@DavewaveI have an older 64 bit win 7 machine I am running as I type. I am right now running TT 2020 sucessfully in a VM window now.
The Virtual Machine host software I am using is Oracle "virtual box" (virtualbox.org). It is free. I am using version 6 of the VM. If you have a 32 bit system you'll need to use the older version 5 of virtual box.
I wouldnt call the install "simple" (not for computer illiterate), but it isn't difficult either. Virtual box has been around a long time. There are many tutorials on the web.
Basic high level steps are: a) install virtualbox. b) set up a VM entry, define its virtual filesytem size (it will create one big file to hold this VM), some defaults, and then c) install windows 10 in side the virtual machine, d) install turbotax inside that windows 10 window (which is running inside the VM, which is running insode your win7 system).
Win 10 is actually free too, if you dont care about the disabled background and personalizations, etc.
You can download the install from M$. Once you get 10 installed, a timesaver is to take a "snapshot" of the virtual machine state (e.g. "machine menu" take snapshot). That lets you can start over at that exact location if you mess up the settings, or whatever later. You can also start from that snapshot and build a win10 for your taxes, and another for something else. sort of like "forking" off from the basic win10 entry.
I have a snapshot of when i was done setting up win10, then another when i was done installing TT2020 in it.
Note, youll need to make sure you setup the VM entry to give you access to some folders on your "host" system (windows 7) or you wont be able to save files to your "real machine" . You should be able to get to any local network servers you have without that step though.
Last note (and its relvant to intuit's choice to block TT2020 installs in win7) the official supported OS list for VirtualBox does not include win7.. but it runs fine, like most software does that is made for win8/10 (almost everything "under the hood" of those 2 OS's is built on win7). Unless the programmers happened to use some specific subroutine call from the underlying OS that has been changed or added since 7 (the vast majority arent)... it will work. The VM program i am quite sure uses a much larger range of the OS calls than intuit needs, and it runs fine. so ... who knows, TT might work fine on 7 too if they didnt refuse to install at step 1... but we wont know if they just block the install.
