Balena etcher does not work on 32 bit windows 7. On Reddit there are users have trouble using it on windows 10.
I use win32diskimager. Other raw imaging tools that have worked are the ChromeOS USB tool (after using diskpart to low level clean the drive).
How can I contribute to the haiku documentation as a non-coder? Through GitHub?
Yes. Send pull requests to the website repo at GitHub - haiku/website: The Haiku website. (Pull requests are accepted; please file issues at https://dev.haiku-os.org). using git.
rufus has worked ok here, be it on windows 7 or 10.
I agree. Windows 7 support is being deprecated by all companies. I’ve had the same issues with etcher and i’m very sure many were only waiting for the beta 4 progresses to switch from Windows NT to Haiku. Not to mention there are likely many who never knew about the system and clearly see windows 8+ as a no-go and do not see alternatives for a serious desktop-focused operating system until knowing about haiku.
If anything, I think the reference to 3rd party programs should be removed from our documention. Details about disk imagers on other platforms are out of scope in my opinion.
Seems a bit counter-productive to tell users “we don’t know, figure it out by yourself” when we can easily document a working solution for our installation process.
I don’t see what we gain by not providing the information at all.
I meant that in contrast to the OP wanting to include details about getting Etcher to work on Windows 7, which is well past it’s EOL. What do we do if the next guy wants to include details about some obscure mac image writer software that has some special requirements to run on, let’s say OSX Leopard? Do we include that too?
I think it would just be sufficient to tell the users to write the anyboot image to a USB drive to install Haiku. That said I have probably no idea what users expect from an install guide. I really should keep out of these topics 
If someone provides a pull request with the info and it’s up to our quality standards, we include it.
If all people do is complain on the forums, nothing happens and the document stays as it is.
I think that the page shouldn’t promote any software unless it brings a free and universal solution. But as PulkoMandy says, it’s not good to leave people in the dark either.
So, I would add sub pages “Users shared detailed instructions for the following systems/software:” …
This way, it doesn’t pollute main page and if something is really too old, it’s easier to remove a link and a page.
It’s not just windows 7, the recommended program, Etcher, has problems on Windows 10.
It seems that there’s an idea that “let’s keep out the laity-class riff-raff by assuming the user knows how to write a raw disk image” but that’s not a good idea. Plus there are plenty of open source projects. I will update the docs and add a sub-page as I have time.
win32diskimager, Rufus, and Etcher have source code available and they are all free.