Continuum Concepts

Windows 7 Build 7057 on my Dell Inspiron E1705

Published: in Windows Windows 7
By (Continuum Concepts, LLC)

I started by booting the laptop from my Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 (x86) DVD from my MSDN subscription.

I opted to wipe the system and install on a fresh partition. Installation went perfectly. Once I got to the windows desktop, I extracted my Build 7057 ISO with WinRAR and ran setup.exe, following the steps for the upgrade. I'd have just started with this build but I *just* got my hands on it.

The upgrade went smoothly, but it took more reboots than I expected, and reboots happened where I didn't expect them. Oh well, no biggie. Once I got to the desktop, I installed the Vista 32-bit driver for my Radeon Mobility x1400 (downloaded from Dell's site). After a reboot I was at my native 1920x1200 rez.

Next, I installed all recommended and optional updates, which happened to be for my card reader, and the system was fully built and running well! All devices in the device manager are recognized. After that, I installed the Synaptics Touchpad driver (again, I just used the Vista 32-bit driver from Dell's site) and it worked perfectly.

I'm happy with the OS so far. In fact, I'm writing this blog post in Windows 7 right now!

Minor issues I had:

2009-03-23 Update: At this point I've installed all my dev and office stuff and it's working great!