little guidance for company presarios c700

[legend_018]

ok, customer is on Vista and she doesn't like it at all. She wants either xp or windows 7. Is there anything I should know about before I lose everything she has. I'm assuming as in most cases, I'll lose all driver settings for sound, vidoe etc. etc.

there are no cd's available for drivers so that means if I end up having to restall all these drivers, I"ll have to go searching for them. Dell laptops are easy, as it's easy to get access to the drivers from Dell's website. I'm a little leary about compaq laptops and haven't done as many.

It's a compaq presario c700

EDIT: Another thought, is it possible to upgrade to 7 and not have to feel the rath of reinstalling drivers? I'm guessing with XP - a total reinstall of operating system and drivers has to happen. Not 100% about each, but that's my wild guess.

[EzyStvy]

Of course you'll go looking for the drivers before doing anything...

Yes you can upgrade and no you can't downgrade.

[legend_018]

Yes, I'll look for the drivers - but that doesn't mean the ones I download will work. I've seen funky things with Compaq before where you have to go download some special version of the drivers that is extremely hard to find in order for it to work. lol

but anyways, is it safe to assume that if I upgrade to windows 7, everything will still be intact?

[strollin]

Windows 7's look and feel is very similar to Vista. What is it she doesn't like about Vista? She may not like Win 7 any better.

[glc]

I hate to tell you this, but the ONLY drivers that are available for that laptop are for Vista. Leave it alone and run far, far away.

[jdeb]

What about Linux? You could test drive a live distro to see if she likes it. Something like Mint LXDE may be a good solution for her. She may be married to certain Windows applications but maybe not. I ran into a customer with a similar issue (different hardware), I popped in a live cd, showed him how to navigate a little, let him play around with it. He came back a week or two later and had me install it, and some crossover applications. He liked it so much, I ended up building him a nice desktop with Mint a month later.

[strollin]

Vista and Win 7 drivers are generally interchangeable.

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by strollin Vista and Win 7 drivers are generally interchangeable.

I would not say that. The only way to be certain is run the Windows 7 upgrade advisor. Chances are, there will be hardware devices with no drivers available. At least with a live distro of linux, you can check it all out prior to installing.

[rav4gaz]

I have a C700 Compaq and just loaded windows 7 about a week ago ,used the vista drivers and it works absolutley beautiful ,hope this helps you

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by rav4gaz I have a C700 Compaq and just loaded windows 7 about a week ago ,used the vista drivers and it works absolutley beautiful ,hope this helps you

well, there you go