Painful upgrade to Windows 7 for my Dell 11z

I just spent the entire day and a half working on getting Windows 7 installed on my Dell Inspiron 11z Netbook… what a hassle. Just to recap: I ordered my Dell 11z last month a few weeks before the release date of Windows 7, and Dell offered a promotion to “pre-install” Windows 7 on certain machines if they are delivered after Oct 22nd. My order fell in this category, so I made my purchase with the belief that my Dell 11z would ship on Oct 25th with Windows 7 installed, and thus I would avoid the hassle of doing an upgrade installation and having to fight to find the right drivers, etc. Well, that didn’t happen. My Dell 11z arrived with Windows Vista installed, and after talking with Dell support several times discovered my only recourse was to get the Windows 7 upgrade DVDs from Dell and do the upgrade myself.

First of all, the upgrade installation came on DVDs and I do not have an external DVD-ROM drive. So, I had to do some Googling to figure out how to create a bootable USB flash drive, copy all the install files to it, and boot up my Dell 11z from this USB drive.

After doing the installation (which went fairly smoothly), I discovered that several internal devices (such as the WiFi Card, Bluetooth module, card reader) were not present on my system under Device Manager. Apparently, these drivers were not part of the “native” drivers available with Windows 7. So I visited the Dell web site to discover that most of these drivers are non-existent under the Dell 11z product for Windows 7 drivers and apps.

I decided to contact Dell tech support via the online chat, and I get someone who just runs me in circles doing a bunch of crazy stuff. He’s giving me links to download drivers and apps that just don’t work. Finally, he tells me my Win 7 installation must have “gone bad” and I will need to reinstall Vista, then Windows 7 on top of that. Go suck an egg, brother… I’m not doing that!

Dell finally ships my Win 7 Upgrade DVD

After being told that my Dell Win 7 Upgrade DVD wouldn’t be shipped until around Nov 22nd, I just got an email confirming that Dell did ship out the upgrade this morning.

I have a UPS tracking number, but it apparently isn’t registered in the UPS system yet so I don’t know when the upgrade will be delivered. I’m actually getting two shipments (one for my Dell 11z and the other for my Son’s Dell Inspiron 15) so Dell may be processing all the registered requests pretty quickly now.

For those waiting for their upgrades, good luck. My next project, will be figuring out how to install Win 7 from a USB drive since I don’t have an external DVD-ROM drive available to use with my Dell 11z.

Dell delays my Win 7 Upgrade shipment

I just check the status of my Windows 7 OS Upgrade shipment, and Dell has moved the estimated shipping date out from November 7th to November 22nd. Ugh. I’m not sure what is going on with Dell these days.

Did they run out of DVDs, or do they not have the necessary drivers for the Dell 11z model figured out? Maybe customers are reporting major issues with running Windows 7 on their 11z (if they even have Win 7 installed by Dell on their machines)?

So much for the “buy now and we’ll ship your 11z with Windows 7 preinstalled” false advertisement. I really wish I had made a screenshot of their web page ad stating this so I could throw it back in Dell’s face to complain about it. I could probably just get the Windows 7 Family 3-Pack and install it today and not wait for Dell’s BS.

Dell 11z: First impressions – Part I

I finally got my Dell Inspirion 11z laptop (or netbook, by my standards) and here’s my quick review.

First, I was disappointed that my 11z didn’t have the Windows 7 OS pre-installed as advertised on the Dell web site when I ordered it. From what I can remember, Dell stated any machines shipped after Oct 22nd (release date for Windows 7) will have the Windows 7 OS pre-installed. This was for machines that were eligible for the free Win 7 upgrade (which my 11z was), but my machine arrived with Windows Vista installed instead.

As such, I promptly called Dell post-sales customer support to get some answers. When I voiced my complaint to the Dell support rep, he kept telling me that I needed to go to the Dell Windows 7 upgrade web page and register for the upgrade to be sent to me via delivery mail. He never confirmed or denied that my machine should or shouldn’t have had the Windows 7 pre-installed as Dell advertised a few weeks ago. Since there wasn’t much he could do to help me, I hung up and tried to register on the Dell Windows 7 upgrade site as he suggested. Unfortunately, the all-important Service Tag number (located on the bottom of my 11z) wasn’t registered in the Dell database and as such my 11z couldn’t be verified for the upgrade!

So I put in another call to Dell support asking about this issue. When I asked about the Windows 7 OS pre-installed issue again, the support rep stated I was mistaken on what I read on their web site. Now, I might have been mistaken, but most likely not since that was the main reason why I ordered the Dell 11z. I knew that I wanted Windows 7 installed, because I didn’t want the hassle of installing Windows 7 over Vista and then having to reinstall all my applications. I’m kicking myself for not saving a screenshot of that Dell advertisement, but then again there’s not much Dell can do about correcting that issue at this moment. The scuttlebutt on the different user forums is that Dell didn’t have their OEM Win 7 DVDs ready in time, so that is why they didn’t ship their PC and laptops with Win 7 pre-installed. I can certainly believe those rumors, as that would explain why I didn’t get my 11z with Win 7.

As such, my only recourse was to jump through the hoops and order the Win 7 upgrade from Dell’s site. So I registered for the Win 7 upgrade for both my Dell 11z and my son’s  Inspiron 15 (which I bought him two months ago) and now it’s a waiting game. Will it take a few days, a week, two weeks, a month…. to arrive? I don’t know.

What I do know, is that this experience was a bad start in my initial evaluation of my new Dell 11z. Instead of being excited about using and exploring my new netbook, I’m utterly disappointed that I’ll need to wait until the Win 7 DVD arrives from Dell before I can really use it. The reason being, I don’t want to install all my files and applications under the Vista OS and have to reinstall everything again shortly after I install Windows 7. Of course, I could do an in-place installation which would preserve my files an applications, but I’ve always had issues with doing that, and a clean install is really the most trouble-free method of upgrading the OS (in my opinion).

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Update: I registered for the Win 7 Upgrade from Dell this afternoon, and the estimated shipping date is Nov 7th. So it will be about 10 days or so before I can get Win 7 installed on my Dell 11z netbook and really start using it.

 

Lessons Learned…

So what have I learned from my brief experience with the Dell Mini 9 Netbook?

I’ve learned that keyboard size and key placement should be a big consideration for touch typists who are looking for a Netbook system. A 10″ system might be the threshold for such users, but you’ll need to test out the Netbook to see first hand.

Also, the screen resolution is a factor for effectively viewing web pages. The current standard of 600 pixels for vertical screen height is too small for viewing modern day web pages. A pixel size of 800 would probably be the minimum (however, most Netbooks don’t go above the 600 pixel threshold).

The Intel Atom CPU seems to do a good job for running applications in Windows XP and Windows 7 Beta OSes. Having 1 GB of RAM seemed sufficient, but 2 GB would be better when running multiple applications simultaneously.

The use of a Solid State Disk (SSD) Drive was a rather pleasant experience, since it allowed for a silent running system. The access speed of a SSD was perfectly acceptable, and having only 16 GB for the OS and files wasn’t a big issue since files could be stored on a SDHC card.

Having the Dell Mini 9 also allowed me to investigate using Windows 7 Beta as a future Operating System. I was pleasantly surprised to find Win7 runs quite well on a Netbook computer, with no issues regarding hardware drivers, etc. It worked out so well, I just might install Win7 on my Latitude D610 laptop just for grins. So, it seems that Win7 can run effectively on low-powered processor with just 1 GB of memory and slower storage drives.

Aside from the Netbook aspects, I also learned a lot about the world of online file syncing and storage which was quite valuable. Microsoft Live Mesh is a wonderful file syncing application with remote desktop connection capability. Other online services such as SkyDrive and Zoho are also useful for online file storage and document management. With these utilities, files can be synced and accessed from multiple PCs and hopefully smartphone devices in the near future.

So I can’t say that the time I’ve invested in learning about Netbooks and waiting for my Dell Mini 9 to arrive was wasted, as I’ve gained knowledge that I can use for my everyday activities.

It might be that later this year or next year that the 10″ or 11″ Netbook models will have everything I need to jump back into the Netbook scene again… but until then good luck to those enjoying their Dell Mini 9s!

Positive Note: Windows 7 OS Runs Smooth on Mini 9

For my initial testing, I decided to install Windows 7 on the Mini 9 and configure all the various tweaks I’ve read about on the different forums and web pages. After working with it for a few hours, I can honestly say that it runs noticeably faster than I expected. I noticed very little (if any) lag time, and it seemed very snappy when popping up menus and application windows. I didn’t have any driver issues or crashes during my testing, and the hardware components that I tested seemed to work well. So, I can say it was a pleasant experience using Windows 7 on the Netbook. The surprising thing, is that I did all my testing with the stock 1 GB RAM installed, and it ran just fine (I forgot to install the 2 GB RAM module that I purchased from NewEgg.com). So, adding more memory could only help when running multiple applications.

Getting The Ball Rolling…

After going through the obligatory Windows initialization process with my new Dell Mini 9, I proceeded to follow the plan that I outlined in a previous posting. After checking that the system had the A04 BIOS installed, I then used the application called CloneZilla to make a backup image of the virgin Windows XP installation on the disk. With this backup image, I can always reinstall the system files exactly to the original state of the Dell Mini.

I then inserted my USB Flash Drive (bootable) containing the Windows 7 Beta installation files and rebooted the Mini 9 (having the system boot up from a USB drive). After a few seconds, the Windows 7 installation procedure began to start. I followed the simple instructions, and away it went through the installation. When it finally got to the part where it was ready to reboot the system, I still had the USB drive connected to the Mini 9 and the system began the installation procedure again. To remedy this, I simply removed the USB drive and rebooted the system again. It then came up and continued with the final stages of the initialization process. What was a bit discerning, was the length of time Windows 7 took in the final stages of the initialization phase, as it gave no indication that it was doing anything (no hourglass or progress bar displayed). I remained patient, and after several minutes the system finished with the initialization and rebooted again.

Windows 7 then went through a setup process of checking the video performance, etc. which took several minutes before it came up with the main desktop screen. I then followed the suggestions on this web site to install Vista Drivers (for the Dell Mini 12) which are compatible with Windows 7. Finally, with a wireless Internet connection active I did a Windows Update which installed 4 updated drivers on my system.

I have to note, that I used vLite to create a custom Windows 7 installation, where I stripped out components, drivers, etc. that I was certain I wouldn’t need. By doing this, I was able to reduce the final OS installation size down to 5.5 GB of space.

After I got the Win7 OS installed and tweaked to my satisfaction, I began to install the handful of apps that I felt I needed on this machine. I installed everything on the main SSD drive, and the final amount of free space ended up being the following:

So, I’ll probably be in good shape space-wise if I install files on an SDHC card. So now the real evaluation begins…

Windows XP and Vista Tweaks

I stumbled upon this web site (www.blackviper.com) which describes numerous tweaks for a fresh Windows XP Installation. In addition to WinXP tweaks, this site also has Vista and Windows 7 tweaks that you can try out. For all of my current machines, I’ve initiated the XP and Vista tweaks with no ill effects.

Another site for good Vista tweaks is here. And then there’s always the How-To-Geek site that offers lots of good suggestions and tips.

A Netbook Exclusive Operating System: Moblin

Not too long ago, there were two big operating system power houses: Microsoft and Apple. By far, Microsoft has dominated the OS market and has established themselves as a industry-standard in the business world, while Apple seems to have a grasp in the education, entertainment, and graphics field as well as a few rebel users trying to buck the system. The UNIX operating system became popular in the 1990’s when companies needed more powerful workstations to run CAD and other CPU intensive applications. However, as PC technology increased in CPU power, the UNIX systems from the past seemed to just fade away into UNIX servers. At the same time, Linux (a “clone” of UNIX) sprang to life and developed a cult following for people wanting a free operating system to tinker with. Graphical User Interfaces for Linux also appeared, making the command-line driven OS much easier to use. And recently, a derivative of Linux is powering the new Mac OSX operating system, as well as many other devices (e.g., Android OS and Palm Pre mobile phones).

Dell themselves offer the Dell Mini 9 with an option to run the ubuntu Linux OS, and they also have their own clean interface to make it easier to use. So it’s good to see that other OSes are maturing and beginning to challenge the industry standard.

A new effort spearheaded by Intel, is the development of a new OS called Moblin. This is a Linux-based OS that is developed specifically for running on Netbooks and mobile internet devices that use the Intel Atom CPU. The Moblin.org web states:

“Moblin is a Linux-based software platform for building visually rich, dynamic, and connected applications that run on devices based on Intel® Atom™ processor technology.”

It appears to be an open-source project, so anyone can contribute to it’s development. Currently, there is an alpha-version of Moblin that can be downloaded and installed, but it still has a very primitive GUI that is suppose to change soon. Nevertheless, the alpha-version does have some very promising features. If you want to see Moblin in action, you can check out youtube.com and watch some uploaded videos. A very interesting project which I am certainly keeping an eye on…

Slipstream SP3 Updates Into Your Custom WinXP Installation

In a previous posting I mention creating a slimmed down version of the WinXP installation files to help reduce the amount of space taken up by a WinXP installation on your Dell Mini 9. You essentially use a nifty application called nLite to pick-n-choose what you want as part of the WinXP installation, and then have this application create a custom WinXP installation.

Now, you start this process by using a set of files from a WinXP Installation CD, which in most cases already contains the SP1 or SP2 service packs (it should say so on the CD’s label). Since the Dell Mini 9 comes with the SP3 service pack installed, you probably should upgrade to SP3 with your custom WinXP installation. So, there’s two ways of doing this:

1. Install WinXP with SP1/Sp2, then download and install SP3 separately on your system
2. Incorporate the SP3 service pack inside your custom WinXP Installation

Option 2 is nice, since you’ll have SP3 already part of the main installation (which is especially convenient if you want or need to install WinXP multiple times on your Dell Mini or other machine). So how can you include Sp3 as part of your Custom WinXP installation?