Windows 8 on Inspiron Duo (Touch screen not working)

I have done the same thing with a Duo that I had to replace the Windows 7 OS when it got corrupted.  I started out with the Windows 8 Enterprise demo which worked so well that I purchased the Windows 8 Pro upgrade.  Most of the stuff works including the Touch Screen but some of the apps seem to cause it issues.  I would suggest if you do use Windows 8 DO NOT use a Microsoft account without being very careful about what you have syncing.  There have been a number of issues around the web where somethings that get synced cause issues with tablet type of machines...the biggest I have seen is where the Touch Screen gets turned off.  I also agree that Dell should reconsider and put out some Windows 8 drivers for the Duo it is a great machine that fills a very specific market niche that they don't have something to fill yet.

I received a phone call today from Dell to extend my warranty on this device.  Told them no since they aren't supporting it with the latest and greatest.  The guy wouldn't take no for an answer, so I ended up just hanging up on him.

Please and Please how do i go about installing windows 8 on my Inspiron Duo. Where do i get the software and how do i do the install? Help Urgently please...I don't wanna have nightmares and wreck my system. Thanks so much!

The install of Windows 8 on the Duo worked everything seems to be working.  I do have one item device still marked as unknown and I suspect it is the motion/GPS sensor.  I got the Windows 8 Pro Upgrade directly off the Microsoft site.  I did elect to save and burn to DVD so that I would have the software if I ever needed to reinstall it in the future.  You must first have a working Windows 7 on the system as you have to start the upgrade from within Windows 7.  From there the install went smoothly.  I found that most of the drivers for Windows 7 on the Dell Support site seemed to work for Windows 8. Once you begin the upgrade then you CANNOT revert to Windows 7 unless you have the Windows 7 DVD as the repair/restore partition is no longer available.   If you have never done an install or upgrade I would suggest you consider having a professional do the work.  I am a professional but as with anything we have to learn and sometimes we learn from people willing to do things we would not do so we ask in Communities like this.

Good luck

Thanks a lot. Since am meant to burn it on a dvd, how can I do that since I dont have a dvd burner on my duo?

You will need an external DVD burner.  I have not looked at trying to use a Windows 7 software to read an ISO to load from but that may not be possible anyway.  You can download the ISO to the Duo then transfer the file to another machine that has a DVD burner and ISO burning software.  In case you don't know an ISO is a disk image.  The Windows 8 upgrade will download as an ISO file that then needs to be loaded by software to be read or using Explorer to burn the disk image to a DVD/CD.  Some ISO's are for CD's but the image for Windows 8 is a DVD.

Before you begin make sure your BIOS is at the latest release for the Duo.  I think that is revision 4 or 6.  If it is not then do that while you have Windows 7 functioning as it may be harder or not possible to do under Windows 8.  The BIOS update is available under the Driver section of the Dell Support site for the Duo.  Plug the machine into AC power when you do the BIOS update as it will geneally refuse to update unless you do this.  Make sure you follow the directions carefully as if you blow the BIOS update the machine is pretty much worthless afterwards.  The machine will reboot during the BIOS upgrade and if you don't want to do this a professional would be recommended.  It normally only takes about 15 minutes or less to do the BIOS upgrade.

Good Luck

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Ok, so this is a bug driven by the difference between the Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro features.  To fix this:

1.) Go to the start screen

2.)  Type CMD, right click the icon that appears and "Run as Administrator"

3.) Type "bcdedit /set testsigning on" and press enter

4.) Restart and touch will work.

This enables test mode but it will get you by until MS releases a fix (hopefully)

Enjoy.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood IT Guy.

Any tips on installing Windows 8. Did you update or do a clean install to another partition. This is what i usually do in case of horrors!

Cheers

You were able to get the Atheros wireless bluetooth to work?

Yes the drivers were part of either Windows 8 Pro or else I used the Dell Windows 7 ones, either way it is working.  We don't use it but it is reporting correctly in the Device Manager.

Jon

Thank you for this info.  This did enable the touchscreen to work. It does seem that I am not to begin typing in desktop mode and it begin to search. I seem to also have lost the ability to get off the desktop and to the tile page as well.  This  things did work before I put it into test  mode so I concluded that what caused the change. I am open to suggestions though.  Also I can no long just click on a web link that is on a ed page and be linked.  Thinking I need to reverse this and try another approach to get the touchscreen to work. Any suggestions on these matters?

Sorry i am new to blogging. I though my statement would go directly under the suggestion I  followed.I followed the advice of Edward Clark and set my duo up in test mode to get the touchscreen working and then I notice the things that are noted above.

I just upgraded to windows 8 pro {I have a inspirion 1720}and now my touchpad is not working properly. I went to hardware and sound, and the only device is showing a mouse. how do fix my touchpad so the scroll feature works again?