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Windows 7 Help

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Installing windows 7- a pain?

herc182

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 1:55PM

I am interested in windows 7. I currently have vista with a dell studio laptop. Have been fairly disappointed with vista but also think it may have been dell that screwed up the install. Had some issues with dell software which i had to uninstall eventually (in safe mode!!).
Anyway, on my old laptop I reinstalled windows xp and that hurt. Why? Because it didn't recognise hardware. So my keypad on the laptop wasn't recognized, the graphics card and switch for wifi neither. So I am just wondering, with my new laptop (only 4 months old) with arguably newer components, will I struggle in the same way? I want to put in the installation disc, install and have windows discover and install all hardware.

Is that likely?? :)

Thanks in advance

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BurrWalnut

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 2:30PM

Check if your computer will run Windows 7, download the upgrade advisor click here

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PO79

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 3:11PM

Bear in mind that at the moment Windows 7 is RC1 and not the finished article. It contains many drivers and will download even more on install. When I installed it to my laptop, it recognized nearly all my hardware. What it didn't have drivers for I obtained from the makers website using Vista drivers. The wifi and other software for the touch pad and one touch buttons (I have an HP Laptop) I obtained from the website using the Vista versions which all worked flawlessly.

If you install Win7 to a separate partition for testing, in a dual boot configuration you can always delete the partition if you encounter serious problems.

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herc182

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 3:20PM

My laptop will definitely run windows 7, but am actually also wondering if the system is worth upgrading too over vista...from what I hear it based on the same engine as vista with some cosmetic change....?

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PO79

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 3:53PM

Well.......the changes are more significant than could be described as cosmetic. As stated, partition your drive and install Windows 7 as a dual boot, you will never know if you like it or not until you try it out at your leisure.

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laurie53

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 6:57PM

I am running two copies of Win 7, one over XP and one over Vista.

I would say it's definitely worth upgrading over Vista.

Over XP it's a closer call.

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herc182

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 7:00PM

laurie53

Interesting. Why do you say that? Because of stability or user experience?

PO79
I will try the dual booting suggestion...like you say, I wont know unless I try!

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Strawballs

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Posted June 28, 2009 at 11:11PM

I put Win 7 on a 4yr old sempron 2400+ had a problem with sound (older creative SB) and onboard network card tried running disc's for both but no joy, went out and bought new PCI card (under a tenner) it detected and installed it no problem and sound problem solved with first windows update.

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laurie53

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Posted June 29, 2009 at 7:11AM

Bit of both I think.

Win 7 is very stable, and I find the user interface far more friendly than Vista.

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gazzaho

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Posted July 1, 2009 at 9:57PM

You can painlessly install Windows 7 onto a Virtual hard drive on your system without having to dual boot or create partitions this link click here shows how. If you want to get rid of it just follow the instruction and delete the virtual drive from the system.

I installed Windows 7 onto my Toshiba Satellite P100-188 notebook yesterday using the method and it went without a hitch, it installed in under 30 minutes, when rebooted I logged onto windows update page and it downloaded all drivers needed. The only driver not downloaded from Windows Update was for the card reader and a link for it was given through the Problem devices icon in the notification panel. All in all I was impressed with the ease of installation.

If following the instructions from the link you can avoid having to click repair and selecting command prompt by hitting Shift and F10 to get a command prompt.

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