the windows 7 on a M4400 thread..

Ok now that we're rapidly approaching the mass release of windows 7, i thought it might be good to start a thread to discuss how to get everything set up optimally on the M4400 (drivers etc) to run windows 7. Would be good if people who have been running the beta, or have access to technet could share the experience and information with the rest of us who have pre ordered and are waiting for october 22nd to install this on our machines.

 

On my 4400 running RC1 I installed updated Nvidia drivers and bluetooth drivers. All others were fine (I did not have webcam or fingerprint reader) built in to Windows 7. I had absolutely no compatibility issues the whole time I was runnning RC. The SDHC controller may need to be installed manually, but I believe Windows Update will handle that.

 

Ok, this is a good idea for a topic. So I have a question!
I have just received my 4400, with Vista Ultimate 64 installed. When I eventually receive Win 7, and upgrade, will I need to reinstall any applications that I have installed since I got the machine? Or should I wait till the upgrade before configure the machine too much? I guess I am wondering how "clever" Win 7 is likely to be.
Any suggestions are of course most welcome!

 

I was able to install the RC1 as an upgrade so no need for reinstalling anything. Everything else worked fine too, except for the BT which needed the BT software on the Dell driver page to give full functionality and control for Bluetooth. I've been running it as my main OS from the start and still very happy with it!

 

i hope the initial official dell drivers for 7 will be good. im assuming you havent had any issues other than the bluetooth?

your specs are pretty much the same as mine. do you reckon windows 7 runs better on the m4400 than vista?

 

Before i sent my M4400 to another employee i was running Windows 7 RTM. i installed this twice. the first time as an upgrade. the second a fresh install. I used the latest drivers from Dell and the only issue on the upgrade i found was the fingerprint device was not working correctly. the reinstall seems to have fixed this and i found everything worked out of the box.
I found it interesting that Dell chose to use the Windows 7 power manager settings.
I had no real issues with it, everything worked as expected and i will be installing it on my E6400 when it arrives.

 

Dell already has the Win7 drivers online and so far they've all been good. I forgot about the FPS though because i'm not using it. I haven't got DCP installed and will only use my FPS if it's possible without running DCP.
Win7 seems to be quite a bit snappier as has often been mentioned, i liked vista too though, the m4400 was my first vista machine and more than capable of running it as it should i think so never any issues really.

 

I've had my m4400 since March or so and have never run anything other than some flavor of Windows 7 on it. When I got it, I made sure it booted and then swapped out the hard drive and installed one of the betas on it. I upgraded to the RC and have been running build 7200 on it since it came out.

I downloaded the nVidia beta drivers from their site, used the Dell drivers for BT, web cam and audio. I've had no issues that I blame on the hardware - it's all very minor stuff with the nVidia driver or Win7 itself.

The only game I've played (not a big gamer) is Fallout 3 - no issues. I'm a Flash developer and the Adobe apps run great on it.

So, Win7 has been perfect for me on this computer.

 

on xp/vista, a specific driver installation order needs to be followed when first setting up the system after a reformat. otherwise there are issues. is this the case with 7?

i tried looking around the dell website but i could find a driver installation sequence guide for 7. they have one for xp/vista.

 

im not a fan of in-place upgrades. its better to do a clean install.