Cannot Install Blender 2.77a on a Windows 7 desktop machine.

Support Technical Support
1

I am using an older desktop computer that I received as a Christmas gift last Dec. It’s a refurbished used Dell OptiPlex with an Intel Duo core, 512mb integrated graphic card, 8GB RAM (close to 7 years old) that was purchased through Walmart. Over the past months I have added operating systems to the Windows 7 Professional that the computer had installed when purchased. I have added Linux AV latest version for 2016, Fedora Design Suite, and Linux Debian 8.3. On the Linux operating systems I am able to use Blender 2.77a without actually going through the procedure of the program Debian installer for this latest version. I have instead copied the blender 2.77a-linux-glib211-x86_64.tar.bz2 download program file to a download folder within my home area on Debian, Fedora and AV Linux. I create a new file there to identify and then extract into that file. From there I look for a blender icon and click on that file, then the program runs on all three Linux versions fine. I go through this procedure of using the latest version since manually installing has lead to problems with dependency files that seem to always come to a dead end conflict with other programs. As a result I leave the versions that come preinstalled with the operating system in place. I do not have an internet connection at home and get stuff from downloads at a local public library. No internet access to use repositories of additional software that could interact with my machine to possibly facilitate this problem, instead I get things manually. I also have Blender 2.77a installed this way on a thumb drive that is usable on the library computers, the library also has older machines from the same generation of motherboard architecture using Windows 7 Professional. Sometimes I use Blender on-line this way to access the help features to manuals for finding information or solve problems.

This leads to my question. I have attempted to install Blender the 64 bit .exe 2.77a version on the Windows 7 operating system yet it will not work either way, through the Windows installer or the method extracting files into a folder and clicking on the .exe file there. When attempting to install 2.77a on my home Windows computer I get this message when attempting to install:

Your system does not use 3d hardware acceleration.

Blender Requires a graphics driver with Open GL 2.1 support. This may be caused by: A missing or faulty graphics driver installation. Blender needs a graphics card driver to work correctly. Accessing Blender through a remote connection. Using Blender through a virtual machine. The program will now close.

After this message the attempt to install the program shuts down. I do not understand what is wrong here. On my thumb drive using the program on Windows 7 at the library it works fine, I have tried the thumb drive way and that does not work on my home computer, get the same above message then shut down. Also on the Linux operating systems this version also works fine. As a result of this I would rule out any hardware problems. Anyone have any ideas as to what the problem is here?

2

I’ll be honest, I have no clue, but I can take a few shot-in-the-dark guesses in case that helps you with your troubleshooting.

Before that though, an older version of Blender (high 2.6 and maybe early 2.7) did not have OpenGL 2.1 implemented yet, so that could solve your problem temporarily.

As to the possible causes, my first guess is that the Windows graphics driver isn’t up to date. Since you don’t have internet, it is possible you don’t have the most up-to-date Windows 7 build and intel drivers. Drivers don’t get shared across OS. The other thing I can think of is that you have Windows 7 32bit, but something tells me this isn’t the case.

3

Thanks for your time and consideration it is appreciated. I am using Windows 7 Professional 64 bit version. Yes earlier versions up through 2.71 worked through the Windows installer. Versions from there up to 2.76b were installed and ran yet the same warning appeared only difference the program opened and ran fine.

4

Sounds more like the integrated graphics can’t handle Blender. Had that on an old computer, installed a really cheap basic OGL card and it worked fine, albeit slowly. I run a Dell Inspiron Laptop 17R and that requires me to run the high quality Geforce mobile graphics rather than integrated graphics. If I try using the Intel 3000 graphics, it takes forever to load and simply crashes as soon as I try to do anything. I also tend to just use the Zip Blender download and unpack it rather than install it, just so i can delete older versions and add newer ones without the hassle of install / uninstall.

5

I get that error on one of my servers, just use an older flavor of blender 2.75 works iirc.

Ether that or find a video card to drop in there.