Can't Install Windows 7 on 2011 Mac mini - "No Bootable Device"

Well future me, and anyone else who stumbles across this thread. I found the answer:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/windows-install/

Its an application that lets you install windows direct from an iso. When I say "direct", I mean its a MAC application that does the windows installation on to the windows disc! It installs, and then just like that it's ready to go. I did use bootcamp assistant to make the partition first. And I had to switch the install option to "legacy boot" But otherwise it was super straightforward and way better than any other option.

Success! Or at least, progress!

I tried a bunch of different things and nothing worked. I even tried making a bootable windows installer on an SD card and booting that from the Mac's SD card slot. Nothing worked.

So I chained up a USB2 SATA adapter, and a desktop optical drive from another tower, that is now tethered to this Mac mini. And it workedish. I got past the "No bootable device" and actually saw the windows bootup progress bar! It seemed to have frozen halfway through but at least I am finally making progress. Its crazy how ****** apple makes this. And of course MS also makes their part of this pretty ****** too. Plenty of **** to go around.

Crazy that a real optical disk drive is required even though many 2011 macs do not have them.

LOL leave it to AI. "To fix 'No Bootable Device' when installing Windows 7 on a 2011 Mac mini, you must use a physical Windows 7 DVD in the built-in optical drive"

2011 Mac minis do not have optical drives.

Google AI is just reading back the info it read in the other posts you linked do, neither of which help me. I wonder if I can dig up some USB to SATA adapters and take a desktop optical drive out of my mac pro and use that.

New road block...

Boot Camp Assistant won't let me install off the DVD because it says "Windows 10 is not supported on this Mac"

Even though it's a Windows 7 disc. Not only that, but a disk I've used to install Windows 7 successfully on many Macs over the years. But I guess never on a cursed 2011 Mac.

I tried booting directly again (holding option or C) and I get the same result every time, it randomly freezes at some point very early in the boot process. "Windows is loading files..." but it never makes any progress. Any ideas? I already tried a different optical drive, but its the same result.