Windows 7 64bit Drivers

[Guest]

I want to dual boot Windows XP 32 bit (current OS) and Windows 7 64bit on my Dell E520 Windows XP Media Center Edition SP3-3GHZ Intel Pentium 4-3GB DDR2-75GB HDD (1)-Intel G965 Express Chipset Family, machine. My processor is 64bit compatible so it should work with Win7 64bit, the thing that is holding me back is I usually download drivers specifically for my pc from dell support drivers and downloads site and when I checked one day, not all drivers I download for XP are compatible to other Windows operating systems . So does this mean I have to search drivers one by one on hardware manufacturing sites for Win7 64bit drivers to properly use my hardware on Win7 ?

Anything you guys might want to know:

*First time dual booting a Windows os with another Windows os

*My Plan: I'm going to use Easeus Partition Manager to make a partition on my hdd, download Win7 iso and burn it to a DVD, boot Win7 DVD and run a install on the partition I made (make sure I don't install it on my c drive ), and hopefully get those Win7 64bit drivers.

*I might try to get my hands on the Windows 7 Home Premium RTM (not the leaked version on the internet)

Excluding the drivers, am I ready to dual boot Win7 or am I missing something?

Any help is appreciated and anything else I should know please write it. Thank You! 😀

 

[avatar_raq]

"So does this mean I have to search drivers one by one on hardware manufacturing sites for Win7 64bit drivers to properly use my hardware on Win7? "
If not offered directly from dell, yes.
You don't need a partition manager since win7 installer has a decent one.
After installing win7 insert winXP disc and start installing XP from within 7.
Two thing I don't understand:
1)why not installing 7 on c: ?
2)What benefit do you expect from 64 bit OS? You have only 3 Gb of ram!!

 

[kg4icg]

thing is 64 bit isn't going to work on a p4 kind of considering it is only a 32 bit single core processor unless you mean pentium d

 

[Guest]

"So does this mean I have to search drivers one by one on hardware manufacturing sites for Win7 64bit drivers to properly use my hardware on Win7? "
If not offered directly from dell, yes.
You don't need a partition manager since win7 installer has a decent one.
After installing win7 insert winXP disc and start installing XP from within 7.
Two thing I don't understand:
1)why not installing 7 on c: ?
2)What benefit do you expect from 64 bit OS? You have only 3 Gb of ram!!

1)I don't want to install win7 on c because I don't want to have to backup stuff from xp yet (keeping XP as my main OS for a short time only)
2)I was thinking of upgrading to 4GB of RAM (my motherboard can only take up to 4GB), and because 32bit Win7 can only use 3.3GB out of the 4GB of ram

Another question, is there really a big difference in performance between 4GB ram Win7 64bit and 3.3GB RAM Win7 32bit? or should I just stick with 3GB (not upgrading RAM) Win7 32bit?

Thanks for your help

 

[Guest]

thing is 64 bit isn't going to work on a p4 kind of considering it is only a 32 bit single core processor unless you mean pentium d

64 bit does work on my processor, I dual booted Ubuntu 64bit on my machine before

Processor Summary:

3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Hyper-threaded (2 total)

 

[1haplo]

Here is a guide to install 7 after XP

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_windows_7_xp_installed_first.htm


Most of your hardware has x64 drivers, Some are built into 7 some you have to download (IE: Intel, ATI, nVidia)

 

[Guest]

Here is a guide to install 7 after XP

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_windows_7_xp_installed_first.htm


Most of your hardware has x64 drivers, Some are built into 7 some you have to download (IE: Intel, ATI, nVidia)

Thanks 😀