Family members: this is a geek post that you might want to ignore.
So my workplace provided me with a hp tablet when I started. It’s been pretty amazing but the choice of Windows XP tablet edition or Vista wasn’t terribly inspiring. (I did try Linux and I use it on my workstation but on a tablet it just wasn’t all that polished.)
So after hearing that the new Windows 7 release candidate was more responsive than XP or Vista I figured I’d give a try. I thought I’d write about it here in case it helps someone.
So I got the RC1 64 bit candidate from Microsofts site. I’m aware I might be making things harder for myself with the 64bit version but hey, I wanted to give it a try.
After the install has finished, just check for updates and the recommended updates section will include a fair few drivers. After a reboot I then had 4 unknown devices still needing drivers.
I had all the xp/vista drivers for the 2710 downloaded from HPs site already so I used winrar to unpack all the contents from the install files into one directory, then asked windows to update the drivers for each unknown device, pointing it at the big directory of files. This fixed one of the devices.
For the fingerprint reader, you can get a beta driver for Windows 7 64bit at Authentecs websitewhich is the manufacturer of the fingerprint reader of the 2710. The new driver and interface is great and quite polished compared to the original shipped version.
I would recommend you don’t install the hp protect suite or the buttons software, at least on the 64 bit version. Installing the protect suite just wont work and the buttons software will make the screen rotation work but make the mute light toggle every 15 seconds or so.
I haven’t found a solution for the screen rotation yet but I can use ctrl-x in the meantime to bring up the mobility interface and toggle the rotation. It still only rotates in 2 directions instead of all 4, I believe there’s a complex fix for this so I’ll come back to it another day.
Other oddities are that when the sound is muted, if I shutdown then I get the dialogue that the system is waiting for explorer, with the subtext stating that it’s attempting to play the shutdown sound. As part of the shutdown process the computer appears to then turn off the mute, the sound plays the dialogue disappears and then the system shuts down. Normally the system copes fine with sound from an application and the mute on… it just wouldn’t be audible.
Software
I installed Artrage on it, which I’ve the paid/full version of as it’s cheap and a beautiful little program that keeps loved ones entertained and out of your hair for entire evenings at a time.
I’ve put a trial of Autodesks Sketchbook Pro on from Autodesks website in order to try out, but it’s about £90 and I’m not a great artist so I suspect I wont purchase the full version at the end of the trial.
I guess I’ll have to put Onenote on as Agilix seem to have abandoned gobinder (and the Franklin Covey packaged version of the same program). In fact they abandoned it some time ago, just after I paid for the full product (ho hum). The old Gobinder binary struggles on vista with various bugs, and under Windows 7 in caries a known issues warning if you attempt to install it.
I had a play with the built in speech recognition but I’m undecided on it. It was fine in a quiet office environment but not when demonstrating to others.
The handwriting recognition seems better, I’ll try and use it in anger over the next week.
I wont bore you with the more minor details, but essentially the release candidate works, and does so to a better standard than their current full products.