I have four laptops two desktop computers in my family, one running Windows Server 2003, two running Windows XP Home, three running Windows XP Professional. I have a domain controller with roaming profiles and many network shares in my house for all my devices that include an XBOX 360, DLINK, Sling box, two iTouches and a few others…. I’m most likely not the typical user however I wanted to share my upgrades to Windows 7. The first attempt is/was my HP Pavilion ZX5369CL it’s a P4 3.2ghz with that I upgraded to 2GB RAM and a 160GB Hard Drive. The main issues I had with this upgrade as I seem to have with all upgrades are the video and sound drivers. Before I dive in lets back up a step… This machine has a registered copy of Windows XP Pro it came with Windows XP Home (sticker on bottom)… In addition to being in the U.S. Army I’m also a full time student seeking an IT degree my college offers free licenses of Microsoft Software including Windows 7 Pro… I download the image from MSDN and got my full install media and key…
Ok here we go… I booted my old laptop with fresh image of Windows 7 Pro full install wiped the partition table and did a clean install. I must admit I was surprised at how little input it needed from me after about two or three reboots I was at the desktop and it looked good… No sound but it looked good. I avoided using Vista and it took me a little while to find the device manager my Sound Max AC’97 integrated driver are installed but are not working… My video drivers are the standard ones all other devices are up and working including the wireless NIC wow…
My gut reaction is to go find the drivers and install them but I remembered what read on Paul Thurrott’s site and decided to do all the Windows updates first to see if Windows 7 can fix itself first. After a few reboots and many patches still no sound. So I Google my sound chipset and Windows 7 looking for known issues after all Win7 has been in beta for almost a year I can’t be the first person to run across this right… No windows 7 drivers the Windows Vista 32 bit drivers did not work so I go to HP website download the Windows XP drivers and install them boom I have sound…
Ok video drivers… The generic Windows 7 video drivers work but I want more options and I would like Aero to be enabled however finding drivers for my ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9200 to be impossible task… After reading many blogs and support sites the Windows Vista 32 bit drivers for ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9800 are the solution I’m looking for. Now I have all my hardware working but I my rating on the Windows Experience Index is still a 1.0 because of my graphics and gaming graphics are both 1.0… Oh well this is a laptop I bought in late 2004 what should I expect…
Next, I installed Symantec SEP, Microsoft Office 2007 and all my other programs then I activate Windows 7 no issues at all… The sound stops working from time to time mostly related to iTunes usage but nothing I would not expect from the resources hog that is iTunes… I really like the library function in Windows 7 and moved most of my files off the local computer to my network users drive on my domain controllers and make that drive offline accessible. My PST file gives me errors in the sync center but nothing I did not expect I’ll figure that out later… I now have a computer that anyone in m house can log onto and access all their network resources with no issues, this took me 10-12 hours to complete.
Overall the least painful upgrade of Windows I have ever done… Next my Dell Mini 10 from Windows XP Home to Windows 7 Pro. I’m going to do a clean install with upgrade media and an student upgrade key…
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