Windows 7 on NC4010 - Part 1

I decided to check out the new Windows 7 Beta since I wasn't so impressed with Windows Vista and had read great things about how fast Windows 7 is...

Since I still needed a working laptop so I sared my new Dell XPS m1330 and instead installed the Windows 7 beta on the older HP/Compaq NC4010 laptop.

There are many Windows 7 Beta images on the internet but since Microsoft has made it available online you can download it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

You'll see that once you select a langauge and version (32bit or 64 bit), it takes you to a sign in page and you need to have Windows Live or a Hotmail account.

After logging in, you'll see a Product Beta key and a button for downloading it. When you start downloading, you'll need to install an ActiveX control for a download manager otherwise it doesn't start the download....

Also if you decide to bypass it and use Firefox, the download button will not work in Firefox and clicking on the button will have not effect.

Similarly, Google Chrome will also not work.

So you are stuck with installing the ActiveX control which you can de-install or de-activate after downloading the complete ISO image.

There are directions as well on the Download page.

Compaq NC4010 is a compact laptop so it doesn't has any DVD/CD bay drive and the issue was how to install?

I copied the complete ISO image in the hard-disk of the laptop and extracted the files using ISOBuster.

Then it was as easy as clicking on Setup.exe to start the installation.

Once you start installing, there are two options: 1) Upgrade or 2) Complete install.

I started with Upgrade but it soon crapped out since I was upgrading from XP and it only supports upgrade from Windows Vista. I then had to choose Complete install but did not do any hard disk partitoning since it would erase my ISO image which was in the same hard disk.

When installing, it renames the previous Windows installation to WINDOWS.OLD which you can erase after the installation finishes.

The installation went pretty event-free and it rebooted couple of times in between but finally prompted my confirm the date and timezone. Next prompt was to create a username and computer name.

It installed most of the drivers automatically but I had to install the Audio, Video drivers seperately and even the XP version of these drivers worked fine.

Although Wireless was a different story (Intel Pro Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter). It couldn't auto install the drivers and the XP drivers also failed.

Since HP website does not provide VISTA drivers for this latop, I downloaded the new VISTA drivers for this card from the Intel website and it was fine after that.

Only thing remaining now is the Micro O2 card bus drivers which I'll download and try.

So far, it looks a lot responsive and fast. The boot time is also significantly better.