Anyone using Windows 7 on their old laptop?

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apmyhr

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I was considering putting Windows 7 on my girlfriend's old Dell D610 laptop. I recently put 2 gig of RAM in it total, but it is still running a 1.6GH Pentium M with integrated intel graphics. Basically, the only purpose I want for the laptop is to stream Netflix and Media Center onto her TV. I know I wont be able to enable Aero, but I just wanted to make sure that Win 7 and Media Center will run okay on a laptop that old.
 

apmyhr

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Wow, celeron, I would take a 1.6GH Pentium M over a 2.4GH Celeron any day. That gives me some reassurance then. How is the setup working for you? Have you tried running Media Center and does it work well? Do you think the laptop performs better with XP or Windows 7?
 

vectorm12

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I'm running mediacenter on a HP DV1000 series laptop with a Pentium M735/2GB RAM and it's working surprisingly well, however the intel IGP does get it's hands full at times and I've experienced some animation slowdowns at times, especially if mediacenter is generating thumbnails as well while you are scrolling through the menus. All in all I was astonished win7 run as well as it does on this kind of outdated hardware.
 

ainarssems

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I never used media center on any PC. I use VLC and Media player classic. Both work fine on that Inspiron 1100 for up to DVD quality. HD unfortunately is not an option.
As for W7 vs XP I don't know, that laptop has not seen XP since Vista beta 2 came out and been running Vista since. But W7 is much snappier then Vista.
 

qberry1

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I installed Win 7 today on my Inspiron 1100. I was wondering how you got the display drivers to cooperate with win 7. They work fine for xp, but even a while back when i tried to put ubuntu on it, it doesn't give me a full screen. It's always had problems with it. Even when I am in XP and I open the command line it won't go full screen. It has the Intel display chipset. I thought maybe yours ways the same.
 

qberry1

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I installed Win 7 today on my Inspiron 1100. I was wondering how you got the display drivers to cooperate with win 7. They work fine for xp, but even a while back when i tried to put ubuntu on it, it doesn't give me a full screen. It's always had problems with it. Even when I am in XP and I open the command line it won't go full screen. It has the Intel display chipset. I thought maybe yours was the same.
 

Bolbi

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I'm running Win7 RC 32-bit on an old Compaq Presario V2000: 1.5Ghz Celeron M, 1 GB DDR 333, 80 GB IDE HDD, and Intel GMA 900. Looks like I take silver so far for slowest laptop (next to djcoolmasterx). IMO, it runs faster than my XP Home install (I dual-boot). I did add 4 GB of flash drive for ReadyBoost. No Aero effects, but it runs fine for web browsing and word processing. Believe it or not, I can even run some older DX9 games (LOTR Battle for Middle Earth, etc.).
Not sure about Media Center (I don't use it), but if you aren't doing anything more demanding than sorting media files and playing movies (maybe not hi-def), you should be fine. Basically, if it runs on that machine in XP (much less Vista), it will run fine in Win7.
 

agfox06

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I run 7 on a Gateway M-1617 and it seems to run fine, (it should, it's a dual core AMD Turion TL-58) however I can't get it to wake up from hibernation or sleep mode half the time. I can't figure it out. Sometimes it comes back and sometimes it doesn't.
 

madmax808

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This is exactly what I do with one of my old Compaq laptops [v4000]. I use it only for streaming movies and music from my more robust desktop, and it does it with no problems whatsoever.
 

Pronto

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How did you get in installed? I am trying to install it today and it's doesn't let me and asking for Cd/DVD drivers. Any ideas?
 

maniac5999

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Actually, I've got the same problem with my old HP zv6000 (K8 3500+ and an ATi 200m) Hopefully they correct it in the RC. My solution for now is to disable sleep.
 

avig

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Where did you get the video drivers? After installation it came up with basic VGA driver...
 
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don't know if it is relevant but I am using the manufacturer's (acer) vista video driver on windows 7 for my laptop, and it seems to work fine. I have read it might occasionally crash (bsod) but it hasn't happened yet... :??:
 

ricky_critic

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You can try the below steps:
1. Open Media Center, select Settings, General, Automatic Download Options, and ensure that the 'Download when connected' is enabled. The Netflix tile will appear after the next Media Center Guide download time has passed.
2. Open Media Center, choose Settings, General, Automatic Download Options, and select the Download Now button at the bottom. It may take some time depending on your connection speed.
After the Netflix tile appears within Media Center, you will have to install the Netflix application.
3. Try this direct link for the Netflix software add-on for Media Center.
 

windows7guy

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Hello apmyhr,

Yes it will work as long as you have a decent processor and at least 2GB RAM.

If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

I will tell you from first hand experience, all of my systems have been converted to Windows 7. I am not just saying it to say because I am affiliated with Microsoft. I can truly stand behind this product and tell you straight away it works very reliably, fast and extremely stable. The 64bit version is a real powerhouse as well.

Also, if you would like to read what other users have said about their positive experience with Windows 7, you may want to check out the following sites: http://tinyurl.com/5tfr8 and http://tinyurl.com/nsm3s

John M
Microsoft Windows Client Team



 

gambittrance

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You can use a driver that let's aero work. It took me a long time to find but after much searching here it is -

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D0UOMLCW

Ati x300 Mobility DELL VGA driver for Windows

Works perfectly. I had found the x300 driver from like 2005 but this one is a newer version and works great!

Ben
 
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