Windows 8 on an Inspiron 1545?

Hi Nikonean,

This system has not been tested with Windows 8. The drivers are not be available for this system. You may have to visit the manufacturer's website to download the drivers or may have to install the existing drivers available on support site in compatibility mode. You can refer to the link for a compatible system tested by Dell with Windows 8 bitly.com/RnDAFu 

I would suggest you to run the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant before installing Windows 8. Upgrade Assistant checks your computer hardware to see if it meets the Windows 8 system requirements. Here is the link to download http://bit.ly/PSGwvj and click on ‘Download Upgrade Assistance’. 

Please reply if you have any questions.

Thanks MicroTest, that's good to know.  Looks like it may be just a couple of drivers I may need to download according to your experience.  Also, did you upgrade your CPU and Ram?  If so, what CPU do you have installed?  I upgraded to 8GB of ram, upgraded to a 1515 Wireless-N Wi-Fi Card but still have a Celeron 900 2.2ghz CPU.  I'd like to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo but I'm still doing research to find out what actually works.  I tried installing an Intel T9600 2.8 Ghz 1096 6mb cache CPU but Windows Vista Home Basic would not boot up with this CPU (I kept getting a Bluescreen error) even though the BIOS was able to see the CPU.

Thanks Dell-Appu S.  I will check out those links and run upgrade assistant before installing.   It appears Windows 8 runs just fine on a 1545 according to MicroTest's reply in this thread.

Windows 8 works perfectly on my Inspiron 1545.The screenshots below show you my system configuration.

When I reinstalled Windows 8 from scratch it automatically

> detected and installed drivers for the WLAN device

> detected and installed drivers for the network card (Marvel...)

> detected and installed the drivers for Intel graphic card

> detected and installed drivers for the soundcard - Note: Even though the soundcard worked perfectly I installed Dell's IDT drivers which work fine

> detected and installed touchpad drivers - Note: Dell's driver were incompatible so I did not even try to install them,since I never needed added

   functionality - like turning touchpad on/off.

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> I had to install Dell's drivers for the card reader ! This was the only device that caused trouble,but Dell's driver (for Win7) fixed it

> I did not install Quickset . It actually worked but there were a minor problems when - for instance - the brightness was changed:

   Windows 8 comes with its own On-Screen-Display and that was slightly out of sync with Dell's OSD

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Windows 8 is an awesome OS but I still prefer the interface of Windows 7 since the tiles are more appropriate for a touchscreen

If Windows 8 is running on your system (you might have a different mainboard/display) I recommend you to buy Stardocks "Start8"-menu

(or try IO-bits free Start8 menu) - you can then switch easily between Win8-Tiles or Desktop Interface

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As soon as your system is perfectly installed download free Macrium Reflect and create an image backup of your OS !

Hi Nikonean,

Thank you for your response. As I shared before, this system is not tested to work with Windows 8.
Glad that Microtest got it working; @MicroTest: Thank you for your valuable inputs.

> As "Dell-Appu S" already suggested run "Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant"

> Please note that our systems have different hardware specifications !

> The only thing I have ever updated was my harddrive 160GByte to 500Gbyte

> Since I am not a "gamer" I am more than happy with the speed of my laptop : it's excellent !

> Your system seems to be older than 2 years - Think twice before you invest too much money

   in upgrading the laptop