Christian’s Blog

I have received a fair amount of questions and searches regarding the installation of the Windows 7 Beta on a Dell Mini. It is dead simple. A little knowledge of BIOS management and ISO burning is required.

Setup

• Dell Mini 9
• 8Gb SSD
• 2Gb RAM
• Xbox 360 USB HD DVD ROM

Step 1: Download the Beta install .ISO and key here. You have until Feb. 10. Do not download to your Mini, use a computer with more storage space and a DVD burner.

Step 2:  Burn .ISO to DVD. Vista has a reasonable built in .ISO burning utility. Or you can use Nero or any other utility.

Step 3: Attached your external USB DVD ROM to your Mini.

Step 4: Boot from the DVD and follow installation instructions.

Installation on the Mini takes about 30 – 40 minutes. I’ve run it twice. On more powerful systems with more disk space the installation is about 20 minutes.

Once the installation is complete, the setup is no different than it is on larger systems. The video card, Mobile Intel 845 Chipset, isn’t very powerful. Importantly, Aero runs just fine, but there is also no fancy boot loader screen. Other than that, I have not seen any problems with running Windows 7 Beta on this weak video card. Videos run fine and images look clear and bright.

When all is said and done there will only be about 1Gb of free space left on your Mini, if you have the 8GB SSD like in my setup. I suggest purchasing an SD Card like this one and run SpeedStep; I’ve set aside 4Gb for SpeedStep.

The only applications I have installed are portions of the Windows Live! Suite: Messenger and Writer. I have decided to use hotmail and its pop feature for email. I will use WordPad *if* I ever want to write/draft a document on this thing. I can’t imagine that I ever would.

The Mini came pre-installed with XP. It ran like crap, was ugly and lacked many features that Vista and 7 incorporate. I am *very* pleased with how Windows 7 Beta runs on the Mini. Although I now have 2Gb of RAM installed, it shipped with 512Mb of RAM. I originally installed on 512Mb then upped to 1Gb and then 2Gb. There is not much performance difference between 1Gb and 2Gb but a gulf of difference between 512Mb and 2Gb.

My next adventure is installation on here from a USB key. I’ll keep you posted.