Area 51 m7700 XP to Windows 7

Hi,

I just found this forum and have a few questions about an upcoming upgrade I will be attempting on my m7700.

She currently has xp home and runs beautifully. Purchased new July 2005.

I have just ordered from Tiger Direct, Windows 7 home premium 32 bit. I used the Windows update adviser and it said my computer could handle Windows 7. I am doing this as Microsoft will no longer be supporting xp in the very near future.

When I do this clean install, it will ask for the raid or non-raid drivers. The one I use is non-raid but it is for XP. Will this pose a problem in getting the new operating system installed?

Any other tips on what should be done prior to this operating system upgrade besides backing up all my important files?

Thanks

 

I have an m7700 (D900K) that I have Windows 7 ultimate installed on. It is not using raid (as it only has one HDD installed) and the HDD showed up in the windows 7 installer without installing any drivers. This being said I have an m7700 (D900T) that I am having issues with the HDD not showing up in the XP installer even after loading drivers. I tired the win7 installer and it would not show the drive either and when selecting a windows XP raid or non-raid driver, the installer says it is not compatible.

Hope this helps

 

What does your computer have for specs? I'm sure the adviser said it can handle it but I personally would not try to run Win 7 on anything older than a Core 2 Duo, but again that's just me, some may not mind. Also given the age of your laptop Windows 7 will probably have the drivers you need already built in, I doubt you will be asked for them. If you are I don't know if Alienware will have Vista/7 drivers for you to download for your model and you may have to search the web for them. By the way, are you going Win7 32 or 64?

 

Installed windows 7 today. The only issue I have is no sound. The Realtek High Definition Audio Program will not work - I get a message of driver failure.
Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Sounds like you need a different driver. Did you get it from the intel/realtek site?

 

I now have sound . Used a driver I found for Vista but it does not have the blue bar on the screen as you increase the volume. I can still control the volume by using F5 and F6 keys and watch a slider go up and down as volume is increased or decreased. Windows gives a warning that this is not the correct driver.

Something I noticed today. Any photos I had saved on my external hard drive are distorted. People look too wide. Should I use the Alienware Utility disc to load the Nvidia and ATI drivers?
I only have 2 resolutions I can use in screen setup. 1024 X 768 and 800 X 600.

Thanks

 

It sounds like you are missing more drivers. Was this your first time installing windows? Have you looked in device manager to see what other drivers have a yellow '!' next to them?

 

Depending on if you have an nvidia or ATI card you'll have to find out which one and head over to the respective site (nvidia/amd) to download the mobility drivers for it.
As for the other guy saying you need at least a Core 2 to run windows 7 - nonsense. To run Windows 7 properly you only need 2GB of memory and an aero compatible graphics card.

 

I said I personally would not run on anything lower than a Core 2, not that it can't be run. You could probably run it on a P3 if you wanted. I also said nothing about ram or video cards, I am sure the m7700 is fine that way, but that Athlon 64 or P4 they have in there would be better served running a lighter OS such as a distro of Linux or staying on Windows XP. Again this is just advice, if they are fine with the performance of Windows 7 on those CPU's then the more power to them.

 

Seems to be running quite well right now. My graphics card is a Nvdia GeForce Go 6800. It does not allow Aero.
In the device manager there are not any yellow "!" alongside any items.

 

Did you install Win7 64 or 32. Since you have 4gb or lower of ram you will be fine w/ the 32 bit edition unless you specifically have an app that ONLY runs in 64. Reading quickly here it seems installing 32-bit and using the 32-bit nvidia driver allowed Aero.

GeForce 6800: no transparency in Aero? - [H]ard|Forum

 

I installed Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit.

I do have the Nvdia panel from the control panel advanced section.

My specs are Intel Pentium 4 - 2.80GHz with 2.50GB.

I do not really care about the Aero effects but the laptop does seem a bit sluggish. Would adding memory help in this regard?

What is this Nvdia Forceware I have read about in forums?

My windows experience index is 1.0 under system rating.

 

Try grabbing the latest nvidia drivers from their site if you have not done so already.

From reading Forceware seems to be just an application nvidia released unless they used to call their driver software forceware or something. Either way grabbing the latest drivers should do it.

Perhaps upgrading to 4GB will help but I wouldn't say it will make a world of difference. I used only 2GB for years on Win7 with my Core 2 and it ran very fast.

As far as your CPU goes this is your real problem. It's like I said, when I installed Win7 on an old 3GHz Pentinum 4 that I had it ran way too sluggish for my liking. This is why I was saying I would only run Win7 on a Core 2 Duo or higher. Since your unit is stuck on the P4 level, sticking with Windows XP or moving to a Linux distribution will give you the smoothest performance. If you want to try Linux I like "Linux Mint - Mate" as an entry level distribution. Very easy to use / install and is a modified version of the popular Ubuntu.