Driver Availability
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On both of my test systems, plus several others on which I have
installed Windows 7 RTM (including Lenovo T60p and X61 laptops), driver
availability for recent-model systems (3 years old or younger) was
surprisingly good with just the installation media--and even better
upon first connection to Windows Update. On all four systems
mentioned above, the only device that could not obtain a driver in this
manner was a wireless WAN card in one of the laptops.
However, the functioning of the drivers was still a little dicey in
some cases. With the Lenovo X61, for example, the 64-bit Win7 video
driver for the laptop's Intel 965 chipset adapter technically
worked, but only with a lot of tinkering--particularly with an external
monitor attached to the laptop's VGA connector. In this case,
getting the external monitor to the maximum supported resolution
required me to periodically re-adjust the monitor refresh rate.
I expect Windows 7's driver support and performance to improve
significantly before the operating system's official mid-October
launch. However, don't expect legacy support for older devices to
magically appear. If a vendor never created a driver that worked
well with Vista, don't expect one to show up for Windows 7.
