Upgrade vista to Windows 7 Dell XPS 1730 laptop

Upgrade vista to Windows 7 Dell XPS 1730 laptop


I had the advantage of doing a clean install of Vista Ultimate. The Dell website didn’t give any windows 7 upgrade or driver advice for this model.

I reinstalled vista with original drivers and a couple of the original apps and made sure it worked ok in its original state (no anti virus).

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
Compare differing version of Windows 7 (Microsoft website)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/versions.aspx

I then ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see what it would find, the only item it reported that may cause a problem was the intel pro wireless card (this had cause a problem with the vista install getting the correct driver from Dell (several different one listed).

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx

From the vista screen I inserted the Windows 7 Ultimate CD and followed the install and the Upgrade existing version options (numerous reboots). Once it had finished, cant remember entering to much information apart from the CD Key.

The only item which caused a problem was the Intel Pro Wifi, I just reinstalled the vista drivers and it worked!

I was expecting a lot more pain, but was pleasantly surprised how straight forward it had gone. I have seen a few horror stories, but if you follow a logical path do the pre upgrade checks and make sure all is working prior to upgrade.


Dell Advise if there is no Windows 7 Driver, then try a Windows Vista driver
For driver support from dell for windows 7
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?c=us&docid=361553&l=en&s=gen#Step3