Teaching, Technology, and Learning

With my MSDN subscription I downloaded and installed the Release To Manufacturing version of Windows 7 onto my Sony Vaio P. It went smoothly enough that I went ahead and also installed it on my aging Lenovo X61T Tablet PC. Both were fresh installs, with the 32 bit version on the Vaio P and the 64 bit version on the X61T. Excluding backup time, each install took under an hour.

Both machines are notably zippier than Vista - windows and apps pop up right away. Programs are still slow on the underpowered Vaio P, but it's better than before. The computer pops out of sleep mode almost instantly too, with wifi and applications available in just a few seconds.

A few nice things about Windows 7 from an educational perspective:

1) There is a nice presentation mode when connecting to a projector. Press Windows-P and simply toggle through Computer Only, Projector Only, Duplicate, or Extend desktop.

2) For inkers, recognition is even better and the TIP has some convenient correction options. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/23/ink-input-and-tablet.aspx

3) There is a cool Math Input Panel for writing equations by hand. The equations are output using MathML. http://www.7tutorials.com/do-math-easy-way-math-input-panel

All of my old software seems to run, so overall I'm pretty pleased.

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Steps I took to install on the Vaio P:
1) Press F2 during boot to enter the bios and boot from a USB DVD
2) Format drive, follow prompts to install... wait...
3) Reboot, enter key and other info, reboot...
4) Windows update downloaded new drivers

Upon rebooting I got a warning that the battery may be inserted improperly and that it will go into hibernation until it is properly inserted (which it was). I couldn't hit OK to make the dialog to away or the machine would hibernate. I ended up disabling the battery-checking program on startup (ISB.exe). You can get there by going to the start menu and type "msconfig" into the box then finding "ISB Utility" from the "Startup" list and disabling it.

On the Vaio P, if aero is turned on ("Enable desktop composition" is checked in the visual effects under Performance in the control panel) then playing videos seems to crash the machine. I disabled aero for now.

For the Sony drivers, I went to http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNP530H&LOC=3 and installed in this order:
1) HDD Protection under System Software
2) Everything under System Components
3) Power Management Update
4) Notebook control and utilities
5) Camera ArcSoft
6) Wireless LAN
7) GOBI under Wireless
8) SmartWi under Wireless (not too pleased with SmartWi, but only way I seem to be able to enable GPS.)

I didn't bother with Instant Mode since I never use it.

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The Lenovo X61T was a little easier:

1) Press F12 during boot to select the bootup device
2) Format drive, follow prompts to install... wait...
3) Reboot, enter key and other info, reboot...
4) Windows update downloaded new drivers

The fingerprint scanner works out of the box, although you have to enable it in the control panel. The only drivers I needed to install were from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-68009.html and were
1) ThinkVantage Active Protection System (hard disk protection)
2) MultiTouch (this is required to enable tablet functions)

Also, the TabletInputService was disabled by default. I enabled it by typing "services.msc" in the startup box, then scrolling through the list and picking Properties on TabletInputService and having it automatically start.

I ended up disabling aero as well because I have an intermittent flicker (perhaps the infamous bezel issue, http://lenovoblogs.com/connections/?p=6 although my bezel isn't coming off) and for some reason the flickering is less with aero off. This is an issue specific to my machine hardware -- it used to run fine without any flicker. As an aside, I sent my machine in twice to fix the flicker, and each time it came back unchanged aside from the hinge was a little tighter... Flicker issue aside, the machine looks nice in aero.

My 3 year old will miss inkball though, it's not included and he liked that game!