Unfortunately the VEGAS Pro 18 b 284 August 2020 readme file has this:

The link above is the better guide.

If VP17 works fine for you on Windows 7 it's just good luck. It's likely sooner or later issues will appear. It's not recommended to use VP17 on Windows 7, even less VP18. Best advice is to use current VP versions on Windows 10 only.

I am running a version of Vegas Pro 18 efficiently on another Windows 7 system and have zero issues......

So my answer is, yes it can run on a Windows 7 system without issues, although the specifications says otherwise and there is a pop-up warning on first use.

I appreciate your feedback....rr

@Robert-Resetar Be aware though that Microsoft support for Windows 7 ended in January of this year. See
here.

Microsoft ending support whenever, does not mean Windows 7 is gonna stop working nor is it gonna start becoming unstable !

@Steve_Rhoden I know that, but it's something that users of Windows 7 should be aware of though. Don't you agree? No more security patches. Just sayin'.

Best thing to do is give the trial a shot.

"work" can mean any of a billion different things and you're the best judge on your hardware with your workflow

You ABSOLUTELY need this one for Win 7: https://tools4vegas.com/kill-all-vegas/

(Because, as someone mentioned, when you close Vegas, it remains in the task manager "Processes" list and must be "killed" manually, OR with the above button/program, which you should just place on the desk to, either the small program itself or shortcut. It instantaneously wipes vegas1x0.exe off the Processes active list).

(btw, people that jump in too quickly with the idea that you CANNOT use Vegas with Win 7 ....????????? why don't you talk about what YOU KNOW to be true????, It obviously works, a user might have issues with SOME third party offerings, case by case, e.g. I don't think Vegas Image (in Vegas Post) will work, but Vegas Effects works, [which is Hit Film] )

There is a lot to dislike, IMHO, with Win 10. If one is worried about security, run your Spybot or other "purging" program regularly OR keep it off the internet as much as possible.

Some quotes from the VP techs:

"VEGAS 17 uses some features of Windows 10 (some improvements have been made in Windows 10, which also improves the stability of VEGAS). Some manufacturers no longer support Windows 7 and no longer solve driver problems."

"Driver support and OS support that is required for many of the new (and requested) features that we are working on is not available on Windows 7 (or 8.1)."

"We can not solve known problems with Windows 7 and old graphics card drivers. We need to work with Microsoft, Intel, NVIDIA and AMD but they have also stopped support. For this reason, there are minimum requirements and everyone who lies below must live with known errors and crashes."

"It is very likely that a hard enforcement of the Windows 10 requirement will be in place in the next major version of VEGAS Pro."

So you may be able to use VP in its current version on Win 7. Yet. And you may encounter problems around all that non-supported environment (which also affects decoding, btw) which is caused by the use of non-supported OS.
So unless one accepts being left alone when issues arise, not sure how much sense it makes to encourage one to still use an unsupported OS.

I'm getting away with running V18 on 3rd Gen i5 at 4GHz (1080TI GPU).Can play 4K on timeline at Best full.

I am running a version of Vegas Pro 18 efficiently on another Windows 7 system and have zero issues......

So my answer is, yes it can run on a Windows 7 system without issues, although the specifications says otherwise and there is a pop-up warning on first use.

Even if it works on your Windows 7 system, it is still not a good idea for at least 2 reasons; first most probably you will not get technical support from Magix if you needed it since your system is not matching the "official "OS requirement for Vegas Pro 18. The 2nd reason is that Windows 7 is not supported anymore by Microsoft, so no technical support if you face a problems, and most importantly is that Windows 7 will be very vulnerable against new threats such as hacks since you will not receive security patches from Microsoft.

My question though is, why not upgrade to Windows 10? WIndows 10 is far better than WIndows 7 and its far more stable than any Windows version.

You ABSOLUTELY need this one for Win 7: https://tools4vegas.com/kill-all-vegas/

(Because, as someone mentioned, when you close Vegas, it remains in the task manager "Processes" list and must be "killed" manually, OR with the above button/program, which you should just place on the desk to, either the small program itself or shortcut. It instantaneously wipes vegas1x0.exe off the Processes active list).

(btw, people that jump in too quickly with the idea that you CANNOT use Vegas with Win 7 ....????????? why don't you talk about what YOU KNOW to be true????, It obviously works, a user might have issues with SOME third party offerings, case by case, e.g. I don't think Vegas Image (in Vegas Post) will work, but Vegas Effects works, [which is Hit Film] )

There is a lot to dislike, IMHO, with Win 10. If one is worried about security, run your Spybot or other "purging" program regularly OR keep it off the internet as much as possible.

@fred-w No body "jumped in too quickly" as we basically provided the official requirement from Magix who created the software, and who knows what is best for their software. 😉

(btw, people that jump in too quickly with the idea that you CANNOT use Vegas with Win 7 ....????????? why don't you talk about what YOU KNOW to be true????, It obviously works, a user might have issues with SOME third party offerings, case by case, e.g. I don't think Vegas Image (in Vegas Post) will work, but Vegas Effects works, [which is Hit Film] )

 

@fred-w No body "jumped in too quickly" as we basically provided the official requirement from Magix who created the software, and who knows what is best for their software. 😉

The question was: "Will Vegas 18 WORK with Windows 7? since Vegas 17 works fine."

The system requirements for Vegas Pro 17 was also Win 10; but, as the OP states, Ver. 17 "works" with Win 7 (and we can safely assume he already KNOWS what the official recommendation is).

NOW he wants to know if 18 will also, in the same way (outside of "official" recomendation) WORK?, and the answer is simple: YES, with perhaps a caveat or two.

(btw, people that jump in too quickly with the idea that you CANNOT use Vegas with Win 7 ....????????? why don't you talk about what YOU KNOW to be true????, It obviously works, a user might have issues with SOME third party offerings, case by case, e.g. I don't think Vegas Image (in Vegas Post) will work, but Vegas Effects works, [which is Hit Film] )

 

@fred-w No body "jumped in too quickly" as we basically provided the official requirement from Magix who created the software, and who knows what is best for their software. 😉

The question was: "Will Vegas 18 WORK with Windows 7? since Vegas 17 works fine."

The system requirements for Vegas Pro 17 was also Win 10; but, as the OP states, Ver. 17 "works" with Win 7 (and we can safely assume he already KNOWS what the official recommendation is).

NOW he wants to know if 18 will also, in the same way (outside of "official" recomendation) WORK?, and the answer is simple: YES, with perhaps a caveat or two.

@fred-w Well, Windows 10 is not a recommendation, it is requirement by Magix and that is a big difference my friend. It's like when a car manufacture states the minimum fuel requirement to run you new car (i.e unleaded and 95 octane). You could use lower octane level than what is required by the manufacture to run the engine, but you will most probably run into all kinds of problems with your engine which might void your warranty at the end.

The official VEGAS Creative Software stand on OS support is that VEGAS Pro 18 (and 17) requires Windows 10 to run properly. We are not preventing people from installing VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 at this time, however you do so at your own risk. Some features may not work properly on Windows 7 including:

• Codec support
• GPU encoding and decoding
• Deep learning plugins

The reason we decided not to support Windows 7 was due to the fact that this old operating system lacks the components required for some of our features. Also, driver updates and support for hardware was lacking. If you do have problems while using Windows 7 with VEGAS Pro, technical support will first request that you upgrade your OS before offering any other assistance.

It is likely that we will remove the ability to install VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 in a future version of VEGAS Pro.

The official VEGAS Creative Software stand on OS support is that VEGAS Pro 18 (and 17) requires Windows 10 to run properly. We are not preventing people from installing VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 at this time, however you do so at your own risk. Some features may not work properly on Windows 7 including:

• Codec support
• GPU encoding and decoding
• Deep learning plugins

The reason we decided not to support Windows 7 was due to the fact that this old operating system lacks the components required for some of our features. Also, driver updates and support for hardware was lacking. If you do have problems while using Windows 7 with VEGAS Pro, technical support will first request that you upgrade your OS before offering any other assistance.

It is likely that we will remove the ability to install VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 in a future version of VEGAS Pro.

@VEGASDerek "It is likely that we will remove the ability to install VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 in a future version of VEGAS Pro" That is a good idea to eliminate all problems and complaints which are related to using lower version than Windows 10.

@VEGASDerek "It is likely that we will remove the ability to install VEGAS Pro on Windows 7 in a future version of VEGAS Pro" That is a good idea to eliminate all problems and complaints which are related to using lower version than Windows 10.

Why?

If people HATE Win 10 (and many DO) and get some very good, or even fair, usability from latest Vegas Pro, and they do so with FULL KNOWLEDGE that they are outside the recommendations (and thus, have nothing to complain about if something doesn't work) WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

Why the EITHER/OR? isn't life better with BOTH/AND mindset?. People use computers for more than one application, just btw, another consideration.

Really, "too many complaints" is making life oh so hard?

Simpy tell them "you make that choice, you live with the results" which WIN 7 people are MORE THAN HAPPY to accept. People will, on their own, migrate if/when it becomes too untenable. Who else are you worried about making complaints; people with cracked programs?

@fred-w My point is that by eliminating the installation of Vegas Pro on non supported versions of Windows, Magix's small technical support team, or the forum, will not be flooded with problems related to using unsupported OS, thus the small technical team can focus and direct all resources to solve problems related to the supported Windows. That is of course just my opinion.

Many users of Windows 7 are not aware that by running Vegas Pro on unsupported Windows, they might get into many problems, sooner or later, and that they will not get any support from Magix.

May I ask why you hate Windows 10?!

Wow fred-w. We have kept support of Windows 7 around even longer than we did for Windows XP. If you want to stay on an obsolete operating system, than, quite frankly, you should probably use the version of the application which actually supported that operating system. Good grief. The argument is ridiculous.

@VEGASDerek

I thought you answered the "why" question quite well. Many software companies are doing this for the same reason.

While I am not a fan of Win10, it is a necessary "evil" so I've been on it for over 3 years now going from Win7.

Now here is a chance to get rich. Make drivers for obsolete software. It is already being done for printers and scanners. And it works as I have it in Windows XP mode in Windows 7.

JJK