Windows 7 Drivers and components

[AkeCake]

I was wondering if Sony was gonna release beta drivers for Windows 7, because the beta of Windows 7 is gonna be available on the 9th jan. I was thinking about testing it but i don't think all the drivers are compatible.

Thank you for your answers

[benste]

Like already posted in the german section,
normally all Windows Vista drivers should be compatible with Win7

[leekendr]

Believe me, If u want to test Windows 7, go ahead! its excellent, and to put your mind at rest, I have the x64 version running on my FZ21M and it picks up drivers for nearly everything out of the box!!...At first start up, wifi works, sound works (no control panel or anything, just basic drivers), volume keys work, fn keys work, trackpad/mouse works (almost, no scrolling or anything). Windows update kicked in straight away to obtain my nvidia graphics driver.

The only things that didnt work was the webcam and memory card reader. I have just installed the sony 64bit drivers for the memory card reader, i need to reboot but it seems to have installed.

So its only the webcam that doesnt work, and i only had to install 1 driver myself, and this is the 64bit version, so i wouldnt worry about installing it if i were you

[dk00]

The fact that most Vista drivers seem to work for Win7 is very encouraging. Remains to be seen what happens with the non-MS applications under Win7, especially apps from the 3 stooges (Apple, Google, Adobe). I'm very interested to hear when someone has a working VGN-AW11Z with Win7 and the nVidia graphips drivers.

Cheers

[AkeCake]

Thank you for your answers,
i'm gonna install Windows 7 too, to try it out and get used to it.

Good thing that drivers work

Cya

[cptbill]

installed Windows 7 too on a FZ11M. Made a clean install.
So far i am more than impressed with the new microsof OS. Its fast, faster than the crappy Vista and honestly i would say i like it more than XP.
Until now the only thing not working is the Wireless Switch Utility v3.6.01.18210 software on Win 7

[wheresmybeaver]

Recently installed Windows 7 on my SZ3VP. Very very easily done, only thing I had to do was make sure that I had all the original drivers and the updated Vista-capable utilities (you can get these from the Sony support page). When I installed Windows 7 (fresh start, fresh partition) I let it get all the automatic updates via Windows Update, then I went to the Device Manager to manually install drivers for the remaining few items (Sony notebook control and the webcam and the hard disk protection driver).

Then, you install the utilities such as Wireless Switching, Power Management, Fn key utilities etc.

Works grand. Only known issue for my model so far is that the volume Fn keys don't work if you have UAC turned on. But with UAC turned off, you lose Windows gadgets... so for now there's no volume control.

I wholeheartedly recommend Windows 7. Boots faster, battery life is improved, and the UI updates are subtle but hugely funcional. And just a small thing, but the wifi reconnects IMMEDIATELY when coming out of standby, whereas on Vista and XP I always had to give it a minute to get its act together. Brilliant!