M6700 Windows 8 Experience & Tips

Hey Guys, I've been thinking about upgrading to Windows 8, but I'm not convinced that its worth the upgrade. I'm wondering what the experience of those of you who have upgraded have been both in terms of the windows 8 UI, performance compared to Windows 7 and any compatibility issues with devices and drivers. Is it worth the upgrade? Also any other tips and considerations would be much appreciated!

 

On the M6700, the only device not working yet is the fingerprint reader (if you have one). Everything else is good, you can get drivers from Windows Update and from the Dell support site. If you actually perform an upgrade over Windows 7, the only driver that will break is the one for the freefall sensor, you'll need to get an updated one from the Dell support site. If you have Optimus enabled you should update the Intel graphics driver right away.

If you decide to do a clean install instead of an upgrade, you should take the opportunity to switch to UEFI and enable SecureBoot in the BIOS. First, upgrade to BIOS A06 if you haven't already.

(It's also possible but a little tricky to migrate a "legacy" install to UEFI, if anyone is interested I'll post directions.)

I've been using Windows 8 since August and have grown to like it (though it took a while for it to grow on me). For the UI, the biggest change is the "Start screen" of course. But general use to launch apps is the same. (Press "Windows" key on keyboard, type an app name, use arrows to select it from the list if necessary, "Enter" to launch. Who navigates that folder tree with the mouse anymore?) Press Windows+W to initiate a search of the control panel. Other than that, if you stick to the desktop, it is very similar to Windows 7. You can get used to the new "metro" stuff at your leisure.

The app store has potential I think but I haven't found any killer "must-have" apps in there. I've been using the Netflix app and a few of the games. I also replaced the Skype desktop app with the Skype app from the app store, it is less intrusive (and I don't leave Skype running unless I need it for a video call, generally I use it under Trillian). None of the apps that come pre-loaded seem particularly useful to me.

There are new features here and there that you may appreciate. I've been using the "File History" feature to back up my data drive. Pretty easy. "Storage Spaces" seems really cool but I don't have a use for it at this point.

Performance is at least on par with Windows 7. Some things are faster but nothing is really slower.

 

Thank you for the very complete and informative answer. I do have the finger print reader but it doesn't work properly as it is anyways, I think I will do a clean install and give it a try and see how it goes. cheers!

 

When trying to order a M6700 Covet with Windows 8 I found the webcam & sound card were not compatable with Win 8.
I had a chat with Dell support last night and they confirmed Windows 8 will not work on M6700 Convet.
I am confused. Should I order Win 7 or not get the Covet.
I am about to spend more than $5,000 hate have an old OS on such a powerfull computer.

Any ideas?

 

You can always get Windows 7 and get the Windows 8 upgrade for $15 from Microsoft. Upgrade once the drivers are worked out.

I find it odd that Windows 8 would have a problem... It works fine on the non-covet, and the sound card should be the same (not sure about webcam, though I would be surprised if it was different).

 

My 2 cents as a M6600 owner with the touch/pen enabled screen: Windows 8 really comes alive with these features, so hopefully Dell will come out with a touch version of the 6700 at some point. Not a deal-breaker, of course, but, nice to have occasionally.

 

I'm having no luck enabling Intel Rapid Storage SSD caching on my system. It was supplied three days ago with Windows 7 and came with an HDD and mSATA SSD installed. I don't want to bother setting the machine up under Windows 7 when Windows 8 is the way forward and I'd rather start life with a clean Windows 8 installation so I've paid for a Windows 8 upgrade.

In order to preserve my original machine config and factory restore image I swapped the supplied HDD for an old spare drive and used diskpart to clean the drive to prepare it for a clean UEFI Windows 8 installation. No problem installing Windows 8 in UEFI mode and most drivers apart from the fingerprint reader, which can wait. The real irritation is that while I have installed the Intel Rapid Storage drivers and software the only options I am presented with is to create various RAID configurations, none of which include caching for acceleration.

Having swapped disks and booted back to Windows 7 I see that I have the "Accelerate" button included in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology software, and pressing that takes me to the dialogue to enable acceleration. This button is entirely absent from the same Intel software in my Windows 8 installation. Here's how things look under Windows 7....



I did not press F6 to load drivers during installation since everything proceeded without the need. Could this be where I went wrong? A major element in my choice of this machine configuration was to use SSD caching. If I can't get this working under Windows 8 then I may as well stick with Windows 7. If it is necessary to reinstall Win 8 from scratch, with F6 drivers added next time, then so be it.

Any ideas/solutions? Thanks.

 

I have it working on Windows 8 (UEFI installation). I didn't need to do the F6 drivers. I just installed Windows normally and installed Intel Rapid Storage afterwards.



If you don't see the "Accelerate" button at all, then Intel Rapid Storage doesn't think you're eligible for acceleration. Just to be sure, make sure that...

- You have the disk controller set to "RAID" mode in the BIOS (not "ATA" or "AHCI" mode). <-- This is the main reason why the button won't show.
- Your SSD is present and there are no partitions on it. Additionally, your SSD should not be configured as a GPT disk. If you think you may have accidentally set it up as GPT in the past, open disk management in Windows, right-click it and select "convert to MBR". (Intel SRT will not touch a GPT disk for acceleration even if it has no partitions.)
- You have Intel Rapid Storage 11.0 or later installed. (I'm running 11.6.2.)

 

Not sure what went wrong, but I think there may have been something peculiar with the SSD format/partitioning. I hadn't knowingly done anything to it, but having found and deleted a partition while in Windows 7 I now have acceleration working under Windows 8. Thanks for the tip for checking the SSD.

 

I finally upgraded a few days ago and it has been amazing so far. I enabled secure boot and UEFI and it only takes a few seconds to completely load up. I like the new interface and layout. The only thing I miss from Windows 7 is the Areo and transparent interface.