xl201 on XP - moving to W7 RC1

[Carl_D]

hi all
I am currently running my original build XL201 machine with XP, and am now looking to upgrade to Windows 7 RC1. I have seen alot of issues with the old vista upgrade on forums - specifically with the bios - and was looking for any known gotchas with Sp->w7. does the bios still need updating as per vista upgrade (expect so), whats the current recommendation fo rht best approach for this update, and any other nasties

Carl
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xp mediacenter sp2
hauppage wintv dual dvbt card
lacie nas
samsung 1080p panel
appletv+boxee stb

[Carl_D]

and whats the best s/w to use for making a bootable CD of the bios patch (and I will go download it )

[Carl_D]

so just to be clear.... coz im a muppet

- download zip file
- create bootable cd from the contents
- boot from cd to apply the update
- reboot and install OS as necessary

and if something goes wrong get in touch with Sony!!!!

[ChalkyWhite71]

Yes, that's correct Carl, you may find when you view the files on the CD that not much appears. I was confused by this, but on booting from the disc, it all worked. I used Nero to burn the ISO to the disc, i had to pay for Nero, but the amount i use it, it is worth it.

Glad555, i bought an extra 2Gb for future proofing, and it wasn't much more than a 1Gb stick. My Computer properties tell me that i have 3Gb installed, and all seems OK.

I must say that W7 records TV to a WTV (Windows TV) standard and not the MPEG2 or .dvr-ms that MCE2005 did. I cannot stream WTV files to my Xbox running XBMC, i have to convert them first by right-clicking the WTV file and selecting convert to .DVR-MS format. Hopefully there is a default recording format i can change in W7 to record direct to .DVR-MS??

Cheers, Tony

[GavMack]

I'm a XL301 user who couldn't see a Windows 7 thread for my system but this is close enough.

Thanks largely to Sony I'd hacked my box about over the first 6 months of it's life to get working properly (Nvidia 8500GT, 4Gb RAM, e6700 CPU Upgrade etc.) on Vista but after using 7 RC on over a dozen systems the XL will be on the bench to setup next week. I don't anticipate many problems after setting it up on a couple of Vaio laptops, like a clean install of Vista instead of the bloated factory image it will require the Sony shared libraries, firmware driver and a few others to get the keyboard and hotkeys working post setup and the latest Nvidia 7 driver. Perhaps the only unknown will be the TV tuners, since I have PVR's in the house I don't record via MCE anymore so it's used for music, photos and x264/xvid playback.

I'm really looking forward to it because every Vista OS I've junked in favour of W7 so far has been at least 20-30 percent quicker than before. With plenty of RAM and dual core CPU's I'd say it's at least equal performance wise to XP if not more. With the super bloat supplied with the factory Vista image on the XL I don't expect to be disappointed.

The only pain I reckon will be getting Media Control and FFDshow to work properly with 7 Media Center. I'll report back when it's done!