Windows 7 on M1400

**trmacdonal** · 01-08-2009, 11:28 AM

Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to share that the new Windows 7 beta works very well on an m1400. There is so far only one major issue that I am trying to solve. I can't rotate the display. Everything else works as good or better than XP. I can't use the fingerprint reader anymore, but that is because there is no free version of omnipass that will run in Vista. The way I installed it was to boot from DVD using my xbox 360 HD DVD drive. It installed very quickly. Then I installed the XP drivers that were missing and installed them in XP compatibility mode, plus the vista Motion Dashboard 5.0 for the LE1700 to get the bluetooth to work. The dashboard will not open, but you can just use the Mobility Center. I would recommend this to anyone who uses an m1400. It is a definite improvement. You get all of the good handwriting improvements from Vista, but the OS performs faster than XP. If I can get a driver that will rotate the display, then there is no reason I would go back.

PS I only have 512 Ram, so anyone with more would likely see a better improvement than I did.

**John Hill** · 01-11-2009, 07:48 PM

that is pretty amazing. I wouldn't have thought that Windows 7 would run on a unit of that vintage - especially with only 512 RAM. BTW, why do you only have 512 RAM???

**bmhome1** · 01-11-2009, 08:20 PM

You can rotate display from Display Control Panel for now. Right-click on desktop and select screen resolution.

Have you tried playing any videos from WMP yet? Be prepared for possible freeze that requires hard reboot. If you let Win7 use default VGA driver, it should work okay, though.

See Windows 7 thread in HP forum for partial solution work-around disabling Direct-3D.

**trmacdonal** · 01-12-2009, 04:00 PM

Thanks for the advice about the screen rotation. I will try it. I tried rotating the screen in the Mobility Center and by setting the original screen rotate Button to rotate screen when its pushed. I have not tried to watch a video with or without WMP. I normally use Zoom video player. I will try that solution if I get lock up problems. Flash videos like Hulu.com work fine. I was able to install omnipass and get the fingerprint reader working. I used the XP omnipass from the motion website run in compatbility mode. I haven't run into any major issues yet, as I mostly use it to browse the web and as GPS with Streets and Trips.

**bmhome1** · 01-12-2009, 05:37 PM

Here's two resouces for getting Vista running on 1400's, the information provided directly relates to Windows 7 also:

http://m1400.netfast.org/index.php

http://mobilepcwiki.org/mpc/index.ph...allation_Notes

btw, here's a beautiful leather folio the 1400 with cover on fits into perfectly and is very inexpensive:

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...lio-x-x-Black/

**Billzilla** · 01-14-2009, 08:09 AM

Hey, just wanted to chime in here and say that I also have Win7 running more or less like a dream on my m1400, although I have 1GB of ram. I echo the OPs issues with graphics. The problem appears to actually be that Windows 7 doesn't like the Intel graphics driver that works just fine with Vista. Installing it is successful, but upon reboot it fails and defaults back to the generic driver which seemingly doesn't allow for rotation. That's the only feature I've noticed missing in the last 48 hours, though. I don't really ever play videos on my tablet, so I haven't tested that. I pretty much use it exclusively for web browsing (works fine) and drawnig (works great! Win7 works just fine with the latest wacom driver.. I had issues under vista).

In all, the hype is true. It's much less resource hungry than vista is, possibly even as light as XP if you turn off desktop themes (which, on the aging m1400, has always been always a good idea). If the graphics driver issue gets solved, it's honestly a must-install.

I've written quite a bit more about my experiences with 7 (I'm actually using it on two computers) over on my blog which is linked in my sig.

Good to see another brave soul like myself still wringing every last bit of use out of their old motion!!!

**Billzilla** · 01-14-2009, 08:13 AM

Another note: rotation doesn't work from motion dashboard, mobility center OR right clicking the desktop and selecting resolution. The option to switch from portrait to landscape simply isn't there as it is on other computers (with, presumably, working drivers).

Sadly I'm not super hopeful for a proper fix on this..

**trmacdonal** · 01-14-2009, 08:34 AM

I too discovered that the rotation doesn't work at all. Does anyone know of another pc that uses the same video harware? Or is it just too old? Is there such a thing as a pcmia video card? I would like to get it to rotate, but honestly its not that big of a deal, I can always boot into XP if I really need screen rotation.

**Sprinkler Guy** · 01-16-2009, 03:44 PM

do you guys think that windows 7 will retain its lighter resource usage benefits over Vista all the way to its final release? Is there a chance that its not such a hog because it's not "done".

It would be nice to get the tablet friendlier features of Vista with the lighter footprint of XP.

Is anyone dual booting a LE1700 with XP and 7 yet? I'd appreciate hearing any experiences you've had?

Thanks,

**trmacdonal** · 01-16-2009, 04:27 PM

I have been doul booting Win 7 and XP. It works great. Just install Win 7 to a new partion and it sets up a boot menu for you. I really haven't gone back into XP much though. I think I will have to if I want to watch videos or rotate the display. I would expect that the beta is as resource heavy as 7 will be. There are things running in the background to find bugs and errors. I would expect Win 7 will completely replace XP in older machines.