Sometimes you need to takes risks in life to reap big rewards. Today I took a small risk in switching from Vista to Windows 7 on my Lenovo X61T Tablet PC.
While at CES I was able to get into some really good conversations with some Microsoft employees in which I found out many of them are currently using Windows 7 as their main OS. If it was stable enough for them, it would be more than stable for myself given that most of Digital Spyders is run through specialized web technologies that only require a browser for the most part. We mainly use Google Docs for most of our word processing and spreadsheet tasks with PowerPoint being the only regularly used MS Office application.
The only issue I really had that made me hesitant was driver compatibility, but I found out that Windows 7 is based off the Vista Core and that most drivers for Vista should, keyword=”should”, work on Windows 7. The only driver I worried about was the DisplayLink driver to run my six external LG L206WU monitors that I have connected to my docking station which I was lucky enough to find out they had a beta driver available for testing.
I first initially installed Windows 7 into a virtual machine using VMware Server and it ran like a charm. If it ran in VMware it should should also work as a native install. After this discovery I backed up all files and favorites and ran a Complete PC Backup using the Vista backup tool, just incase everything failed in the process I could easily revert.
Installing Windows 7 was extremely easy and fast. Even though the disc image is over 3.2GB the total time to install was less than 25 minutes. I applied the patch and updates available and the machine was working with no extra drivers or software required.
However when I visited the Device Manager there were a few items that were “unknown.”
- Biometric Coprocessor
- PCI Memory Controller
- Intel Chipset
- ACPI Power
These were easily fixed with the Vista drivers, except in two cases.
1.Biometric Coprocessor
For this problem you’ll need to visit the UPEK web site and download the generic driver and update the driver throught the device manager. (I did this after installing the Lenovo Finger Print Software)
2. PCI Memory Controller
This is the Intel Turbo Memory. The driver wouldn’t recognize the OS and would refuse to install. To get around this I had to right click and in the properties chooose Vista in the Compatibility tab.
Also I had to update the .inf monitor profile to get the proper description for the LCD Screen.
For ThinkVantage Software the only stuff I installed was the following:
- Hotkey Utility
- Keyboard Customizer
- Lenovo System Interface Driver
- Tablet Button Driver
- TPM Chip Driver
Windows 7 does everything else where you’d need a Lenovo “craplet” very well now.
I found out that a few programs also became a bit redundant or ended up causing problems.
- Comodo Firewall – Made the system come to a hault. The Windows 7 Firewall is more rebust and easier to maintain.
- Lenovo Presentation Director – Windows Presentation Tool works just fine.
- Lenovo Access Connections – Garbage app that Windows “Connect To” tool does better.
- Lenovo Tablet Short Cut Manager – Didn’t work, I set my Tablet button to in the settings to WIN+X to pop open the Windows Mobility Center.
- Ultramon – Taskbar for extended monitors. Crashed all the time and is clearly not compatible. I will have to wait for an updated version.
- If you use Adobe Acrobat 8, make sure after you update that you run it in Vista compatibility mode or it will produce and error.
It’s taken a few days to re-load all my applications I depend on but for the most part they are all in.
A few observations:
- Windows boots much faster than Vista.
- File transfer are much quicker, over network and USB drives.
- Interface is similar to Vista but has many noticeable enhancements.
- I like the the new taskbar.
- Way less background processes. On Vista was running around 110 processes, now only 69-70 max on Windows 7. And this also is in a non-tweaked state right now. I bet I can get rid of at least 10 more.
- UAC is much better where it’s not annoying and I won’t be disabling it this time around.
- Goes to sleep and wakes up quicker.
- iTunes is fast again, finally.
I haven’t had a lot of time yet to fully explore more than this, but from what I see Windows 7 is a major improvement over Vista and will definitely be the XP killer we are waiting for. The one event I will be interested in to see how Microsoft handles is what to do with all the current Vista users. I personally would love to see Vista users get a free upgrade, sort of like giving “preview tickets” away for free to create buzz to entice XP users to make the change.
If you have any questions, or comments please post below.
