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MeanPC -
Operating Systems
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Written by MeanPC
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Tuesday, 04 March 2008 00:00 |
  The day has finally come. I gave it the old college try, but I can no longer stomach Windows Vista anymore. I simply got tired of having my brand new laptop with a dual core cpu and 2 gigs of RAM run like it was a Commodore 64. The final straw was when it took 45 seconds for me to load one photo in Photoshop Elements. Unacceptable. So...I spent the better part of a day backing up my files, removing Windows Vista, reinstalling Windows XP, replacing my apps and files. It was a major headache, one I've been avoiding for a while now. Now that I have broken free from Vista and gone back to my beloved XP...I feel free! You heard it here first - "Vista is like that girlfriend you know you need to break up with, but keep putting it off because it's easier to just keep her." I did run into some problems during the transition. I've also noticed that a lot of searches regarding the 4620Z have been in regards to removing Vista. I'll post a quick transition guide here, to help you people out. - Back all of your files ups. I used an external hard drive. Ensure you have good Windows XP media and good legal serial numbers ready to go.
- Burn a disk with all of the XP drivers for you machine. Acer's USA site only has the Vista drivers for the 4620Z. After some searching, I was able to find the XP drivers for the 4620 (no Z, but the drivers work fine) from Acer's European site. This site has the 4620z XP chipset driver, 4620z XP video driver, 4620z XP LAN driver, 4620z XP Modem driver, 4620z XP wireless driver, and 4620z Audio Driver. Be sure to getcha popcorn ready - that Acer site is SLOW.
- Go to http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm and download the version that says 'Bootable ISO image'. Go ahead and burn the ISO image once you get it. If you don't know how to burn an ISO image, google it, it's outside the scope of this article to explain.
- Boot to the KillDisk you just created. Follow the prompts to completely erase your hard drive. Once KillDisk starts erasing, go find something to kill some time. It took me about an hour to run KillDisk on my 160GB hard drive.
- Now that your hard drive is complete wiped and Vista free, reboot your computer. Hit F12 to go into your BIOS menu. You need to change the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE. If you don't do this, your Win XP install disk will tell you that you don't have a hard drive installed.
- Go ahead and boot to your XP disk and install.
- Everything should go smoothly now. Once you boot into XP for the first time, begin opening each one of the folders on the driver disk you made. Find the 'setup' file in each one and run it. The above driver file and your XP install disk contain a driver for every device in the 4620Z. I had absolutely no trouble installing the drivers and you won't either. While you are installing the drivers, if Windows asks you to locate a driver via a wizard interface, just hit cancel and continue loading your drivers the old fashioned way.
- Voila! One bad-ass, fast running Acer Extensa 4620Z. Your computer will now run at least twice as fast. If you are debating removing Vista....go ahead and do it. You'll be happy you did.
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or your hard drive was badly fragmented. I am running Vista with about the
, Vista is not
XI HAVE ACER ASPIRE 1100 WITH VISTA ,I WOULD LIKE TO REMOVE THAT AND GO TO