OK, so I installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) on my mighty ThinkPad today. I have heard that it’s "Vista fixed". Well, it installed and actually runs fairly well on my 2GB RAM, 1.5 GHz processor. I had to fudge around ot get the video to work properly (ATI doesn’t provide drivers for a lot of their laptop chipsets, and Lenovo isn’t writing any new drivers for their older laptops for Vista/7). The sound also didn’t work when I first turned it on, but Windows Update fixed that. So far, so good. My video drivers are the biggest issue I have. I can’t full screen Flash video and it gives me a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) when shutting down, but I can have dual-monitor display which is what I really want. I’m going to try a product like wubi to make sure I can still run Linux.
If I can’t get better video support as it is, I may try to install XP Professional freshly with all the correct drivers, then upgrade to Windows 7. This might allow me to do what I want with full-screen flash video and the like. Before I try that I might try Lenovo’s XP drivers for this video adapter (I ended up using the Omega Drivers for ATI which has support for the Mobility 7500).
