Good afternoon, everyone.
I know this topic is rather old, but all of the research I've done on it has turned up half answered questions, or sometimes no answers.
Simply put, I have my brothers old Dell XPS M1730. Now, I love it to death. The lights...the keyboard...the Warhammer 40k-like size...it is beautiful. What I do not like is Windows Vista. It is gross. I've put up with it for two years and that is long enough!
So now I have a Windows 7 Pro key and a Windows 7 Pro 64bit USB bootable drive, I thought I was all set for an upgrade. But now I see that I need to do a complete fresh install since 32bit cannot become 64bit.
Now, I'm ok with that. I have my files backed up. What I'm worried about is the drivers. One of the reasons I'm dumping Vista is that none of the new drivers for my NVidia cards work on that OS, and the NVidia drivers alone are very temperamental. If I fresh install, what drivers will I have? My tech buddy told me there are drivers included in the motherboard, which is why you aren't completely screwed when you change hard drives. That sounds good, but I feel like one or two might be missing and really ruin my day. Graphics and wireless would be the most important drivers, I suspect I could then download the rest like sound, physicx, etc.
Also someone mentioned in my research something called DELL media direct...or something, and that it should be installed before the OS. I don't even know how that is possible...
Thank you all for your concern with my issue. I will be continuing my research, but tI graciously welcome anyone's input.