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95308
Vostro 420 and Windows 7
Hi,
I am thinking of experimenting with Windows 7 on my new Vostro 420. First, my base OS is XP SP3. So what I would like to do is make this the primary drive. For test purposes, can I tell the machine in bios to boot from another drive and still leave the base drive connected?
Second, anybody have experience running the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows 7 on this machine. I know that Dell officially does not support any 64 bit operating systems on these units, but I have the sense this is more due to testing limitations than hardware limitations. What driver issues are people currently having iwth 32 bit and 64 bit envrironments?
If anybody has advice on dual-booting with XP and Windows 7 I am intererested. For that matter, I'd be interested in your thoughts on using VM and Linux on this machine. I am a interested in the VM and Linux more as a hobbyist and not for day to day use (that would be the base XP environment!!).
Thanks.
Jay J Keller
13 Posts
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July 7th, 2009 03:00
I am running my Vostro 420 with Windows 7 RC2. I tried Vista 64Bit without success as tons of drivers were not working properly. With W7 64Bit it just flies. I pumped the memory up to 8GB and it is quite snappy. Why don't you install a dual boot machine? You will scratch XP once you work with W7.
Jay
originalsnuffy
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1 Rookie
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July 9th, 2009 13:00
I am running Windows 7 on a spare drive. Finding 64 bit drivers can be a challenge.
I wonder whether the Windows 7 upgrade disc form Dell will include utilities to upgrade from Vista (no I run XP not Vista, just curious)? Also wondering whether the 64 bit version of Windows 7 willl also be included.
Jay J Keller
13 Posts
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July 10th, 2009 19:00
What are the 64Bit drivers you have issues with? I have heared that there is an Vista to W7 procedure to upgrade but I usually do a clean install. You know, there is always stuff on the system that needs to be cleaned out in order to make it run smooth and then I never trust upgrades really,
Jay
farpetrad
36 Posts
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July 10th, 2009 20:00
According to Microsoft there is no direct upgrade path from XP to 7. XP is allowed to upgrade rights to 7 but there is no direct way to an XP installation to 7, you must do a clean install. As for 64 bit drivers, most vendors have drivers out for their hardware, there are a few devices that will not have a driver, but most big companies do have 64 bit drivers. I have been running 64 bit Vista since it came out and have had no problems with drivers.
wihan
3 Posts
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November 22nd, 2009 21:00
I did a custom install of Windows 7 64bit from my former Vista 64 bit OS, since the upgrade failed. I had to unload the ATI drivers/software for my HD5770 video card.
What is amazing is that of the first three "microsoft updates", after installing windows 7, were the dell monitor driver, the ATI video driver and the old Brother printer driver.
Apparently the Windows 7 64 bit drivers are fairly available from "microsoft updates".
I cannot run the latest BIOS update on the 64 bit OS, though.
I have 8gB of RAM installed. It is really too bad Dell does not support 64 bit OS on the Vostro 420, but it works fine without all the Dell drivers.
Don
Jay J Keller
13 Posts
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November 22nd, 2009 22:00
Hi Don
I have my machine with 64Bit and 8GB of memory and it works just fine. The BIOS seems to be an issue even with the 32Bit version. What I did was creating a bootable USB stick and started the update from DOS. Worked like a charm and now I am on BIOS 1.2.
Regarding the drivers, I can recommend Driver Genius Professional Edition. That thing gets updates for drivers you never thought of checking. The good thing is the DB with the drivers gets updated about 1 every week or so I(sometimes 10 days). http://www.plimus.com/jsp/buynow.jsp?contractId=2402296
hey, for $30 you can't go wrong!
Jay
Amadeus79
2 Posts
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November 30th, 2009 21:00
I tried updating my BIOS (still at 1.0.2) with a bootable USB stick (Windows 98 DOS) and it always hangs, it doesn't matter if I'm trying to upgrade to 1.0.4 or 1.2.0, it stops after "Invoke the exe file!" followed by a few carriage returns, after I press "Y". How did you create your USB drive? Mine is Kingston DataTraveler, 8GB, formatted with FAT32 and Windows 98 DOS.
wihan
3 Posts
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November 30th, 2009 22:00
I think you need to format with NTFS format boot from maybe a newer version windows.
I just upgraded my Netbook from Win XP 32 bit to Win 7 32 bit using a 4gB HP USB FLASH drive, after I made an ISO bootable image from my win 7 install disk.
I created the bootable USB FLASH drive from Win7 64 bit, using "unetbootin-windows-377.exe" to load the ISO file to the USB FLASH drive
and "uiso9_pe.exe" to make the Win7 image from the DVD install disk.
Don
Amadeus79
2 Posts
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November 30th, 2009 23:00
I'm not trying to upgrade OSes, I'm trying to upgrade BIOS. On any version of Vista or Windows 7, 32 or 64bit, the BIOS flash tool doesn't work. I already have Windows 7 64bit installed, which is why I need to flash my BIOS using a DOS bootdisk. I don't think your advice applies here.
buffalo22
3 Posts
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February 10th, 2010 09:00
Jay, how did you do the initial install of W7 64 bit? I keep ending up with a black screen and a mouse cursor.
Bill
Jay J Keller
13 Posts
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February 10th, 2010 17:00
Sorry guys, i missed a couple of these mails. BIOS is an issue and I have the same problem that the update in DOS hangs. I wait till the next "big" update and then call the technician to do it. I will watch him closely and will let you know.
Installing the W7 64Bit was absolutely no issue. I popped the CD in and let it install. Where does your install hang? At the beginning or after you've installed. Maybe your W7 CD is bad. This was really no issue at all here.
Jay
buffalo22
3 Posts
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February 15th, 2010 09:00
Actually came up with the solution. The Dell video drivers do not support multiple monitors without an update. Need to disconnect the second monitor and complete the install, then update the video drivers and all is good. Now that it is done it runs great.
wihan
3 Posts
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February 15th, 2010 10:00
Actually, when updating to win7, on the Vostro 420 just remove all the video & print drivers (including ati catalyst). Let windows use the default drivers. Once Windows 7 is installed, the first Microsoft update will install the new video driver and the new printer driver. Don't try to install the drivers, let the windows update do it.
I am running Win7 64 bit, after custom install it works just fine.
Don