My previous post covered the installation of Windows7 Beta 1 on my older Tablet PC.  My intend was to see whether I had to replace my older hardware with a new device or whether I could still use my beloved, aged Slate. From the high number of page-hits the other article receives – I guess I will cover the Windows7 Release Candidate 1 in more detail than the Beta. The Motion LE1600 was built for Windows XP. If you are interested about its’ hardware specification etc.pls read the previous post. I will not cover it here again. Also I won’t go about the differences between XP, Vista and Windows 7.
But I would like to mention here that it is a combination of  drivers from XP, Vista and Windows Update that make the installation succeed.

The Release Candidate 1′s Installation at a Glance:

It installs in about 40 minutes. Then it takes quite some time to get all the devices up and running. I think it took about one and a half to two hours. But I did the  installation of the drivers as an aside. Easily I got ALL devices up and running – which is much better than with the previous Beta1.

The Installation in Detail:

Step 1: Installing the Windows 7 RC DVD:

Windows 7 installed without any visible error. Looking into the Device Manager right after the installation finished brings some devices without drivers to our attentioin:

(click images to enlarge!)

In Windows 7 Beta  I was never able to successfully finish the Windows Experience Rating (the LE1600 hung and I had to reboot.)  – so I tried running the system performance index right away, before any Driver of motion could tamper with the results:

And here is the result of the assessment AFTER installing all the correct drivers (screenshot taken after step 11 below):

Correct  drivers improve the Desktop Graphics performance to almost 2. But overall it remains a 1 because of the 3D graphics performance of the aged Intel Onboard card. But who needs 3D for typical management tasks or business applications anyway?! If you do CAD you would have never bought this Slate in the first place …

Step 2: Connect to the Internet and run Windows Update:

In this step I wanted to check the drivers’ availability over Windows Update. It would be great if all would be installed and setup automatically.

Windows Update finds two important and one optional downloads:

AuthenTec Inc Driver for the AES2501A , MotionComputing Tablet Button Drivers and the optional driver for the Network adapter.

After confirming a warning dialog to remove all fingerprint data  before installing the AuthenTec fingerprint driver,  Windows update presents a transparent overview of its’ results:

and the Device Manager shows the following status:

Step 3: Reboot & run Windows Update again

3 problems are still waiting to be solved:

And windows wants to reboot again after it downloaded a driver for the chipset.

Step 4: Reboot & run Windows Update again

I had the device manager look for a current driver. As it did not find any Windows 7 asked me wether I wanted to troubleshoot … So I gave it a try – and I have to say that I was well surprised how the Troubleshooting Assistant transparently and systematically went through all the problem devices. Congratulations Microsoft – someone has done his homework here!

After checking all the problem  devices Windows 7 presents this overview:

It is transparent and informative! I like that! Deveice Manager looks like this by now:

The Grapics Adapter is still a generic VGA and some device remain unknown.

The list of installed updates reflects the issue which was resolved by the troubleshooting assistant:

Step 5: Manually Downloading Drivers

We have seen how we can get using Microsoft as a source for device drivers. Much farther than with previous OSes but not quite to the finish.

So we still need to get some drivers from the MotionComputing website for those devices which were not automatically installed by Windows Update all by ourselves.

Step 6: Installing the Motion Dashboard 5.0.2.8 & Reboot

I need to mention that I installed the Motion Dashboard from the LE1700(!), since the one for the LE1600 did not work for me.
But it brings no change to the status of unknown/ driverless devices.

Step 7: Installing the Motion Vista Driver for the Graphics Adapter

The first try fails.

When Windows 7 asks whether this program installed correctly answer no and try again with recommended settings. That works!

Step 8: Reboot & Update & Reboot

Checking the devices still show a missing Audio Controller and an unknown device.

Suprisingly Windows Update reports important updates:

These updates were for the Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS .. adapter and after the second reboot the drivers seem to have been installed ok.

Step 9: Installing the Motion TPM 3.0 & Rebooting

The TPM for Vista  finally resolves the unknown device.

Step 10: Installing the C-Major Audio XP Driver on Windows 7

There is no driver for Vista and Windows Update does not recognize the device by itself. This is an error of the explanation on the Motion Support Site. But installing the XP-Driver from the Motion Website does the trick. It installs neatly and there are no devices with issues left in the device manager.

Last Step 11: Installing the IntelliSonic DX filter on Windows

The IntelliSonic / Knowles Acoustics – 2.0.1 could not be installed under Beta1. Now with the RC it seems to work just fine. You can select all the available options for the Microphone Speech Enhancements.

Overall it is possible to get the system up and running without any  driver issues. That looks promising  also for other older hardware. It shows that Microsoft is on the right path but also that Motion has developed solid drivers  in the past. It would be nice if also graphic drivers for laptops could be obtained through windows update. Downloading these individually does not make sense these days.