Help with Windows 7 installation on E6400

I wonder if anyone has any recommendations on what drivers and optional Dell software (e.g. Controlpoint stuff) to install on a Latitude E6400?

Up until now I have been running Windows XP on the laptop but now it is time for Windows 7. I have bought an SSD drive (Samsung 830 256 GB) that I installed Windows 7 on just to test performance and different drivers etc. Soon I will make a clean install of Windows 7, but I am still a bit unsure what drivers and utilities I should install.

First of all, should I use the Microsoft SATA driver msahci, or Intels RST driver? I am using Intels RST driver right now and it seems to work fine. Some people say that it doesn't work well with TRIM though.

Is IRRT still something that should be avoided for stability reasons? It sounds like a convenient and fast way to make a full disk backup so if it works well and is stable I would like to use it.

What parts of Controlpoint software do you recommend to install? I have a bad experience of Controlpoint software from when I installed Windows XP on my E6400 a couple of years ago. It slowed down the computer and didn't really add much value, so I installed as little as possible back then. But maybe it is better now?

One thing that definitely has improved is drivers for the fingerprint reader. Now with Windows 7 and new drivers I have finally managed to get the fingerprint reader work with Authentec/UPEK Protector Suite. Nice!

Örjan

 

If you are using AHCI, you can just use the default W7 driver. You will not need to install anything extra. I don't know what the benefits of IRRT are. If there is specific IRRT functionality that you need, I assume you know to set it up under IRRT.

As far as ControlPoint goes, I only installed the on-screen displays (i.e. for volume and brightness) on our image. I think it still makes sense to install just what you need.