8 builds, unlike the standard "Microsoft Corporation" signer during the development and release of Windows 7.
A Windows 8 family search filtering option (along with a filtering option for the Windows 8 operating system) has been added to the Local Group Policy Editor utility.
The power service received an overhaul, with certain functions being separated out into a new dedicated User-Mode Power Services Extensions library (umpoext.dll).
Internal code refactors to the On-Screen Keyboard application, including the addition of a new osksupport.dll library.
Additional APIs were also added for Audio and Bluetooth services.
Additional error messages were added to System Restore.

Bugs[edit | edit source]

Installation[edit | edit source]

It is not possible to upgrade to this build without modification due to setup being unable to copy files required for installation, because of a signature validation error (0x80070241 == HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(ERROR_INVALID_IMAGE_HASH)).

To upgrade to this build, replace imageres.dll in each index of install.wim with a copy from build 7746.

Internet Explorer[edit | edit source]

The early version of Internet Explorer 9 (still branded as Internet Explorer 8) found in this build is known to be highly unstable and will often instantaneously crash when switching to IE9 mode or loading a page containing HTML5 content.