Upgrading my Dell Inspiron 1525

Hello everyone,

I am looking to upgrade my Dell Inspiron 1525 from Windows XP SP1 32bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. However, I don't know if everything is compatible and if I can find the drivers for the laptop somewhere for windows 7. I do have the original Windows XP SP1 32bit driver cd.

Here are the specs:

Operating System
Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3

CPU
Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00GHz
Penryn 45nm Technology

RAM
4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)

Motherboard
Dell Inc. 0U990C (Microprocessor)

Graphics
Plug and Play Monitor (1280x800@60Hz)
Plug and Play Monitor (1280x800@60Hz)
Intel Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family (Dell)
Intel Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family (Dell)

Storage
298GB Hitachi HTS543232L9A300 (SATA)
3GB SanDisk Cruzer Glide USB Device (USB)

Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-T40N

Audio
Intel High Definition Audio HDMI

Do you know if that machine is Win 7 compatible at all, drivers aside?

I wouldn't get frantic about drivers.

Your Windows install disc should have most of them; you might get a few more from Windows Update.

I would go to Dell's website and download your Ethernet (NIC) driver in case Windows doesn't install it. It's the most important driver as you need it to get on the net.

Of course, it wouldn't do any harm to download all possible drivers from Dell, but I wouldn't necessarily install them. See how Windows own drivers do for you.

After you install and get updated, inspect the functionality of your hardware and take a look in Device Manager. If anything is goofy at that time, then look around for other drivers.

As Ken suggests run the Upgrade advisor first so it will clue you to how your programs and hardware will run for Win7. If you'll paste the results here we can advise you further.

I have installed Win7 on several of those both in 32 bit and 64 bit. The first one I installed 32 bit because only 32-bit Vista had drivers on the Support Downloads webpage for the Dell tag number, however on the next I tried 64 bit since the Vista wireless driver is clearly labeled for both 32- and 64-bit and that is the only driver you need to get online to get all others. 64 bit ran even better because it was able to use the extra half-gig of RAM that 32-bit does not support only recognizing 3.5 gb RAM, with negligible RAM apportioned for hardware.

Follow these same steps as for a Clean Reinstall Windows 7 which compiles everything that works best for Win7, how drivers are best handled in a driver-complete OS, and a Special Note for Dell Owners at the end about keeping the bootable Dell Diagnostics partition which I would also run now to test your hardware.

If you dont' have 64 bit installer for your licensed version it is provided in Step 1 along with tool to burn to DVD or Flash stick.