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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? |
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#2
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? This is a hit in a Google search. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-42937119211c The experiences are mixed. The procedures "scary", as one person is suggesting a BIOS update to make this work. You would expect trouble with the graphics. One person reported "fuzzy" graphics, which means the resolution is not set to native resolution. Read all the replies before making plans. Paul |
#3
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:22:14 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? This is a hit in a Google search. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-42937119211c The experiences are mixed. The procedures "scary", as one person is suggesting a BIOS update to make this work. You would expect trouble with the graphics. One person reported "fuzzy" graphics, which means the resolution is not set to native resolution. Read all the replies before making plans. Paul Thanks, Nvidia do a full Win 10 64 525M driver now. But I am after other drivers. |
#4
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. |
#5
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? |
#6
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul |
#7
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? |
#8
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul |
#9
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? |
#10
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul |
#11
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul Cheers, I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro. Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro. I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend |
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul Cheers, I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro. Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro. I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine family. On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in it for the named OS. OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically. Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners. Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked". They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version (Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine). Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different OSes with them (as long as you have drivers). The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here, as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out. I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working out, you can restore from backup. You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There is 30 days grace, to enter the key. The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage. Paul |
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul Cheers, I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro. Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro. I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine family. On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in it for the named OS. OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically. Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners. Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked". They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version (Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine). Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different OSes with them (as long as you have drivers). The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here, as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out. I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working out, you can restore from backup. You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There is 30 days grace, to enter the key. The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage. Paul Hello Paul, I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10 pro. But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop again. Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10? |
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
Dan wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul Cheers, I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro. Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro. I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine family. On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in it for the named OS. OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically. Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners. Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked". They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version (Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine). Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different OSes with them (as long as you have drivers). The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here, as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out. I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working out, you can restore from backup. You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There is 30 days grace, to enter the key. The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage. Paul Hello Paul, I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10 pro. But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop again. Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10? No, you can install with a local account, as Dan Smith c:\users\dan smith and apply an MSA later. It might change your login. Maybe after the MSA, you're and the login screen makes some mention of that. But the home directory can retain your real name, for local purposes, making it easier. If instead, you installed the MSA right away, the home directory would be c:\users\creat which wouldn't be nearly as nice. You have to look carefully at the small print, to find the "local" account option. You will be prompted a second time with regard to "look at all you are missing by not using an MSA", and you can deny the MSA a second time and fill out the usual local account details instead. You might still have problems with file sharing, because of that MSA. I have one setup, where I made a second account, just so I'd have something to log into when doing file sharing. Because file sharing with the MSA in the way, was a problem. Paul |
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Dell L502X win 10 drivers
On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:00:11 -0500, Paul
wrote: Dan wrote: On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul wrote: Dan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote: Dan wrote: I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit. Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit. Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop? Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on support costs to support only what they configured in their design. They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS. You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and what they will later support. https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10 and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not recommend putting Windows 10 on that product. If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date. Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have since they may produce the same model with different hardware (pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware). There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to something they don't support. Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work, you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8). You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the new version's code. Thanks for the detailed advice. I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8 or if available Win 10. I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10 from inside Win 7? With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it, as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install and wiping everything.) While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a virtual DVD and do these combinations: Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible) The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing to revert Windows.old. The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible with the new OS and it will do something about it. The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase. You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive. This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works, as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted and won't be remounted on the second phase. You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account (MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions" between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable of your MSA email address. So if you were , your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo. If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith, and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't change the folder name already selected. When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55 or later. To see your activation status, you can use slmgr /dlv Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert" the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning 20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good ballpark figure for how much space is needed. There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do powercfg /h off to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations, the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts some of these things to make it all fit. You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the System control panel. To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you access to the pagefile setting. What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it. As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image of the disk, you have nothing to worry about. If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices" for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption, even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access to files later. Paul Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11, but Win 10 is so different. The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD. I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro. So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64 versions? If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10 pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64? The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions. The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss" what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things that have actually been tested. There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to install. And whether the driver writer knew that the subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release. Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance notice of what was required of them. In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS, application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example, I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access (two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming. Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk. Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI. I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The real hardware behaved better. Paul Hello Paul, just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'. How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit Ultimate Windows that is already installed? So it's some kind of restore disc ? Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download as an example. Win10_1809_English_x64.iso sources\ efi\ boot\ support\ bootmgr.efi bootmgr setup.exe === autorun.inf ******* The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had to define a new user account, none of my programs were present, and so on. I didn't test that in the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install keeping programs and data). The image of the recovery looks like this boot\ EFI\ sources\ System Volume Information\ bootmgr BOOTNXT reagent.xml and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade installs (keep user programs and user data). The Dell instructions are here, for their media. And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too. https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point. The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro install activates. But if the Dell looks like that one above without the setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is "Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe program, would it behave differently or better. Paul Cheers, I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro. Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro. I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine family. On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in it for the named OS. OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically. Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners. Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked". They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version (Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine). Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different OSes with them (as long as you have drivers). The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here, as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out. I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working out, you can restore from backup. You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There is 30 days grace, to enter the key. The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage. Paul Hello Paul, I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10 pro. But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop again. Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10? No, you can install with a local account, as Dan Smith c:\users\dan smith and apply an MSA later. It might change your login. Maybe after the MSA, you're and the login screen makes some mention of that. But the home directory can retain your real name, for local purposes, making it easier. If instead, you installed the MSA right away, the home directory would be c:\users\creat which wouldn't be nearly as nice. You have to look carefully at the small print, to find the "local" account option. You will be prompted a second time with regard to "look at all you are missing by not using an MSA", and you can deny the MSA a second time and fill out the usual local account details instead. You might still have problems with file sharing, because of that MSA. I have one setup, where I made a second account, just so I'd have something to log into when doing file sharing. Because file sharing with the MSA in the way, was a problem. Paul Thanks again. |
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