I spent far too much time yesterday installing Windows 7 Ultimate on the Viliv S5 UMPC. It is now running perfectly, but it took a little bit of effort to get it to that state. Fortunately, there is good information on the web to help in the process and that’s what did the trick for me. The primary issue was the lack of Wi-Fi out of the box. Here are my brief impressions of Windows 7 running on the 5-inch UMPC.
I ended up installing Windows 7 a couple of times to get it right. I found out the hard way that there is only one way to deal with the S5. If you intend to install Windows 7 on your S5, get these instructions from a user on Pocketables, and follow them to the letter. You will need to download all of the Windows XP drivers from Viliv, and users have made them available as a single big (199 MB) download to make it easier.
There are two main issues to deal with during the install due to the hardware of the S5. The S5 has a combination Wi-Fi/ Bluetooth radio and those radios are turned off during the Win 7 install. There is no hardware switch for this. On the original XP installation, the supplied VilivManager utility is used to turn them on and off. The fact that they are automatically turned off during the Win 7 install means that Win 7 doesn’t see them. Even though you have the drivers to get them going in hand, they can’t be installed as Win 7 doesn’t know the radios are present. You can’t apply drivers to a device if the system doesn’t know it exists.
The early part of the Win 7 install process is designed to deal with this, and that’s why I believe you must follow the instructions above to the letter. The early steps get enough of the S5 hardware working so that the VilivManager utility can be installed and run. Once that utility is running, you can turn on the Wi-Fi radio with the software switch. Of course, once the radio is recognized by Win 7, installing the drivers for it is a breeze. Then it’s a simple matter to run Windows Update and get most of the other components installed by Windows.
Once Windows 7 was up and running completely, I ran into the other big problem. I had installed an early version of Windows 7 on the Viliv S5 way back when, only to go back to XP because the touchscreen of the S5 wouldn’t rotate with the display. I use my UMPCs in portrait mode most of the time, and the inability to use the touchscreen when rotated was a deal breaker. Unfortunately, the touchscreen still does not rotate, but a user has written a new touchscreen driver and utility that rotates the touchscreen along with the display. It works perfectly, and is the only reason I am leaving Windows 7 on the S5.
So now that Windows 7 is installed and working fully on the S5, here are my impressions of how well it is running:
- Windows 7 runs a little slower than XP. This is not surprising given how much more capable Windows 7 is than XP.
- Aero runs fully in Windows 7, but it slows down the system so much that I disable it.
- The touchscreen is not recognized by Win 7 as a certified touch interface, so the special touch enhancements in Windows 7 are not installed.
- The Tablet PC bits are installed but must be invoked manually. They are hidden under the Accessories category in the Start Menu. The Tablet Input Panel is there and works fine, but it must be invoked (and killed) manually. The digitizer on the S5 uses a very light touch, and thus the inking is terrible. It is impossible to ink on the screen without touching the digitizer. This does not surprise me as I’ve indicated in the past this would be the case.
- The battery meter is not accurate. This is a factor of the Viliv battery and not Win 7. It only displays the remaining charge in 10% increments and when it’s on the edge of a level the power displayed jumps up and down. It’s only a general indication of the charge state.
- I did not install the Viliv soft keyboard as I don’t use it. My preferred utility, uBoard, works fine. I have pinned the uBoard menu to the taskbar so it’s always a tap away.
- I haven’t run into any issues with the software I typically use — it all works on the S5 under Windows 7.
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