I just installed Win 7 and was surprised that it activated my
motherboard's integrated sound and network. It also has the video
running at a decent resolution. This pc is 4 1/2 years old. Should I
attempt to install the drivers that I would have needed with XP?
Thanks.
Microsoft learned a hard lesson with the Vista release and the
non-availability of drivers from component manufacturers. They spent a
bundle to include many more drivers in Windows 7.
These drivers may not be the most current or provide the best
performance for any one component but it assures that most existing PCs
will install W7 and run right out of the box.
If you can find a Windows 7 driver for a component from the
manufacturer's website then that will probably be a better driver for
you to use. That applies to the graphics card in particular. W7 comes
with a generic WDDM 1.1 driver that will run your card at near normal
resolutions, but it will not utilize the advanced features of the card
provided by the manufacturer's driver.