Windows 7 RC installation questions

I'm wanting to give the RC a try for a while. After I install the RC, do I need install drivers for my hardware or does Windows 7 automatically find and install them?

If I have to install drivers, are these the ones I need and in this order?

1. Intel Chipset drivers
2. Motherboard drivers
3. Graphics card driver

If the drivers are Vista compatible they should work correct? Am I missing anything?

 

Windows 7 knew all my hardware here and had drivers for literally everything, sound card, ATI graphics, network card, all of it worked out of the box. If anything doesn't work, you may need to download your own and install. If everything worked in Vista, it'll work in 7, and maybe more. I just decided to go with 7 here and when it's released I will buy it.

I don't know about your intel or motherboard drivers... but I would guess 7 will handle it out of the box. If you download any, only thing you need to know is to get either x64 or x32 for Vista or Win 7. If they make 'em for Win 7 specifically, then grab those.

Win 7 found and installed my printer drivers automatically. All I did was turn on the printer, and 7 did the rest.

 

Thanks for your reply Kerodo. It is very good to hear that it should be easy to install. I'll go ahead and grab the latest drivers and copy them to a thumb drive and/or cd just in case I need them.

FWIW, I did pre-order the $50 Windows 7 Premium upgrade last week. I'm still not sure if I want to keep it or sell it and keep running XP so I'm going to do a little test driving. I installed the Win 7 compatibility tool and it also said everything should work so we will see how it goes.

 

Yep, that's a wise idea to have them just in case....

I am really liking 7 now. I have spent the last several months back and forth using Vista, XP, 7 and Linux, and I think I have finally made up my mind. 7 is clean, nice looking, issue free as far as I can tell, and performs well. That is what I am looking for.

Good luck with your install. I'd be interested in hearing your impressions also.

 

Good to hear you like 7. That is very encouraging to hear.

I have to make an image and backup and then decide how I'm going to approach this. This is my first test for an OS. I will let you know how it goes once I get everything organized.

 

I'd like to add as well that there shouldn't be any problems although I upgraded directly Win 7 from Vista, when I tested it. I've had to download a dedicated driver for my printer only because of the X64 version, and that's where you might have to do something if you install the 64-bit version.

Even though I'm very happy with Vista, my feeling was that Win 7 is lighter, and slightly faster, unfortunately for the Ultimate version the price is too expensive for an upgrade IMO.

 

Btw sometimes with vista driver installers you willl have to right click on the file and tick the compability mode box and set it to vista.

If you can extract the files yourself and browse to them using device manager driver update do that instead.

most drivers should have windows 7 versions by now. so have a check and download them if avaliable. otherwise vista drivers will be fine.

 

I ordered the full version because I want to keep running XP. I'm running Win7 RC 32-bit on my old laptop now, which probably wouldn't have passed the compatibility test, but it doesn't know that.
Will we need a new version of Acronis for Windows 7?
I've read some folks are having problems with TI 2009 and Win 7.
I have TI 10. It installed OK, but haven't tried it yet...

 

I have 7 x64 also, but fortunately 7 found and installed my printer drivers on it's own. I guess it depends on the printer more than anything else...

 

I used ATI 9 on Vista and W7 with no problem's although I've heard of some that did have trouble with it so v 10 should be fine. Also, W7 installed all my driver's except my printer, can't get it installed in Vista either.

 

I installed the 32bit version of 7 RC and I am still finding my way around. The install went fairly quick (15-20min.) which surprised me. Of course the fact that I'm running a quad core @ 3GHz and 4GB of RAM may have helped.

All of my drivers seemed to install ok but have yet to test everything. I also install Avira personal and Sandboxie which are running fine.

Ok, I'm off to find a firewall and look around a bit.

 

I have a question about LUA's. Right now I have an admin account and the guest account is off. So far I've only installed Avira and Sandboxie. Should I continue installing my software with my admin account or is it best to create a user account and install everything with it?

Is this the best way to do it in Windows 7 or should I just create a User account and go with it. Which would be more secure?

Thanks

 

Not using LUA now, but I usually create the user account first, give it admin rights, install all the software using that account, then downgrade it to a limited user. I don't know if that's good, bad, or indifferent, but it seems to work best for me.

 

I created both an admin and a user account. With LUA I have no problems installing programs
using 'run as Administrator' (access with right click on the .exe). LUA isn't intrusive in Win 7.
I'm just using the built-in firewall, plus Avira, Windows Defender, and a little (tiny) bit of sense when surfing

During installation, all my hardware was recognized (yay!). I did install the graphics driver from nVidia for better performance.

 

Kerodo, That is probably a good idea but I'm not sure if it's more or less secure.

ahriman, I think your right about Win7 and I was expecting the UAC prompts. It doesn't seem to bad and I like the fact I can run as admin. With XP I always had trouble running a LUA.

I also installed the Nvidia drivers along with the Chipset, LAN and Sound drivers. I don't know if I needed to but it isn't hurting either.

Does anyone have a thumb drive that has a light on it? If so, when you eject it, does the light stay on? Mine stays on in Win7 but in XP it always shut off when ejecting.

 

Should be fine, as soon as you make the user limited/restricted, then all is well. I just give it admin status to ensure all the program installations go well. Seems to work good. To be honest, I don't bother with LUA. Just using Avira Free here with Chrome on 7 x64. If something gets past that, I'd be amazed, and I'd probably just reformat and be up and running again in an hour or two anyway. Never happened yet, in decades online.

 

Thanks for your input and I hear what your saying. I feel pretty secure as is with LUA, Avira and Sbie but I need to find out what all is listening on what ports and why. On XP I only had one thing listening and had control of what was connecting out. I miss that control and now I have to relearn what I can disable.

I also just figured out how to do the aero shake and flip through windows tonight by watching youtube.