[Samsung Galaxy S7 Guides, News, & Discussion] Peter Griffin:
- WARNING -

This Guide is not failproof, if you do anything wrong with your device while following this guide, i won't be held responsible if you brick or hard damage your device. I insist about that but you must extract all of your data (Photos, Videos, Music, Apps, Accounts, Messages, ETC) Before proceeding or else you will end up with a loss of data, again i'm still not responsible if you lose all of your data without backing up. I WARNED YOU.

The SAMSUNG Galaxy S7. Good device, showcased at the MWC 2016 in Barcelona. Has a bunch of features, (Always On Display, waterproof (unlike the Galaxy S6 who was just spash resistant), expandable storage, ETC.) Yeah, that's a lot.

But we don't care about what a phone like this one can do. We need to fix a extremely big issue that we are all trying to fix for years... A BIG one. Downgrade to marshmallow.

Yes you may ask "Peter, it is no longer possible to downgrade to Marshmallow because of the new Bootloader lock", "That's impossible. Downgrade will make you fail" or just "you can't downgrade."

Well... Put all of those words aside. Because NOW, we are going to rethink of what a phone can do. And by that, i mean Downgrading it!

Yes i know, that's a lot of words by now but trust me if you follow my guide like it should, you should get good ol' Marshmallow back! It also works with nougat but this Thread is focused on Marshmallow, so, WE WILL DOWNGRADE TO MARSHMALLOW.

Advantages :

Everything works great : Always On Display, Fingerprint Scanner, Sensors, ETC...

The downgrade procedure by itself is quite simple, but it requires a lot of technical skills

It works with any devices : Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Note FE and even with the Galaxy A3, A5, A7 (2017) or A8 (2016)

So much stuff to say about.

Disadvantages :

Vibration dosen't work. IDK WHY SO DO NOT SPAM IN THE COMMENTS THAT VIBRATION DOSENT WORK. OK?

You still might have a lil' bit of traces of 8.0.0 OREO remaning, (ex: charging animation)

Smart Switch dosen't work, (PC version only) but it's trash anyways because Smart Switch never works.

Ok, let's get started.

Requirements :

A laptop or home PC : At least running Windows 10 or Windows 11

Your device

Genuine Samsung charging cable

Stable internet connection.

An unlocked Bootloader (R.I.P US snapdragon users)

Files :

The lastest SAMSUNG Drivers which can be found here : https://developer.samsung.com/android-usb-driver

Odin3 : https://www.samsungodindownload.com/fr/download-for-windows

The firmware you want to downgrade to : In this case we are going to downgrade to 6.0.1. You can also download my rom which is down the thread (G930F only)

TWRP [Newest version] : https://twrp.me/samsung/samsunggalaxys7.html

(Exynos only IDK why) I forgot to mention that in TWRP official website you should not download the newest version of TWRP. (They don't work. You must Download and install The 3.1.1-0 or 3.3.1-0 version)

Classy Kitchen [for bulding your rom] : https://xdaforums.com/t/...kitchen-for-android-roms-development.3862584/

Now let's get started!

First of all, we will proceed by baking our ROM! So we are going to run Classy Kitchen to make the "LaDite ROM"

Run Classy Kitchen as administrator :

Yes, these screenshots came from my previous guide XD

Normally the first time you open the program, there shouldn't be any project [except if you used this app before]

Next click "Create new project", "From PC (Browse for one)"

And then chose the path where you saved your firmware. After chosing your firmware, Classy Kitchen will open the firmware automaticly.

After the ROM is now open, click on "ROM utils" and then click on "Deodex ROM" After you Deodex the ROM, we will have to de-bloat it.

On Classy Kitchen, click on "Debloat / Re-Bloat ROM" to Debloat your ROM.

Last step [optional] We will have to De-Knox our ROM. (again optional) But De-Knoxing our ROM can save a lot of space in our phone storage. So i recommend you do.

After De-Knoxing our ROM, we will have to disable DM-Verity Force Encryption in order to Boot into the ROM [Otherwise if you don't your phone will never boot]

Click on "Remove DM-Verity / Force Encryption"

Next that we disabled DM-Verity, We will have to remove the "meta-inf installer"

Click on "Re-Build META-INF installer" and click on remove.

Finally once we have done the modifications on our ROM, we just have to save.

Click on "Build (system.new.dat) ROM (for recovery)"

and then we are done baking our ROM!

However i have to tell you quick. You cannot flash like this in Odin3 Because this is not a Stock file format (A.K.A MD5).

Also there is a binary blocking the installation of older Versions of android.

So we are going to install it in TWRP instead.

We will have to install TWRP in the phone.

HOW-TO-PROCEED?

Step-1 Press and hold the power button on your device

Step-2 Chose "Power Off"

Wait for your device to completly Shut-Off.

Step-3 Re-Boot in download mode "odin mode"

Step-4 connect the phone to your computer

Step-5 open Odin3

In Odin, we will have to install TWRP, click on the AP box and chose your TWRP file [the one that you downloaded]

Don't forget to disable "Auto-Reboot" after installation, otherwise your phone will re-boot normal into Android.

At this point, Knox is tripped in your device meaning that your warranty is now expired. Also the Knox features are no longer usable.

On TWRP, click on wipe, "Format Data". A keyboard will pop-up, type "yes"

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Type "yes"

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Once Data Format is completed, hit home, reboot, recovery.

your phone will reboot into recovery again, hit wipe again, this time we won't format data. Instead we're going to wipe the phone's partitions

But before wiping all of your phone's partitions, we have to back them up. Chose the "Backup" button in TWRP

After you backed up all of your phone's partition in TWRP, we can wipe them.

Chose in TWRP,

View attachment 5922985

Then swipe to wipe. Then hit home again. Next hit "Install"

Install the ROM you just made with Classy Kitchen. It can be found in "Documents" - "Output" - "Your-ROM"

Transfert it to your phone [you can also use a usb adapter or a micro SD card since you can put expandable storage on this thing.]

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Click on the ROM / ZIP file and "swipe to confirm flash"

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After the flashing procedure is complete, you will have to wipe the "cache" / Dalvik.

Hit "wipe dalvik/cache"

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Then "swipe to wipe"

After you wiped the cache, hit "Reboot System" and hit "Do Not Install"

View attachment 5923001

Now cross your fingers very hard and close your eyes to expect the blue led of hope to happen.

Congratuations! You have downgraded your SAMSUNG Galaxy S7 back to android 6.0.1 Marshmallow!

1 : Unlike the S6, the Galaxy S7/S7 edge or Galaxy Note7 Does not require a "custom Bootloader"

2 : Yes ik there's no vibrations but we can't fix that unless somebody found the "solution"

3 : IDK what to say.

4 : Why are you still here? Oh! Right! You want some screenshots? From 6.0.1? Well...

confirmed working on my SAMSUNG Galaxy S7 SM-G930F

Original guide by William's tech and channel 48 on youtube.

[edit: try installing the stock bootloader from 8.0.0 OREO to get access back to stock recovery and maybe vibration]

Another Update : I found a way to implement stock recovery on 6.0.1 Marshmallow if anybody is interested.

Download my stock recovery from down the thread.

Install it via Odin3 by clicking on the AP box and then select this stock recovery.

After that just click "Start" and you should be all good to go. :)