Well here I am, writing about how great the Windows 7 RC1 operating system is, directly from my Dell XPS M1210 64 bit version. Although I went through a fair amount of trial and error and one complete re-install I’m happy to say nearly all the core elements are recognised and no more yellow triangles with exclamation marks in the device manager.
The 2 most difficult where the Ricoh car reader and the Logitech QuickCam / webcam drivers.
The Ricoh card reader came up as a “base system device” issue. I solved this by downloading the driver from this site then installing the application that installs the x64 drivers.
The Logitech came up as an unrecognised USB device driver issue and Windows 7 OS itself allowed me to download the solution R151795 from the Dell site. When you try to install it this fails, you then just need to point the device manager system to the folder where this solution/drivers were extracted, so that it can install the drivers. This does not however install the software that you usually get from Logitech since it only picks up the drivers, which means other software can use it, but you won’t have the Logitech suite you usually get (personally doesn’t bother me but may be a problem for others)!
For an antivirus/firewall solution the latest ESET Smart security 4 works just fine on the 64 bit Windows 7 operating system.
For codecs I highly recommend either switching to VideoLan (but this is not yet available in a 64 bit version) or/and as I did, install the great Windows 7 codec package from Shark that can be downloaded here and 64 bit components to take advantage of your 64 bit Windows Media player for example here.
I’m also running the Office 2007 suite and even though it’s a pity that Windows itself hasn’t got at least a beta version in 64 bit out yet, it works fine and just installed the SP2 for Office 2007.
At the moment it seems easiest to use Internet Explorer 8 (not the 64 bit version) or another 32 bit browser like Chrome, to be able to view Flash content as there is still no 64 bit version of Flash player. For example the release candidate of Minefield, Firefox’s codename for the 64 bit version of their browser doesn’t have a Flash plug-in.
The main idea is that you can try drivers that are indicated as being for the specific hardware you have if they are supposed to work on Vista 64 bit, or wait untill another user explains that they have found what you need, if you don’t want to risk having to reinstall Windows 7 again…
Hope this helps other XPS M1210 owners out 
Update: Windows Update just informed of 3 downloads for the Ricoh Host Contoller (Memory stick, SD/MMC and xD Picture card) released in July, October and November 2008 along with the opportunity to download Silverlight!
Update 2: ‘Stir’ kindly provided the link for the Synaptic x64 driver here:
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/15103-synaptics-driverver-v13-2-6-1/
Links
Download Windows 7 Release Candidate (both 32 bit and 64 bit versions available). Note: make sure you read the “Read this first” section.
The Windows 7 upgrade advisor
You should also know:
- When the final version of Windows 7 comes out you will not be able to upgrade to it so you will have to do a clean installation
- You can upgrade from Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 32 bit but you cannot upgrade from Vista 32 bit to Windows 64 bit. You cannot upgrade from any version of Windows XP to Windows 7 you’ll need to do a clean install. I would recommend a clean installation though ONLY after having backed up all your data as you will erase everything on your hard disk and I would recommend backing up your data even if you upgrade as you never know what can happen.
- The Windows 7 RC will stop working on June 1, 2010
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hi,
Thanks for all the useful information here, just finished installing Win7 x64 on XPS M1210.
a quick guide for people who *want* logitech software:
1. download R151795 from the Dell site.
2. double click and run it, it will extract the archive to “C:\dell\drivers\R151795″, setup will autorun and break operation as our version is not supported.
// below is how you make it ‘work’
3.a.open the file “C:\dell\drivers\R151795\Setup.ini” with notepad and go to **YOUR** O/S section.
3.b.for example I use Win7 64-bit, therefore I scrolldown to [OS64] part.
if you use 32-bit (obviously) you should go to the top one [OS32]
and find “MaxVersion” key.
3.c.change it. I’m on Win7 as I said, so it is windows version 6.1, therefore if I change the MaxVersion value to 7.0.9000 as shown below, installation wizard just works:
“MaxVersion=7.0.9000″
4. restart installation using setup.exe
5. restart the PC & enjoy logitech software
thx
I have xps 1210, just installed windows 7 and a new hard drive, I can’t get it to reg, says I did a Clean install, and I did, had vista on old hard drive, crashed… how can I get it to reg the upgrade #…???it only let me install 32 not 64 bit… any help would be gret!
thank you…
Hi,
back in December I set up a new workstation with Win7 x64. I must say that I really like it. So I am now thinking upgrading my XPS m1210 to Win7. While surfing the web I found this blog with a lot of helpful information. Thanks for that!
Still, there is something I am thinking about after reading all the posts… although the Win7 Upgrade Advisor says that 2 gigs RAM are enough for Win7 x64 I am not convinced that it is really sufficient to work smoothly, especially when working with Photoshop etc. Looking back at Microsoft’s past recommendations for memory I have the feeling that I should have more memory installed than the minimum recommendation.
So there would be several options (I have 2×1 = 2 gigs installed right now):
1) either upgrade to 4 gigs with the drawback that I can’t use the full 4 gigs.
2) live with 2 gigs and probably install Win7 32bit.
3) upgrade to 3 gigs replacing one of the RAM modules by a 2 gig module and install either 32 or 64 bit Win7
What would you say is the best choice? Or shall I go for x64 with only 2 gigs installed?
Thanks, Uwe
I run Windows 7 on my XPS M1210, maxed. 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB, 500GB HDD. and I’m to experience sudden shut off of my laptop when it’s in the 60-70% battery range. I read somewhere that it could be due to heating but haven’t anymore information than that.
yep the 1210m IS a 64m graphic card with 750m ON RAM (-:
(this was a ripoff from dell for the price … but still it works ;;;
Shaad,
The graphics card in these laptops only have 64mb of dedicated video memory. The remaining 192mb is shared with your main system memory, using NVIDIA’s TurboCache technology to boost performance in 3D applications. Windows 7 is showing you the hard value of your available video ram, and not adding the shared ram. This will not impact your GPU’s performance negatively.
Thanks for all the M1210 driver tips. With x64 it’s like a whole new machine.
Here’s one for you: You can install the Logitech QuickCam app in W7×64 by navigating to the dell->drivers->R151795->QuickCam->x64 directory (where the R151795 pkg from Dell unpacked). Then just right-click on the QuickCam.msi file and select Install.
That’ll bypass the OS check in the higher-level script and the cam then works just like it did under Vista.
Of course, make sure that you’ve already installed the camera drivers first though.
Thanks again,
Doc
Worked like a charm! Thanks!
Hi I have just installed win 7 64 bit and my cd drive is not reading cd’s dvd’s cd rw and dvd rw. Is there a driver for the SONY DVD RW DW-Q58A ATA Device that I need to download? if so where can i find it?