Finally got around to installing Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) on my XPS 420 last night.
Well here's a quick run down on the install.
First off it was QUICK. Damn Quick. It took around 20 minutes from start to new desktop.
No need to install drivers for the SATA controller (as you would with Vista) as this was detected and worked out of the box.
Once completed a quick check of device manager showed everything was detected, except my Sound Blaster X-fi. This was detected as a HIGH RESOLUTION AUDIO DEVICE or some such thing. When I say everything else I mean everything else. TV card, check. 19-1 card reader + bluetooth, check. GTX 295 video card, check. Dell 2408WFP monitor, check. The list goes on and on.
I did a quick Windows Update and updated drivers for all hardware including the X-fi were available, so I installed all of these.
Once the machine came back up from the reboot I installed Microsofts free anti-virus software Microsoft Security Essentials.
Something that really impressed me was most of my "video" files all worked out of the box, DVDs, XviDs, etc. Blu-ray on the other hand did not play. I'll check out Nvidia's PureVideo HD or something similar over the next few days as I come to grips with Microsoft's new OS.
So now the big question. Was it worth it? To be totally honest, no not really. It feels like a well tuned Vista, but I already had 1 of those.
If you do decide to update though be prepared for an extremely quick/painless experience. I'm up and running and I haven't downloaded any drivers at all other than the most up to date Nvidia drivers for my GTX 295, and I'm pretty sure they were available from Windows Update too.
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Last night I started restoring my Steam games from a back up I created. When I finally woke up (after a night at the pub) ... NOTHING! The backups just kept locking Steam up. So I'm currently downloading Borderlands, and I'll get round to the rest of my games later.
