Nothing from Microsoft. Dell website says its not supported on their Windows 7 pages. The support area for the laptop has Vista drivers only.

Which may or may not work — if they are fine, then Dell should say so. All we need is some service pack or MS update to break things and then both Dell and Microsoft will be running around shrieking “but look, its not supported!!!” and your home/work laptop will be toast.

Im taking a deliberately clean-room approach to Windows 7 — its 64-bit and native tested drivers *only* for any sort of power platform (clearly netbooks need 32-bit mode)

And at the end of the day, this is 2009 — should a user have to grovel around on the internet looking for drivers that might or might not work? No. If theres nothing on the MS install DVD, nothing on Windows Update and nothing on the Dell website, its game over and good night. Sorry.

Now the new Ubuntu… that runs nicely on the Dell…

I have said laptop for nearly two years and have been using windows 7 on it since the beta and currently have the RC installed. Mine has the Intel 965 chipset with integrated graphics. I’ve had to re-install it several times and the correct WDDM 1.0 Intel drivers are always installed first time. It then picks up the latest WHC WDDM 1.1 drivers from automatic updates which downloads and installs correctly. Also although the fingerprint reader, bluetooth and card reader drivers are not initially installed, they are found from automatic updates within a few minutes of being up and running and all works fine from then onwards.

@redrag
Kaspersky allow you to download and install 2010 if you are a licensed 2009 user. You get the remainder of your 2009 license for your 2010 installation (I also have a 3 user 2009 license and have upgraded all three machines to 2010 with no issues under my existing 2009 license).

Hewlett Packard are pretty bad as well. My 18 month old laptop is one they’ve said there’ll be no Windows 7 support for. Windows update did fix screen and audio issues, and it seems generally fine. However, there are still 4 devices which are “unidentified”. Pretty poor really – and it certainly has discouraged me from buying an HP machine again.

All you have to do is read Jon’s Twitter comments to realise that indeed he is no fan of Microsoft. He is a mac user at home and always when he can “bigs” the mac or anything against a pc.
He doesn’t really hide his views, but anyone who doesn’t follow other news streams won’t be aware of the fuller picture. He does have a point of course but Jon’s language is always set to “talboid” when it comes to Microsoft. So be it I now tend to dismiss his views because of this, I’m afraid that he drank the Kool Aid some time ago..

I’d like to think I was no fan of anything. Sure I use a Mac desktop. Looking around me in addition to the desktop, there’s one mac laptop, two Ubuntu laptops, 6 Windows machines. In the server rack are 2 VMware hypervisor servers with 8 Windows server VMs, 2 hardware windows servers including windows storage server, 2 Mac xserves, and two sans.

I prefer to choose technologies based upon what is delivered and the usefulness it gives. After 184 months of writing a Windows client column for pcpro, I think you will find I give praise where praise is due and spankings when stupid things happen. And thats true for all technologies on all platforms. Microsoft does some great stuff — it also does some unbelievably stupid stuff too.

Yes, this is a problem which might well be worse because of 64-bit Windows 7 versus 32-bit. But the laptop has 4Gb of ram — I *should* be able to make use of all of it.

VAIO FZ21M bought in April 2008 has no Windows 7 graphics drivers as yet. Not even 32-bit drivers.

“is it right that vendors appear to be using the launch of Windows 7 to pension off a whole pile of otherwise perfectly useful hardware?”

I couldn’t agree more.

I’ve used Vista 64 drivers on the Windows 7 beta/RC. Now I’ve got the retail version, it appears to work fully out of the box.

In any case, is there that much of a difference between the Vista 64-bit drivers and the Windows 7 ones that makes the former an unfavourable option? That’s a serious question, rather than a rebuke – I don’t actually know!

Obviously the Vista 64-bit drivers won’t be supplied via Windows Updates, which I’m assuming is the main point of the blog post, but is there a reason I shouldn’t use Vista 64-bit drivers with my Windows 7 Retail OS? For those of us mere mortals that don’t get free laptops from the developers, just getting the thing working right is the main priority!

Since MS were giving away these laptops to developers to demonstrate Win 7 then to my simplistic view I’d have thought that this was the one machine that they “had” to get working seamlessly with Win7. Ohh look foot – aim – fire!

I had a very quick look at that site. It was under a minute and located this piece of text ” Windows 7 will likely install native drivers for your hardware. If a piece of hardware does not install correctly, you may need to install Vista drivers”
I know it’s a pain but Dell is really to blame for this and it didn’t take a lot of work as you gave me the URL

Why Microsoft is mentioned as being part of the problem in your blog doesn’t make sense to most of us.

As far as I see it, it’s Dell who have it listed on their tested for win 7 compatibility list, so surely it’s them who should be seeing it through and providing the necessary drivers?

Why are you expecting Microsoft to provide all the drivers for a Dell laptop?

Redrag – If you speak to Kaspersky’s technical departmanet they should email you a link to download the 2010 version of the software. It will work with your exisiting code and pick up how long is left on your subscription. Certainly what they did for me, and all works well.

PS Jon, take a look at the HP xw6600; that’s what I have ready for longer term use in Win7. If I could find a dual-link DVI card for it to drive my 30 inch HP TFT then it might even supercede the Mac Pro as the main machine.

Whooops, now what have I done…

Redrag – you don’t have any Windows 7 problems,
1, Kaspersky does work, you need to install the latest 2010 edition (free upgrade).
2, Your creative sound card will work fully, mine does. creative web site has the drivers/ software free updates.
3. preferred browser option will be via a free Microsoft update soon, this is common knowledge.

All of your Windows 7 issues have already been aired on this site before and found to be non-issues. I suspect you don’t even have Windows 7, are you a apple shareholder?

Jon Honeyball,

Your Dell is a doorstop?.
If you paid £££ for a new Mac, and had problems with a Snow Leopard upgrade, would you Wright the machine & software off as quick?
Are you a computer snob? Do you rip the piss out of people who cant afford the latest kit?
Why not give it away as a prize to your PC users? (your readers)
Clearly the laptop needs somebody who understands it as a highly advanced tool, It can do so much more than hold open a door.

Here, here!

Dear Tibbs:

“Are you a computer snob?” Goodness me, surely not? Me? Moi? MOI? (faints)

Richard: The DVD (of 64-bit ubuntu) is burning as we speak! Having found it on their website (it is somewhat hidden away)

jon

Jon,
Didn’t the manufacturers stiff us with the release of XP and the release of Vista with EOLing their relatively current hardware?

I remember with XP I had to throw away a bucket load of hardware that stopped working – memory card readers, old printers etc.

The move to Vista saw me move to using the onboard sound on the motherboard – it was good enough and generally supported, as opposed to paying Creative a fortune for a doorstop.

I upgraded a 2 year old Fujitsu Scaleo P (Q6600 based) from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 7. The only thing W7 didn’t recognise was the USB TV stick.

My new Toshiba caused a couple of problems, adding the Toshiba (W7) drivers for the hardware that wasn’t recognised (fingerprint reader, HDD protection, SD card reader etc.) turned the Tecra from a fast W7 boot experience to a snail – it takes 7 seconds from the “press alt+ctrl+del” screen to being able to enter the password!

Good that I only need to switch it on once a day.

Battery life seems better in stand-by, Vista would drain it from 100% to 5% over a weekend, W7 left it with 78% when I started it back up this morning.

“Microsoft has also basically said since Windows 7 is really Vista with a few extra bells that any Vista driver is compatible.”

If that was really the case, why not just list all Vista drivers as Windows 7 too? Why have all this hassle, confusion and so forth if there really isnt any difference?

And whilst us geeks might be happy to fiddle, what is Joe User going to do?

has anyone got a consistent view on the 4Gb memory thing, too? I always thought that those machines which won’t use 4Gb cleanly were suffering from a BIOS limitation, and in that case won’t use 4Gb whether in 64 or 32-bit software – but in machines where you can add more than 4Gb, that’s available above the BIOS boundary.

I’ve been having lots of problems with W7.

I’m dual-booting W7 Pro with Vista HP which was the original OS and works great on it.

The W7 installation was painless and it found all drivers etc. But I have a weird problem where the whole OS freezes for a while every now and again (and no it’s not due to Kaspersky updating and I am using the absolute latest version of Kaspersky – 9.0.0.736).

Steve, as I understand it there are a number of different reasons why you can run into 4GB problems. Firstly as you say some older MoBos have RAM total limits, just as some had 128GB HD limits. Secondly and more commonly a 32 bit OS like Vista/Windows 7 can only address up to a maximum of 4GB. When you think of video drivers etc also using some of the 4GB that’s why with 4GB loaded in the slots you can return somewhere between 3GB and 3.5GB maximum available to the OS (think back to the old days of drivers loaded between 640K and 1MB). A third reason can also apply but not just to the 4GB limit. Depending on the version of the OS you are using can also affect how much RAM the OS will see. In Windows 7 even in 64 bit there’s a variation between versions of 16GB and 192GB out of the box!

Hi Jon,
“The important point that comes from this is this: is it right that vendors appear to be using the launch of Windows 7 to pension off a whole pile of otherwise perfectly useful hardware? How comfortable do we feel about that?”

I ran into this problem with Vista and all the scanners we had. HP’s reaction at the time was they had no intention of writing Vista drivers for their ‘old’ scanners. As a result I never bought another HP scanner and advised customers of HP’s attitude. Seems they are doing the same with Windows 7. Seems they don’t learn from previous mistakes!

Just download the NVIdia drivers – they’ll be better than the Dell ones. Of course it would be nice if all NVidia hardware was supported out of the box, but it is hardly the end of the world. Just a shame Dell aren’t supporting it. I just hope the touch sensitive bar still works when I install 7 on my M1330 (which is the best laptop I have even had, now that it’s had its new motherboard following some overheating instability).

If you want rid of your doorstep I’m be quite happy to take it off your hands – like most people on here.

“Are you blaming MS or Dell? If the former then it’s completely unfounded.”

I think the thing here is, that Microsoft gave the press a laptop to test Windows 7 on, then didn’t make sure that Dell actually provided support for it when it was released.

That Windows 7 might work and that there are Vista drivers that might work is missing the point. It is a faux pas on Microsoft’s part in not ensuring that this particular model, which was given to the Tech Press, was still officially supported by Dell, when W7 shipped…

Mix this in with the layman, who either won’t know where to go to get drivers, or when faced with “Vista 32-bit” or “Vista 64-bit” drivers will go “but I don’t have Vista, I have Windows 7…” And will most of them even know the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit?

Heck, one of the devices on my Toshiba that didn’t get a driver was the ACPI/TOS620A. How is the layman supposed to know that that is the hard drive shock sensor?

Windows 7 has come a long way (XP used to swear blind that my machine didn’t have a hard drive – let alone a graphics card, network card or sound card – and Vista, finding the hard drive refused to believe the machine had a network card or video card), installing drivers for nearly every piece of hardware (apart from a USB DVB-T stick, HDD shock sensor, SD card reader and fingerprint reader).

That’s why I told my brother, if he is happy with Vista on his current laptop, it probably isn’t worth upgrading to Windows 7 now, but waiting until he replaces the laptop.

This is exactly what I had a rant about in the PC Pro forum. In my case I have an HP Photosmart Pro B9180 printer and was also wanting to get a Canon all-in-one. Neither HP nor Canon could make any reasonable statement about what W7 64-bit drivers would be available a week before W7 was released. Lo! Almost as soon as it was released the HP site had the 64-bit drivers, and the Canon ones for the printer I took a flier on appeared a week later.

There is no way (IMHO) the drivers were not under development when I emailed HP and Canon. Why on earth do they not make it clear on the website what devices they are developing W7 drivers for, and if they are doing 64-bit ones as well?

and a quick word on grabbing NVidia (etc) drivers on Dell machines; it wasn’t so long ago that Dell specialised in having kit with Nvidia stickers on, but Dell code requiring Dell distributed drivers – the same can be said of HP server network cards which show an Intel part number but still run better with HP drivers. Before you grab this or that driver make sure you know how to get your machine back to a pre-driver-install state!

Some interesting points presented.

Firstly, the OS has only been available to buy for 12 days. Not everyone has Technet, MSDN or OVL.
It will take time for for Dell, HP, Sony etc.. to work with their vendors to finalise windows7 drivers for those who arent techies that find a strong enough reason to upgrade.

Most of the marketing is about buying a new PC, heck even the tagline is “time for a new PC”, so for these a newbies it should work out of box for.

If you choose to upgrade, its presumed your already a savy users, and thus can do w w w dot n v i d i said n v i d i a dot com, that c o m. M1330 not exception.

Mac can get it right since there have only a few dozen hardware profiles.

Jon Honeyball,

Please can you take a look at the Apple web site, read the customer feedback on Snow Leopard upgrade.

Windows 7 upgrade, more successful than Snow Leopard upgrade?

£50 BET?

Shake on it?

IS JON HONYBALL A TREAKIE?

Take a look at the Apple web site ‘top downloads’
6 th TOP download is
“Official Star Trek Icons 1.0″
Yes buy a Mac and you too can have this very populur download.

* 1. iTunes
* 2. QuickTime
* 3. Safari
* 4. iWork
* 5. Mozilla Firefox
* 6. Official Star Trek…
* 7. Messenger for Mac
* 8. NeoOffice
* 9. Warhammer Online: …
* 10. Solitaire Greatest…
* 11. Flip4Mac Windows M…
* 12. StuffIt Expander
* 13. the TAB Pro
* 14. LEGO Indiana Jones…

Humm, Nice.

Stopped reading after about 10 comments so pls excuse me if I missed something of earthshattering importance.
The issues up in the post doesent hash with my experience though, having used Windows7 Ultimate x64 on my XPS M1330 since it became available on technet. No issues whatsoever, just downloaded Windows7 drivers for the nvidia card from the nvidia site, the rest was working outta the box so to speak. I’ll gladly take your doorstop and put it to good use on a table, or on a lap.

@jon honeyball
What did the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor say when it scanned the system before you installed?

Microsoft clearly states that you should check your hardwares compatibility beforehand.

A lot of Vista drivers are compatible and some hardware manufacture do in fact use the vista drivers as vista/win7 driver packages

@ Jayengee
You don’t have to wait for an “offer” from Kaspersky, you just download and install the latest version. You are essentially just paying for the update rights, not a specific version.

@Andrew Crook
I think you missed the main thrust, not that W7 doesn’t work or that the Vista drivers won’t work on W7, but that it was a Faux Pas on Microsoft/Dell’s part, because it was the model handed out to the Press to show off Windows 7… Essentially, if MS and Dell were going to get Windows 7 to work on just 1 machine, that is the 1 machine it should work on without any hitches.

I have two Dell 1330’s,both ran W7RC from its outset, with no problems. Have had both with Home Premium (32) installed for a week now. Went to Dell site and collected drivers, all OK. Had to contact Microsoft when a screen popped up on Thursday telling me that ‘this activation key cannot be used to activate this product..’(W7) Which was a bit of a surprise as I had activated itimmediately on installation, and had been properly thanked my MS, whohad assured me that I was now activated. CS told me that the activation key had become corrupted and gave me a replacement, which is working as I type. Other than this, all is sweetness and light. Now in my 76th year and as non-technical as can be, I can claim to be a fully paid-up member of Joe Public, so Mr Honeyball must not worry too much about us, though we do appreciate his concern.

Jon – as the laptop is being used as a doorstop, would you care to donate it to an unemployed IT professional who needs a new machine (currently uses a 10 yr odl PIII based T22), and Windows 7 exposure?

nVidia has the Win 7 drivers for the 8400 GS in the M1330. Works perfectly on mine.

I’ve been using the Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit 7100 build RC since July 2009 and it’s been working great.

I’d always use the nVidia drivers anyway and MS update found everything for me anyway.

The only problems I had were with the touch sensitive media controls, but that was fixed with a little tinkering.

I’m quite frankly shocked you write for PcPro, you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.