Drivers

[D@LS]

When installing Win7 where doe's it get the drivers for everything?
Inspiron 530. Was XP.

Thanks



"-- "ASUS Service U.S.A.Sucks - BEWARE of these people.

 

[Paul]

When installing Win7 where doe's it get the drivers for everything?
Inspiron 530. Was XP.

Thanks

To start an install, a critical element is the disk controller driver.
Without it, the OS won't be able to boot on the first reboot attempt
after installation. You'll get "Inaccessible boot volume" if it is
missing.

Windows 7 has vanilla IDE/SATA (native or compatible), as well as an AHCI
(msahci) driver. In addition, it has a certain number of RAID drivers
(iastorv being an example - the "v" stands for Vista, when the driver
was introduced).

The chances are good then, that installing Windows 7, you'll have a driver
to work with for the hard drive interface. (The same would not be true,
if you were trying to install WinXP on a Windows 7 machine.)

So that covers the basics.

When Windows installs, the video card is first considered while in
VESA mode. Windows has a built-in driver. It can install to any VESA
compatible display device. That gives a basic low resolution screen
(frame buffer), with no hardware acceleration, and perhaps a reduced
color model.

Now, after your first reboot, the rest of the hardware can be discovered.
That hardware, may not be essential to system health, but without it,
the laptop would be useless.

Some of the simple things, like mouse and keyboard type devices, are
termed Human Interface Devices. They're sufficiently well known, that
even if you had an exotic input device installed, you could always grab
a desktop USB mouse or keyboard and plug them in, and a built-in HID driver
would work with that.

Things such as gesture detection on touchpads, involves "shim" drivers. These
are drivers that intercept the byte stream coming from the hardware, and interpret it.
That adds more functions, on top of the basic ones (cursor location, click functions).
Those might be installed, after the fact.

So now you have a basic laptop running Windows 7. The network stack is still
broken. You can't get to the Dell website, to get drivers, because the network
stack isn't working. The hint there is, get at least the network driver component
from somewhere, before starting the install.

Windows 7 has a tremendous number of drivers built-in. A lot of the things
above I've mentioned, will be resolved automatically. The older the hardware
is (up to a point), the better the chances there is a driver. Many of the
drivers in Windows 7, are actually Vista drivers, and the grunt work was done
to attempt to meet the Vista launch. Many of those could be used immediately,
when it was time to release Windows 7.

The hardest thing to get for laptops, is a graphics driver. For many hardware
devices on a laptop, there are multiple potential sources of drivers.
(For example, you might find a network driver you need on the HP site,
for something Dell doesn't have a driver for, or vice versa. If it was
a RealTek network chip, and you knew the part number, you could get the
driver from realtek.com.tw .)

But graphics drivers are "custom", in the sense that the LCD panel in the laptop
is "raw" and not Plug and Play. It may use an LVDS interface. Someone at
Dell would have to hand code (or use some ISV package from Intel), in
order to add a few details to the driver, such as what the native resolution is,
or add a VESA BIOS to the BIOS and so on. For things like desktop computer
graphics, where the computer talks to a Plug and Play monitor, you could
either get a driver from Dell, or from ATI/Nvidia (chip makers). But when it
comes to laptop graphics, your first choice is the computer manufacturer.
(Some of the laptop review sites, feature "hacked" drivers, which can be
used in some cases to solve a missing driver problem.)

I see a Vista X64 driver offered here, for Inspiron 530, and that may work
with Windows 7 X64. I don't know enough about driver signing, to say whether
there will be an issue with that or not.

http://support.us.dell.com/support/...dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=274229

I would recommend going through Device Manager, on your working WinXP install
right now, and making notes on what each piece of detected hardware is.
Under properties, you can get VEN and DEV numbers, to make it easier to
verify in the INF file of a downloaded driver, whether the hardware device
is present or not.

The Dell site has a confusing list of drivers offered, and they can't all be
for that machine. You need knowledge from the current contents of Device Manager,
to help sort that out. And then, decide on what network driver is really needed.
If you have a working network connection, it'll make completing the install
a bit easier.

There are a few makers of hardware, who have automated "driver plumbing" on one
of their web pages. That's where your computer downloads an ActiveX thing, or an
executable, and that is used to scan the computer, and look for drivers. But
as I stated previously, you'd want to make sure you have at least a network
driver first, or that won't be an option. I don't know if Dell has one of those
web pages or not.

If it was my laptop, I would:

1) Work out a way to back track. That means, don't wipe out any recovery partition,
just yet. Or, alternately, use backup software to save your WinXP install,
where the backup has "bare metal" restore capability. If the Windows 7
install goes badly, or you discover you got the wrong network driver, or...
whatever, you can get the machine back to a working state, and improve your
research effort.

2) Search for a web page, where someone has already installed Windows 7 for the
Inspiron 530. There are web pages like that, but I didn't look for one.
What you want, is URLs to the drivers, not have to download the crap from
some RapidShare account.

You could well get to see a Windows 7 screen on your laptop, but it's a
different matter, as to how functional the thing will be overall. Some pesky
little details can be a deal breaker.

Paul

 

[Sunny Bard]

Paul wrote:

[snip lengthy reply that may or not not address the original question]

graphics drivers are "custom", in the sense that the LCD panel in
the laptop
is "raw" and not Plug and Play. It may use an LVDS interface. Someone at
Dell would have to hand code (or use some ISV package from Intel), in
order to add a few details to the driver, such as what the native
resolution is,
or add a VESA BIOS to the BIOS and so on.

Under both WinXP and Win7, I installed Intel's generic Series4 graphic
driver instead of Dell's re-badged version of it, it doesn't have any
problem discovering the available and native resolutions of the inbuilt LCD.

Agreed that Win7 *does* have an impressive collection of drivers out of
the box, probably equalling Linux for a change.

 

[D@LS]

When installing Win7 where doe's it get the drivers for everything?
Inspiron 530. Was XP.

Thanks

Sorry I should have put it in here. I have a Desktop, I hope it makes
no difference.


"-- "ASUS Service U.S.A. Sucks - BEWARE of these people.

 

[relic]

When installing Win7 where doe's it get the drivers for everything?
Inspiron 530. Was XP.

Windows includes nearly all the drivers you will need.

I would get whatever Motherboard drivers exist from Dell and install them.

Also, update your scanner and printer drivers; the ones included with
windows are very basic.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Sorry I should have put it in here. I have a Desktop, I hope it makes
no difference.


"-- "ASUS Service U.S.A. Sucks - BEWARE of these people.

I see that you still haven't figured out the signature tag in spite of
help from several of us.

Do two things: take away the quotes and put the text starting with ASUS
on the *next line*. The tag should be hyphen hyphen space on its won
line.

Here's what I wrote a while ago, which you failed to understand:

Put the three characters "-- " (hyphen hyphen space without the quotes)
as a separate line in front of it.

 

[Rodney Pont]

Here's what I wrote a while ago, which you failed to understand:

Put the three characters "-- " (hyphen hyphen space without the quotes)
as a separate line in front of it.

Perhaps

as a separate line above it.

would help.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Perhaps

as a separate line above it.

would help.

Well, what does "separate line" mean? It can hardly be interpreted to
means "on the same line", can it?

And what about the quote marks? If left in they would break it anyway
(which is part of why I put them there, to avoid making an unintended
sig line in my post).

I might add that it is *very* standard to use quote marks to delimit the
intended string unambiguously, and to add the proviso "without the
quotes" to further disambiguate the intended syntax. It's not
necessarily pretty, but ambiguity is worse.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

means

mean

 

[Rodney Pont]

Well, what does "separate line" mean? It can hardly be interpreted to
means "on the same line", can it?

I knew what you meant but I have no idea how the OP interpreted it.
Maybe to be in front of it it has to be on the same line, I'm not very
good at mindreading and my crystal ball doesn't exist either

I did mean to put a smiley after my comment but that got swallowed
somewhere between my brain and my fingers.

 

[Paul]

Sorry I should have put it in here. I have a Desktop, I hope it makes
no difference.

If it's a desktop, then you can get the video driver from the likes of
ATI or Nvidia or whoever makes the GPU chip.

You'd start with the Dell site, and try to get the site to filter
for just the drivers for that OS.

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx...~srd=False&ipsys=False&advsrch=False&~ck=anav

Based on the vintage of that machine, a certain number of drivers will
already be in the OS. If I was doing this install though, I'd want to
make sure I have a network driver in hand. If you have a network driver,
then you might be able to use the browser, to hunt down any missing
drivers.

So things I'd want to snag first:

1) Using Device Manager, find out what video card is being used.
If the GPU is ATI or NVidia, get the driver from them. If it
is a built-in (chipset) GPU, like from Intel, go to
downloadcenter.intel.com and get a GPU driver from there.
Windows 7 may have a driver already. (Even my WinXP SP3 install,
had a driver for my video card, which surprised me. Windows 7 should
also be well equipped.) But to be absolutely sure, you can download
one now and save it somewhere. The only reason for wishing to have
a driver at this stage, is so the resolution of the screen can be
set to a comfortable level. I hate running 640x480 for very long.
Once a basic driver is in place, you can bump the resolution to
1280x1024, 1440x900 or whatever. The built-in VESA driver in the
OS, may not allow higher resolutions. The manufacturer driver, will.

2) Using Device Manager, figure out what the network driver should be,
based on what is listed now. You can start with the Dell site, to
find a driver to use for your new install. It's quite likely that
Windows 7 has the network driver already, so getting it ahead of time is
just insurance. If this is your only computer, you *need* a working
network interface, to finish the job. (If this is your only computer,
you'd download and burn a Linux LiveCD *now*, so you have a way to
"dial out" and seek help.) It sounds like you're not the owner of
multiple disk drives - if possible, install a second disk drive, and
just do the install to it. Keep your WinXP hard drive safe, and
plug it back in, if the Windows 7 install doesn't complete. I use
one hard drive per OS, for simplicity of maintenance (currently two
drives loaded, and two OSes I can boot from - one OS is used to maintain
the other OS if it is broken). A second disk drive costs anywhere from
$50 to $100, depending on capacity.

3) Windows 7 has basic disk drivers. Unless your machine is using
a more obscure interface to the hard drive, Windows 7 should
"just work". Many prebuilt computers, come with the disk interface
set to AHCI, and a driver like "msahci" in Windows 7 would be used.
Since your machine is currently running WinXP, that increases the
chances it is running vanilla IDE (enhanced or compatible), and
Windows 7 has that covered as well. In other words, I'm not too
worried, because it's a Dell, and unlikely to use lesser known
chipsets or the like.

If you had an Areca $1000 RAID card, you might have to get the driver
for that ahead of time, if you expected to boot from it. Otherwise,
I'd guess Windows 7 has you covered. If you see "Inaccessible Boot Volume",
then you know the necessary driver, was missing. A visit to the BIOS,
and changing disk modes, may be enough to get it running, in that case.
But I wouldn't be expecting this to happen. It should "just work".

Worst case, if you did *nothing* to prepare, you could be sitting in
front of a Windows 7 screen, running 640x480 resolution, with a
broken network interface. If you download a video driver and a network
driver, just in case, that will help beat things into shape.

There are many other drivers that may be needed after that, but
using your web browser, Device Manager in Windows 7, and your
working network connection, you can finish the install at your
leisure using the Dell site as a starting place.

HTH,
Paul

 

[D@LS]

Windows includes nearly all the drivers you will need.

I would get whatever Motherboard drivers exist from Dell and install them.

Also, update your scanner and printer drivers; the ones included with
windows are very basic.

It would be so nice if Win7 kept a copy of ALL drivers in 1 file.

 

[Char Jackson]

It would be so nice if Win7 kept a copy of ALL drivers in 1 file.

Since most of us would have numerous opportunities to update our
various drivers over the computer's lifetime, what would be the
advantage of combining the drivers into a single library?

Also, by the way, congrats on getting your sig delimiter mostly right.
The only remaining thing that I see is that you used
<dash><dash><return>
when you should have used
<dash><dash><space><return>
but other than that it looks good, from a format perspective.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I knew what you meant but I have no idea how the OP interpreted it.
Maybe to be in front of it it has to be on the same line, I'm not very
good at mindreading and my crystal ball doesn't exist either

I did mean to put a smiley after my comment but that got swallowed
somewhere between my brain and my fingers.

Your comment about the OP's interpretation says it all

And meantime I got to write a long unnecessary essay on the subject of
disambiguation (pardon me: I'm laughing at my own joke here; probably
I'll be the only one who laughs...).

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It would be so nice if Win7 kept a copy of ALL drivers in 1 file.

Probably not. It would be a huge file and by the nature of things
incomplete anyway. And imagine the hassle when a new driver has to be
incorporated...

I see that you're getting closer to the sig delimiter - congratulations.
One effect: the sig in your quoted reply in this post is automatically
suppressed (as it's supposed to be). Another effect: it looks like a
sig, not like part of your message (which is what started the whole
thing).

Now all you need to do is get rid of the extra blank line between the
delimiter line and the sig itself.

And don't forget that we *all* started out not knowing everything (and
obviously we still don't know everything, but that's another tale).
Also, unlike some, you show a willingness to learn.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Since most of us would have numerous opportunities to update our
various drivers over the computer's lifetime, what would be the
advantage of combining the drivers into a single library?

Also, by the way, congrats on getting your sig delimiter mostly right.
The only remaining thing that I see is that you used
<dash><dash><return>
when you should have used
<dash><dash><space><return>
but other than that it looks good, from a format perspective.

Oh geez. I failed to note the missing space. My newsreader seems to
treat <dash><dash><return> as a proper delimiter.

Looks like my recent reply in this thread to D@LS was a bit
over-optimistic (actually it was a few minutes after yours, but this NR
doesn't automatically update headers)...

So tell me, is my original instruction:

<QUOTE>
Put the three characters "-- " (hyphen hyphen space without the quotes)
as a separate line in front of it
</QUOTE>

all that opaque?

Anyway, you and I have now each given a separate new instruction, so
we'll soon see if D@LS can learn them both at once.

 

[Bob I]

It would be so nice if Win7 kept a copy of ALL drivers in 1 file.

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BillW50]

It would be so nice if Win7 kept a copy of ALL drivers in 1 file.

Why?

 

[Char Jackson]

Oh geez. I failed to note the missing space. My newsreader seems to
treat <dash><dash><return> as a proper delimiter.

Looks like my recent reply in this thread to D@LS was a bit
over-optimistic (actually it was a few minutes after yours, but this NR
doesn't automatically update headers)...

So tell me, is my original instruction:

<QUOTE>
Put the three characters "-- " (hyphen hyphen space without the quotes)
as a separate line in front of it
</QUOTE>

all that opaque?

Anyway, you and I have now each given a separate new instruction, so
we'll soon see if D@LS can learn them both at once.

Truth be told, my ancient version of Agent also treats the "--" as a
sig delimiter, even though it's not technically correct. And no, your
initial instructions weren't at all opaque to me, but I wasn't your
target audience so I don't count.

 

[D@LS]

Since most of us would have numerous opportunities to update our
various drivers over the computer's lifetime, what would be the
advantage of combining the drivers into a single library?

Also, by the way, congrats on getting your sig delimiter mostly right.
The only remaining thing that I see is that you used
<dash><dash><return>
when you should have used
<dash><dash><space><return>
but other than that it looks good, from a format perspective.

I ho they can figure this out.