New M17xR2 owner..

I just received a new M17xR2 for my 40th bday from my GF and after using it for a couple weeks i have some questions..

1) I was thinking of installing Win7 Ultimate 64bit instead of the Home Premium which is on it and i was wondering if i did this, would it mess with the pre installed restore partition from the factory? Or do i even need to worry about that since i have the cd's that came with the laptop?

2) I noticed some Alienware Respawn software on the laptop that to do full backups requires me to pay for a premium upgrade at a cost of $40? I thought i had the option to overwrite the restore partition with my own current version of whats currently on the laptop?

 

To answer your question number one: there is an option in control panel that says something like windows (anytime) upgrade. Use that and enter your ultimate key to convert your windows to ultimate without changing any setup of programs on your computer. And if you decide to do a clean install, you may loose the option of restoring to manufacturer default (but that restore partition is still there, unless you decide to format that partition too). If you want to use that partition later, you may need to use a special software to re-activate that partition as primary to boot for restore.

 

Is there any real benefit to ultimate over home?

 

I believe Ultimate has XP compatible mode.

 

Correct, that being one of my reasons.

 

I'm not really all that familiar with the different flavors of Win7 - so does that mean you need Ultimate to run software that was written for XP? I thought I had read a bunch of posts about running older XP games on Win 7 64 without problems but I never looked to see if people said they had Ultimate or not. Actually most of the time I just seel people say to play games on Win 7/Vista to just install outside of the Program Files folder and most of the time it's OK.

 

For most people, Win 7 Home Premium is just fine. You can run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications on it (i.e. pretty much all Windows software written in the last 10 years).

These are the main things you gain if you go to Windows 7:

• The ability to join an Active Directory domain (usually workplace-related).
• BitLocker drive encryption (if you don't know what this is then you don't need it).
• Windows XP mode. This allows a copy of Windows XP to be run in a virtual environment, and any applications running on that XP environment are shown on your Windows 7 desktop. You don't need this unless you have applications that refuse to run on Windows 7, and there are alternatives.

If you have old games (i.e. DOS-based, or early Windows games) then you can download some free software called DosBox that allows these games to run. These games tend to run better under DosBox than directly under Windows, so I'd recommend it even if you were still running XP.

The only reason that people may need to install games outside of their Program Files folder is that the games want to write files (e.g. saves) into their install directory. Windows 7 prevents most people from writing to the Program Files folder, and this can cause issues. The good news is that this is pretty much a non-issue, because Windows intercepts these attempts to write to files, and redirects the file to another folder. The software doesn't know this has happened, and can read from the file again later.

So in short, go with Home Premium. If you find something that doesn't work, I'm sure that someone will help you find a free and easy way to get it working.

 

I remember with Vista ultimate you could control your desktop remotely. Can you do that with all iterations of Windows 7?

 

Whatever route you decide to go for a backup solution, be sure to use the AlienwareRespawn app to create a recovery solution. You can opt to use optical media or a flash drive. Basically, it will create a rescue solution in the event you ever have to restore your system to a 'out of box' state. If you choose the USB route, be sure it is a 8GB stick.

Once you have created your rescue backup, do whatever... Once you wipe the drive/partitions, that factory restore image is gone forever. Reason why its so important to use the utility to first create that rescue path.

 

You're right. Home Premium comes with the Remote Desktop client, but won't act as a server. You need Ultimate to be able to connect with your computer remotely.

There's a good comparison chart on Wikipedia. It gives a good break-down of what edition gives you which features.

 

One of the key differences between HOME and other versions is that home does not have support for joining a domain. If you want to network or use at the office you will need Business or Ultimate. Vista ultimate use to throw in some games to make it attractive to home users but sadly they don't offer that perk any more with windows 7. There are a lot of subtle differences for IT professionals. Here is a chart.

Which one is right for you? - Microsoft Windows

 

I would stay with home as there is not much point unless you are having trouble joinng a network.

 

Windows 7 Pro will run XP mode and remote desktop.

 

Yes it can and Pro can be had from Amazon for 63.00 or so for the Pro upgrade. There were no problems installing it as its just a key you input to unlock it. Already on your system.

 

Congrats on joining the club

 

There is another reason. Installing your games in a folder on a different partition than the OS partition will allow you to keep them when you wipe your OS partition. Sure, some games require registry entries to be present and some saves from the various Documents/AppData/ProgramData, etc. folders backed up, but many will work right off the HDD without having to reinstall them. In addition it's easier to keep your games organized if you install them in a separate games directory.

 

The reason i was asking is, i just purchased Buffalo NAS and had intentions of using that and the backup software it came with.

Wouldnt the backup software accomplish the same thing as the Respawn? or are you saying i need to use both?

 

Hello all, new member here, first post

Just got a M17x-r2 myself, so it looks like I can introduce myself and maybe slip in a related question at the same time.

This thread is exactly what I've been searching for because I seem to be having a problem with my respawn partition.

I've already made a set of recovery discs with the respawn utility so I am good there. But the last few days I've been messing around with installing stuff and I've used respawn to go back to factory a couple of times now.

Yesterday I decided to use the respawn utility to go back to factory one last time, but early in the restore process I get an "instruction error" and the utility force closes. Multiple attempts to restore from the respawn partition yields the same error (cannot remember the exact error code).

So I pop in the respawn discs and everything restores back to factory without issues.

So basically I have 2 quick questions:

1. Has anyone had a similar problem with this type of error when restoring from the respawn partition, and if so, is there a way to fix it?

2. Since I do have my set of respawn discs, can I do a clean install of Windows, and if I choose to, use the discs to reset back to a factory state later on? I ask this because I am not clear on if I need the respawn partition there to use the respawn discs, or if I have the discs, the respawn partition is not needed at all?

Thanks all