This blog post is about when I installed Microsoft Windows 7 on my Dell Latitude D630 laptop.
Warning: You use the information below at your own risk, this is just what I decided to install.
Introduction
I just installed Microsoft Windows 7 on my Dell Latitude D630 laptop, and in this post I will cover what I installed, covering security and other applications to hopefully make my life easier.
This isn’t my main working machine (my main machine is a D620 with Vista!), so it is important that I regularly boot up the D630 laptop and keep the software updated, especially anti-virus and firewall.
Why am I using the D620 as a main computer, instead of the D630? Long story, but basically the D630 broke due to a Nvidia graphics issue, and I trust the D620 with Intel graphics more.
Windows Update
The very first thing I did when the laptop had booted into Windows 7 for the first time, was to run ‘Windows Update’ from the start button menu. Once it had downloaded and installed two updates, I rebooted and then…. ran ‘Windows Update’ again! I had to go through this process of check for updates, install and reboot numerous times! It literally took hours.
Microsoft’s Security Essentials
The latest version at the time of writing is an incredible free virus package for Microsoft Windows. Once installed I checked for new virus definition updates and then rebooted.
Comodo’s Firewall
I don’t want to use the standard Microsoft firewall, and instead have opted for Comodo’s impressive free firewall for Microsoft Windows.
Mozilla Firefox and Adobe Flash
I hate Internet Explorer, so decided to install Mozilla Firefox and also Adobe’s Flash.
Drivers for my hardware.
I noticed that the graphics resolution was very low, and after checking realised I the operating system was using a generic graphics adapter / card driver, so I installed a driver from the manufacturer website.
Originally I had installed Microsoft Windows 7 64 bit, but after numerous problems with the Nvidia drivers, I installed the 32 bit and had no problems with the graphics driver after that.
I don’t use who Microsoft Office these days, but instead use LibreOffice. I use the Calc (spreadsheet) and Writer (word processor) applications mainly.
Other applications.
If this was my main working machine I would also install Dropbox, as I regularly use that package. If necessary I will install Dropbox which will then sync and download my files if required. Another application I would install is Sumatra PDF, which is a small PDF reader application.