D630 on Windows 7?

I can not be sure of the answer, but I have been running Windows 7 - 64bit on a D820 which is simular but one generation older than d D630.  There were no issues with the installation.

In any case install it on a different HD and leave the original one intact.
This way you can easily return to what you had.

I know BIOS hacks are popular to run Vista on old pre-vista machines.
Wouldn't surprise me if that's the case for Windows 7 too,

I'm running Win 7 on a D630 have been for a month or so.

You will need to download video driver directly from Nvidia and the touch strip driver directly from UPTek but Windows finds all the other drivers from the update site.

Have had fairly solid operation only glitch has been with sound through docking station.

Machine is clocking a little faster with Win 7 over XP-32 with only 2Gig RAM, faster boot but slower shutdown. Overall rating is positive though.

Does your D820 happen to have the nVidia 120 NVS graphics card? If it does, can you tell what your highest resolution possible is? I was running this laptop under XP Pro SP3 at 1920x1200. After switching to a new install of Windows 7 Ultilmate 64-bit, the highest resolution I can obtain is 1600x1200. I have tried several drivers from different locations with no luck. Sad to have high-end hardware without appropriate drivers, even at this late date.

Your Dell D630 will work fine on the hardware side with Windows 7 but software could be questionable if you go the 64 bit route.  Just because the notebook will handle 64 bits does not mean you have to go that route.  Due to older software, I am going to install Windows 7 32 bit on my D820.  My older software includes Microsoft Office XP which is not 64 bit compatible.  I am not totally sold on 64 bit as there is no real advantage unless your are running an application that truly loves 64 bit such as some video encoding software, or if you need more than 4GB of memory.  The D820 tops out at 4GB and recognizes about 3.25 GB.  64 Bits is not worth it for me.  Plus there is more software that works with 32 bit yet than it does with 64 bits.  I do not know what to say for Dondraper40's issue as I am still running beta on Seven in 32 bit for testing with the same video chip with no problem, but I have the WSXGA+ and I think you have the utlra(?) resolution?

@Ambajack:

Are you running Win 7 as 32 or 64 bits?

Would you say it is worth spending $150 or so to have the new OS over Win XP?

Running 64-bit. If you have more than 2 GB of RAM and your cpu and BIOS support it, I suggest going 64-bit because memory is low-cost now and provides so much better performance in memory hungry OSs and applications.

So far....

- Outlook 2007 is much faster for me than it was under XP. May have been an issue with the installation more than the OS

- It does load and shut-down faster and many apps to seem to do the same.

- The ability to hover the most and task bar and see thumbnails popup is nice.

- easier to find applications or documents.

- connecting to wireless is slower for me although that was supposed to be improved.

As always - you may want to wait until SP 1 or later before MS gets the bugs worked out and vendors catch up. Definitely want this if you are purchasing a system.