Back-seat drivers

** Tech speak alert ** For all you PC geeks out there, I'm running the Windows 7 Release Candidate on a Dell Latitude D410, with an Intel Pentium M 1.85GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and 60GB hard drive. I've also installed OpenOffice.org for word processing and other Office-related purposes. There, that's all for the science bit - all you technophobes can carry on reading now.

This is a more of a Dell gripe than anything else, and is in no way a slight on Win7 (you don't mind if I refer to Windows 7 as that, do you dear reader?) Make sure that your PC's manufacturer has updated its driver list to include Windows Vista/7 compatible drivers for your PC. Drivers are pieces of software that literally do just that; they drive the hardware components of your PC (like video, audio, and network) so they work properly. As Windows 7 is an evolution of Vista, many of the drivers and software released for Vista two years ago ought to work on the Release Candidate.

Sadly, it seems that Dell hasn't upgraded the D410's driver support page to include updates for a Vista-powered machine. Instead, it offers the choice of XP or Windows 2000 from the Operating System menu. So instead of looking at all the pretty visual effects embedded in the 'Aero' interface of Vista (also implemented in Win7), its back to the solid windows of the good old days. Still, if I wanted a attractive interface to use, I'd be testing an Apple... More importantly than the lack of gloss however, is that the drivers for the D410's wireless functionality also haven't been updated from the XP days...so it's just wired Web access for me then!

UPDATE: I don't know how, but somehow the Wi-Fi drivers are now working! Now, if I can just wish harder for those video drivers...