Windows 7 and the cute Dell Mini-laptops

Got my first look at Windows 7 on a mini laptop we bought for a student in the family.  Pretty slick.   But there are issues related to older hardware and drivers.  PC Mag says likely not good idea to try to put it on an older workstation...and there may be trouble getting an old printer to work on it without hunting down new drivers.   I'd say read up on it before you just start loading old softwrae on a new computer.

Check out PC Magazine and keep visiting it.



And as to Office 2000?  Not fully compatible with old versions of Office you may want to copy over to the new box.    Here's a review saying only Outlook seems to be problematic:

Thank you for posting to the Microsoft Answers Forum.

Outlook 2000 is not supported on Windows 7. There may be workarounds but it is not a supported software. You can use Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 for compatible systems.   Marilyn , Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

 

The new Dell Mini laptop that sells for about $300 is very cute.  It's not a toy, but it's not a high power work computer, either.  Perfect for the middle school set or for soemone who just wants to do some browsing and email.   Not quite a full size keyboard, small monitor, and only about $350 bucks. It'll take a mouse, has 3 usb ports and that's plenty. ya can isntall a mouse and a printer and a bookdrive and that'd make it pretty full service.  We got together and got a pink one for a girl in the family, and she's gonna LOVE IT.  Even got a built in wireless adapter for a home network.  But NO CD, so installing old software on it from around the house may be problematic.

Hope you found this interesting.  I'm a technonerd but hardly a qualified reviewer.  Even so, hey, it's my blog and I'll blog what I want, just like JACK FM plays what they want.  (Actually they don't, the home office decides.)