Just installed Windows 7 Beta on my SL300

[zthang]

It's SIGNIFICANTLY better than vista.

Most of the drivers work just fine. The only function that doesn't work for me currently are the volume up/down/mute buttons on the left side of the laptop. All other hotkeys/function keys work just fine with the original vista drivers.

Boot up and boot down times are better as well, but the most significant change is overall general operation. Opening programs, saving documents, rendering internet pages all are faster and more streamlined without the lag that vista had. Before I had a 4 gb usb key to utilize the ready boost function and currently running windows 7 without that readyboost card is still much faster. Anyways, the experience has been good so far. THis is the kind of OS that I wanted originally when I bought this laptop.

[barrywohl]

Are you using Windows 7 beta x86 or Windows 7 beta x64?
Did you install over Vista or clean install. If over Vista, over which version?
What do you plan to do August 1, 2009 when this beta becomes disabled?

I've installed Windows 7 beta x86 on two R50p laptops so far. In each one, I installed onto a blank hard drive. I agree with your observations.

My WIFI drivers worked fine after I attached to a cable and updated the drivers over the internet, but the drivers supplied on the installation iso didn't work. Even the new drivers don't have correctly functioning taskbar icons.

Barry

[Temetka]

I did a fresh install on a blank 7200RPM hard drive in my T60. The install was quick and painless and all drivers were automatically loaded for me. Connecting to my wifi was a little work, but only because I don't broadcast my SSID. Secondly my fingerprint scanner only worked after updating the driver, which was also quick and painless.

Overall I am extremely impressed with this beta. I've been using it in production for about a week or so now and it hasn't failed me yet. It loads Quickbooks Pro in seconds compared to about 1.5 minutes in XP or Vista, yes it really is that dramatic of an increase. All other programs launch in roughly half the time or better. I am able to use my USB to serial adapter for talking to Cisco routers and switches, Office 2007 runs like a champ. Also I am trying the beta of Norton 360 and it seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping things secure (I reconfigured the firewall to allow for my networking tools and stuff) as well as staying out of my way. It's using very little resources and completes scans with a quickness.

Please, please Microsoft - Don't mess this up. It's looking great so far.

[gravenk]

Hi,

I have installed Win 7 RC2 onto a clean hard drive on my R50p and I have the following problems which I see a previous poster appears to have overcome so any help here would be greatly appreciated.

First and most important, I have no network connectivity. I have the Intel PRO/100 ethernet and also the A/B/G wireless and neither are recognized in Windows 7. I tried a few of the vista drivers and none seemed to work. Can you point me where to get the right driver to get networking working? After that it will make the task of installing other drivers a LOT easier.

Second, I have not been able to get the video driver working. I have the ATI Fire GL T2 Mobility chipset. I found a website that looks like it may have some info on getting that working (Mobility Modders) but since I don't have networking I haven't really bothered trying to fix that yet.

Any other pointers for the correct drivers would be helpful too. Believe it or not, the one thing that does work is Bluetooth.

Thanks in advance for any insight into these problems.

--Ken

[GomJabbar]

See if the following information helps.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=73087