Samsung NC10 upgraded to Windows 7
by Volker Weber
Yesterday night my neighbor showed up at my door with a package he had received for me while I was in London. It contained a Not For Resale copy of Windows 7 Premium Home. Time for an upgrade on the netbook.
When Vista came out I only tried it in a virtual machine, and I did not feel tempted to install it on any machine as an operating system. Windows 7 is different. I have used a few beta versions and did not find anything that would keep me from using it full time. So there was no question that it had to go on the Samsung.
Windows 7 ships on two DVDs: 32bit and 64bit. You need to boot from the medium to install it. So how was I going to get this on the netbook without a drive? Microsoft should consider selling it on a bootable USB thumbdrive. Since they don't you have to make one yourself. What you need is a 4 GB stick - the distribution is slightly larger than 2 GB. You have to wipe the memory key, create a primary partition, make it active, format it as FAT32, assign a drive letter, and make it bootable. That last part is missing from most of the instructions. Then you just copy everything from the DVD to the drive. Drag and drop will do. All of that took about 10 minutes in a VMware machine on Jumbotron, the iMac.
Installation was pretty straightforward. I only had to download and install a lot of packages from Samsung to make all the FN keys work. Once Windows 7 was up and running, I installed Microsoft Security Essentials, Chrome, Sonos controller, Skype and finally Office 2007. That took probably another two hours.
Have not done any work with it, but from what I am seeing so far, this is a very worthy upgrade from XP. And yes, it's fast. Even with some of the eye candy turned on, on a small netbook no less. Nice work, Microsoft.
Comments
Good to hear.
Although I don't plan on switching to Windows myself, I still would like to see more pressure on Apple to keep it up.
And as I come across Windows on work machines any improvements are also welcome there, but that part is not all that important as I only use Windows as an Eclipse/Notes/Chrome/Office launcher.
Volker,
Did you have a look at this tool from Microsoft:
http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool
It builds an USB based Windows 7 installation kit without having the hassle you described.
Cheers,
Frank.
Yes, that tool is indeed quite handy.
I've been running Windows 7 on my desktop system since the OEM/sysbuilder versions became available.
Overall it feels much better than Vista. I first had lots of doubts about the new taskbar, but after using it for a minute I fell in love with the concept. :) No, I haven't really used a Mac before, only a few times for a few minutes.
This is also my first 64 bit Windows installation. Previously I only had some Linux distributions installed as 64bit versions.
I ran into a few minor problems with the new Windows system, but I was able to resolve them all. Among them folders without owners (diskcheck helps) and low mic volume (changing the recording quality helps).
I looked at the tool but it appears to copy from ISO to USB key, not from DVD.
I too have Windows 7 (release candidate) on the Samsung NC10. It is very good but not sure it's worth forking out for the retail copy when the trial period ends, thinking of trying karmic koala version of Ubuntu Netbook remix instead.
Volker, wieviel RAM hast Du? Habe gerade ein NC10 als Dreingabe zu einer SIM-Karte erhalten.
@Kieren Johnson:
I bought a NC10 a few weeks ago, and I've running Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on it since then: it's perfect.
And this is how installed it:
1) download the Ubuntu ISO and burn it to CD
2) live-boot the CD on a computer with a CD drive
3) from the live booted Ubuntu, create a live-USB-stick
4) boot that live-USB-stick in the NC10, and choose to install
I also tried UNetbootin, but that seems to create it's own boot loader, or something like that.
Nice encouragement for this weekend...
I was very surprised that Samsung has a very strong support of Windows 7 with their NC10.
What surprised me more is the new Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix on the NC10:
- No problems to install it side-by-side with Windows 7
- Very detailed and nicely cut user interface
- You install an operating system and everything you need to do real work with the netbook is just there (takes a lot more time with Windows 7). Even the support of function keys is there.
And it's seems to be a way faster!
For example: Flash videos on the homepage of www.framepool.de on Windows 7: sluggish (remembers me to the reported iMac 27" flaws). The same viewed with NC10/Ubuntu 9.10: No sound and frame drop outs at all!
Is Windows 7 good, but Ubuntu 9.10 even better for some usage cases?
That's a cool picture, did the background come with Windows 7 ?
Yes, it did.
Just in case someone wonders:
The picture shows the Selfridges building in Birmingham designed by Future Systems
Hi thanks for info on NC10 update for Windows 7. Have just done with Ultimate, seems very good. Just wanted to know what packages you downloaded ("I only had to download and install a lot of packages from Samsung to make all the FN keys work") as my function key are not working.
