myMojo

Weekend Project: Windows 7 on a Dell Mini 9 (Part 2)

Now that you have a fresh new install of Windows 7 on your Dell Mini 9 here are some tweaks to help out in making it just a little bit better.

Disable Hibernate

This one is almost a must since I had no space left an the 8GB SSD drive.  Start Command Prompt as Administrator and then run:

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg -h off

You will now have an extra ~1 1/2 GB of additional free space

Reduce the Page File Size

I decided to play this safe and not disable the page file entirely but rather reduce it to the minimum 200MB.  Right-click Computer –> Properties –> Advanced System Settings –> Advanced Tab –> Settings under Performance –> Advanced Tab –> Change under Virtual Memory.

You can run without any page file but if you do run out of memory, apps will likely crash.

Weekend Project: Windows 7 on a Dell Mini 9

I recently picked up a Dell Mini 9 which came pre-installed with Windows XP and a load of Dell software that I didn’t want or need – apparently MS Works is still alive and well.  So wanting to make my new netbook more dated, I decided to install Windows 7 Beta. 

Without an external DVD-ROM drive the setup was a little more involved – mainly having to install Windows 7 from a USB drive.  So without further ado, if you are thinking of do this as well here is the process:

Here is what you will need:

• 1 x Windows 7 Install x86 Media (I used Beta build 7000)
• 1 x USB Drive (at least 4GB)
• 1 x working machine (the bootstrap machine)
• 1 x Dell Mini (the target machine)
• ~2hr x Time

please, can we keep him

please, please.  I promise to plug him in every once in a while and give him Internet whenever he asks.