The windows 7 experience!!!

yeah, im sure its because Microsoft hasn't even put those into the Beta, seems they are still under development...

note: ive tried both 32x and 64x versions of windows seven, none of them seem to have the gadgets... oh well, after all it is still a beta, but im sure we can expect them to be working just fine in future releases, or the final release for that matter

 

OK great that's all i needed, just to make sure it wasn't my problem

 

I just installed the nvidia 185.20 vista drivers and so far the drivers seem to be working ok. I played a bit of COD2 and all seems good ( I know it's an old game but it is one of my favorite WW2 simulation games ), and performance is good too.

 

COD2? You should be able to max out COD4. Tried it just to make sure my 8600GT was OK and unflawed by borrowing it from someone, and it looked awesome for what it is.

I did notice today when playing back a show plugged into my TV with S-Video cable, than when I press the FN+CRT/LCD key, instead of having 3 modes like Windows Vista (Just on laptop, laptop + tv, just tv) there was only one setting if i plugged it in (laptop + tv) and it didn't change to any of the other three options if I pressed the two keys again. Though when I unplugged the SVideo and pressed the two keys, it reverted to normal on my laptop.

Not a big deal, but I noticed that I couldnt get it to just play on the TV only. Maybe its just the way it is with Windows 7 or maybe my computer has been on too long and glitched that one time, doesn't bother me at all though.

 

I just played a few levels on campaign mode on COD World at War at 1920x1200 and it runs very smooth and graphically looks the same as in Vista. so far I am very happy with Windows 7.

 

When I installed Windows 7, I selected the Load Driver option at the beginning of setup and used the Intel AHCI drivers I use for Vista (to use it in AHCI/RAID mode). My scores - all of them - are at least as good in 7 as they are in Vista. The M133O scores a 4.1 on graphics (i forget which) with the 179.28? WDDM 1.1 driver from Windows Update.

The only driver Windows 7 couldn't find is for the fingerprint reader.

 

Hi Folks,

It seems that everyone has mainly had positive results of installing the Windows 7 beta on their XPS notebooks but I've hit some major huddles.

Firstly, I tried installing the OS over the top of of 32bit Vista using the update option. The install seemed to go fine, apart from a conflict with McAfee, which I uninstalled and downloaded Avast. But after about 2 minutes of use the machine would blue screen and restart no matter what I was doing or which apps I had running.

Obviously I backed up before starting the process, so I then tried a clean install of the OS but without formatting the drive first. Right towards the end it came up with an error message saying that the hardware was not compatible with this version of Windows, which is obviously BS. I'm using a Dell XPS m1330, 2GHz, 4GB with a 250GB 7200rpm HDD.

I've tried a fresh install again and have left it running. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

 

Try following Trebuin's (I think) instructions on how to load a fresh copy of Vista using AHCI (only substitute your Windows 7 disc for the Vista DVD, of course).

This is my best recollection:
1. Go to Intel's web site and download the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager or whatever it is they call it these days.
2. Run the installer with a -a switch (open up a run box, drag the file onto it, then add in -a at the end), and copy the resultant Driver or Driver64 folder to an external drive. The correct folder will have files named iaStor and iaAHCI.
3. Put in the Windows 7 DVD and reboot, hitting F2 when you see the screen turn black.
4. Set your BIOS to RAID/AHCI (instead of ATA). Save settings as you exit.
5. Hit F12 at the black (POST) screen and then press a key to boot from DVD.
6. At the first Windows Setup, click Advanced.
7. When it shows you a list of partitions to install to, select Load Driver ( even if it already shows the drive's partitions).
8. Hit Browse and point it to the external drive and Driver or Driver64. Now select your partition, format it, if you wish, and you should be good to go.
9. When the installation completes, go immediately to Windows Update to get the remaining drivers not on the DVD (the nVidia 8400M GS and one or two non-critical others).
10. The only missing driver on my system is the fingerprint reader, but I presume the Vista driver will work fine and I am not using this as my primary OS anyways, so I can do without that device, for now.

 

Does anybody have an educated guess as to when W7 will ship on new computers?

 

The retail should this summer I guess ? They might be into new computers for Fall or Winter...

 

I was thinking it would be this summer too. Do you really think it will take until the fall or later before it is available in new computers? I thought that would happen at the same time as the retail version was released.

 

Win 7 32-bit Upek drivers
Win 7 64-bit Upek drivers

 

Why would the retail version ship this summer when the beta goes until August 1st, 2009?

It won't come out until early 2010.

 

If this was a normal cycle, I'd tend to agree with you. But I think in this case we'll be seeing Windows 7 by the 3rd quarter 2009 at the latest. I think that Microsoft really wants to put Vista in the rear view mirror. The sooner the better. I'm guessing that we'll see a RC in the Spring, the RTM in the July/August time frame, and on the retail shelf and on new systems by September.

Of course, I'm simply guessing.

 

Microsoft has also said that "they don't want to release this until it's 100% complete"

 

sure they dont, remember service pack 1 ??? lol

 

hey, anyone noticed the microphones at top of the screen dont work anymore ?
strange...

 

Actually microphones at top of the screen on my M1530 do work. I've been using it all the time. Make sure the drivers are installed. Unless its something to do with 32-bit driver not compatible with 64-bit or something.

 

No OS is ever 100% complete!

I admit that my opinions on this are guided mostly by Paul Thurott's Windows Weekly podcast. He's obviously been talking quite a bit about Windows 7, and he's been consistently of the opinion that we're going to see this sooner (mid 2009) rather than later (2010). Obviously he's just speculating as well, but when I listen to him, I can't help but believe.

The beta seems really polished to me. I really think they can release this in late Summer or Fall. I suppose we'll all find out together.

 

Totally agree with fountainhead. It feels solid, and I feel Microsoft definitely has the right idea this time. I don't mind a later release, as long as I can use some stable beta while they are working on it. Like I said before in another post, this beta is a lot stabler than Vista and XP's beta 1 which had many noticable problems that were caught early on.

 

Hey I have a question fountain head did you have 5.3 for your hard drive right out of the box in windows 7? And if so what kind of hard drive do u have? I also had 5.3 out of the box. Anyways what I wanted to ask you is in your device manager is your hard drive listed as ATA instead of SATA? Did you try to load any of the dell drivers?

 

Fountainhead had been using his M1530 for quite a while now, definitely not "out of the box". I've had mine for a little longer than he did and for Primary Hard disk I have 5.9 for 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200RPM.

 

I've installed multiple ways, but always with the same result. My drive is a Samsung 250 GB 5400 RPM drive. I originally installed Windows 7 without any additional AHCI drivers. The WEI shows 5.3, and device manager lists it as Ultra ATA. This last install I decided to load the Intel AHCI drivers during the installation. When it was finished, WEI showed 5.3, and device manager still lists it as Ultra ATA, with the same driver as before (dated 2006).

For the record, I booted back into my Vista install (for which I also loaded AHCI drivers during the install) and it also lists it as Ultra ATA. AHCI is enabled in the BIOS, btw.

I'm not sure I'd read too much into the WEI scores. Despite scoring 5.3, my drive tested worse (using that disk utility from the other thread) than those Seagate 7200 drives that were showing as 2.9 in WEI.

My own observation is that the drive seems to behave pretty much the same in practice as it did under Vista.

 

Did you do a fresh install of Windows 7 fountainhead? (reformat your harddrive, etc) Or did you just do an upgrade.


EDIT: nvm, I noticed two partitions.

 

Yeah, it's installed on a fresh partition, and dual boots with Vista.

 

Just to make sure, so you had to reinstall all the M1530 drivers for your Windows 7 partition right? It didn't just borrow them from the Vista partition?

 

Correct, but Windows 7 has pretty much all of the drivers anyway. Not much to install. After a clean install, the only missing drivers are the fingerprint reader driver, the Nvidia driver, and the Ricoh card reader. Windows Update then adds the Nvidia driver, the card reader driver, and also updates the ethernet driver. The only one you actually need to manually install is the fingerprint reader, and I've never even bothered to do it.

Windows 7 is actually an easier install than Vista.

 

With a fresh install of Windows 7, the the only drivers necessary were the nVidia, Card Reader & Fingerprint reader which were all installed using Windows Update. Under 32 bit Win 7, the fingerprint reader was installed by windows update automatically, but under 64-bit I had to manually download and install from the Upek site. Out of the box I am getting disk data transfer rate subscore of 5.4 with a Fujitsu 320gb 5400rpm SATA.

 

will there be windows 7 basic, home premium, and ultimate?? did microsoft announce the price of w7??

 

This may not be all that important, but I never really liked the name 'Vista', It never sounded like an OS to me. I do like 'Windows 7' though. Cool nickname in 'W7' too.:yes: I hope MS leaves it that way. Does anybody think they will change it again before release?

 

I believe that Windows 7 is the actual name.

"7" has a certain hi-tech feel to it. They're calling the next version " Windows 8: The Ocho." You heard it here first.

 

"The Ocho"... I've heard that somewhere before... so familiar

 

Nah. No way. Microsoft would never steal someone else's idea and run with it, would they?

 

lol " ocho"

I just installed win7, and i have 8400m (nvidia driver) but somehow when i have aero, it lags like 0.5 sec whenever i open a windows, minimize or close a window :S

 

installed a fresh copy of windows 7 on my m1330 and noticed that the aero isn't as smooth as it was on vista. anyone else noticed a difference between the two? vista fade effects when closing and opening windows looks smoother.

can anyone else report? what drivers are you using? i am running nvidia 181.20.

 

didn't noticed your post...but i am experiencing the same thing. m1330 with 8400m.

 

all of you people having issues with Aero and 8400GS, the problem is POWERMIZER, you have to disable that thing for your card to work at its full poer (does affect battery life, but you can disable powermizer only on AC for instance)

search for powermizer here at the forums

 

woah, i leave for a few days and the thread has 3 more pages :O ( looks at fountainhead and forte )

yeah, never really liked microsoft using the spanish word "vista" meaning "sight" on an american product , windows OCHO sounds pathetic

and for those having issues with windows 7 and the 8400, i agree with jkleet, it could be powermizer, because there is really no reason for the interface to be laggy on a dedicated graphics card, im using the 185.20 driver on the 8600gt, and it works better than anything...

guide to disable powermizer : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929

 

Thank you for pointing me !! i read the whole 14 pages lol

 

Hmm, is it just me or does that powermizer registry tweak not work on Windows 7? I can't find any of the keys mentioned in that guide..

 

lol you too kossel *stares* muahahaha

oh crud... your right... i cant find those registry entries, but powermizer still works so they gotta be somewhere, il look for them when i have more time

 

Don't forget it's still a beta.

Things may not be as smooth as you want, but it's to be expected with an OS that's still potentially a year away from being publicly released.

 

Anyone having a problem with their optical drive not being recognized? It's in device manager but not working with a driver error, but I can't find anything to fix it.

 

... weird.. you could try and install your own driver from the dell web site ( if there is any hehe) well since i dont have the m1330... and im not aware of anyone having trouble with their dvd drives.. sorry man

 

I have a M1330 (LED) with Windows 7 Beta 64-bit and Windows Live Essentials. When I tried to initiate a video call in Windows Live Messenger 9, it says that the webcam is in use by something else. Anyone else experiencing the same?

 

That's odd I am running W7 on both my M1730 Gaming laptop and Sony SZ330P and the optical drive works fine on both I have installed games and played music cd's on both and I had no problems at all so far anyway.

 

Check this out:

http://windows7news.com/2009/01/15/windows-7-not-recognizing-dvd-drive/

 

has anyone figured out a fix for the AHCI issue and the seagate hdd's? I am still getting a base score for my disk transfer rate of 3.0!? Also the first time I installed W7 my fingerprint reader worked automatically but when I formatted and reinstalled W7 it dint work it kept telling me to plug in the fingerprint device.I tried the upek driver for W7 and it still didnt work! I like the W7 OS but I want to fix these issues if I am going to use this as my main OS, which is what I am planning on doing!

 

as for the disk score in WEI go to the device center and options for your disk drive and disable the writing cache to disk option...this should bring the score up (as it did for me) and for the finger print reader mine didnt work out of the instalation i had to install the vista 64bit driver...

 

are you running 64 or 32? I have a 32 bit