4

This question sort of extends my other question.

I have contacted Hp support and they say that they will not be providing drivers for Windows 7 for my machine.

How safe and practical is it to just install Windows 7 without drivers or maybe with the Vista drivers. What will I functionality will I lose? Is it better to just install Vista? HP says they do not recommend running the laptop without drivers.

1
  • OK, I'll try using the Vista drivers. Thank you all for your advice!
    – Kryten
    Oct 26, 2009 at 8:37

7 Answers 7

2

Best advice: Do what the manufacturer suggests.

Practical advice: Vista drivers usually work fine. We can't really tell you how safe it will be since we don't have your machine to test it on.

1

This question could only be answered if you or someone with the same laptop were to try it.

Things to consider if you plan to try it:

  1. Find a way to make an image of your machine so you can restore it if things don't work.
  2. Test the image to be sure that it can be restored before you wipe the laptop.
  3. Try Windows Vista drivers, Windows XP drivers, Windows 2000 divers, and look around on the internet for anything that works.

Good luck!

1

Another way- create a partition (minimum 20GB) to install W7. Then install, check for drivers and other usage issues. If it works, great- you can if you want then delete the Vista/XP partition and extend the W7 partition. If not, then the other way around- delete the experimental W7 and extend the Vista/XP. Of course as eleven81 (can I call you 1181 for short?) said, image, back up...

But anyway as far as I've heard, there've been very few issues using Vista drivers in W7. But have you googled for your machine in regard to it? Likely someone somewhere has tried it and reported on it.

1

In short, if you have the ability to back your machine up, I'd go ahead and upgrade. You can go back if it doesn't work out.

I just upgraded my laptop to Windows 7. I did a clean install, but the only device for which I actually had to install drivers was my video card, and the driver I installed was a Vista driver; the included drivers are working fine for my other hardware.

I'd say that it's probably a safe bet that most Vista drivers will work in Windows 7. Although it was mentioned in a response the other question, I'll mention it again here; if you have not yet installed and run the Windows 7 upgrade advisor, do that. You can download it here.

If you have access to disk imaging software and an external hard drive on which to store the image, I would recommend creating a backup image of your laptop's hard drive. If Windows 7 doesn't work out, you can just restore the Vista image.

Clonezilla is free disk imaging software. You can download it and find instructions for it's use at www.clonezilla.org

0

I use Windows 7 since the Beta Version on my hp laptop. all windows vista drivers works fine on Windows 7.

Windows 7 has a better update management on windows update. practically all drivers are load in this way.

happy windows 7!

0

given that most windows vista drivers work for windows 7 and that HP customer care answers are not always in the customers best interest (they'd rather sell you a new machine) and that you may test windows 7 before you buy (you can still get 90 days trial versions), i'd say: give it a shot.

also, most part manufacturers now offer their own device drivers for windows 7, you don't necessarily have to rely upon HP's support web site for driver support.

0

I have an HP 6720s, which was released about 2 years ago. HP only supplies Windows Vista 32-bit drivers for it. I installed Windows 7 64-bit and most drivers were there after installing, perhaps even all of them. If there were any missing after the initial installation, Windows Update grabbed the rest of them.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .