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    Upgrading OS from Win7 to Win8 on new Alienware 17

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Lundon44, Jul 18, 2013.

  1. Lundon44

    Lundon44 Notebook Consultant

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    Hey y'all...

    Dell blew it and shipped my Alienware 17 to me with the wrong OS on it. I selected Win8 not Win7. (It's my personal preference despite most of you hate it) I called to complain and they attempted to get me to send it back. However, being that it took a month to get it after numerous order cancellations (which I was uninformed of) I flat out refused. I suggested they send me a retail copy and I could go ahead and do the install myself. And after 1 hour of haggling with tech support they agreed to send it. But a French copy.. not English just to add salt to the wounds.

    Moving forward, they asked that I only perform an "upgrade". Which is fine. But I'm more curious if it's as simple as that or if I should be installing most of the drivers on the Dell driver page for the Alienware 17 (Win8). I don't know if the upgrade will handle most of that for me or not. I'm paranoid of instability now or blue screens.

    They also told me that Command Center will break. Also curious what else will.

    Can anyone tell me if there is anything else I should be aware of when doing the upgrade or should it be fairly hassle-free?
     
    Lundon44, Jul 18, 2013
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  2. jaeyang9

    jaeyang9 Notebook Consultant

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    i upgraded from win7 to win8 pro earlier this year via "upgrade" option.. should be hassle-free.. no bsod and command center appears to work fine.. only thing that might be missing are themes/login screen but there are easy fixes if you really want it back..

    make sure to check out classicshell if you miss having a start button in desktop mode
     
    jaeyang9, Jul 18, 2013
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  3. Lundon44

    Lundon44 Notebook Consultant

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    That's reassuring. I could care less about the start up screen. But did you manually install all the Win8 drivers from Dell or did you not even bother? And did your webcam work?
     
    Lundon44, Jul 18, 2013
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  4. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    It should be hassle-free. At least you have all the drivers posted on our page in the case anything stops working.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Jul 19, 2013
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  5. llelitell

    llelitell Notebook Guru

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    after upgrading my Alienware OSD doesn't seem to work.. Instead it's showingthe default windows 8 OSD
     
    llelitell, Jul 20, 2013
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  6. Lundon44

    Lundon44 Notebook Consultant

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    I completed my upgrade over the weekend from Win 7 x64 to Win 8 x64 Pro. The only thing that happened was it told me prior to installing that my current bluetooth driver wasn't compatible and it forced me to uninstall it before it could continue. And it didn't look like I needed to reinstall it after or even install any new drivers. So far it's been working perfectly though I haven't gone through and tried every single Alienware pre-installed app yet.
     
    Lundon44, Jul 23, 2013
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