Proving the "Netbooks Can't Run Windows 7" myth WRONG!!!

I just bought an Acer Aspire ONE Netbook, pretty much commonplace netbook with ur standard intel atom 1.66Ghz processor, 1GB ram, 10.1" Screen, 512 cache, 250 GB HDD, etc. Comes stock with Windows 7 "Starter" edition which for those of u who dont know basically Windows XP with a Windows 7 skin over it... stripped to the bear-bones Microsoft claims due to the fact that the technical constraints of a netbook wouldn't allow A full-blown version of Win 7 to run effectively, or if at all...

Being an experimental type guy I wanted to research this a bit, and sure enough numerous respectable PC-review websites confirmed the same.. They installed win7 ultimate on an acer and Asus netbook and cited that the system couldnt run more than 3 apps at a time, (even with win7 stater they claimed it couldnt do this) and also you could forget about Aero, as that would literally melt the processor on your lap if you even tried to engage it..

Well, let me tell you this is utter nonsense. On sunday I bought a stick of 2GB DDR2 SODIMM ram for $50 bux to max out it's ram capacity (which isnt exactly a lot for todays standards), got home, installed it. Made a bootable USB pen drive with windows 7 ultimate on it and off I went. Did a full format of all the drives/paritions (getting rid of the much-loathed coporate bloat-ware I hate so much, I actually loved the thought as it was being wiped clean).

Proceeded to install Win7 Ultimate edition. Install took about 30 mins, after installing I was waiting for any sort of error saying "Error 3243: Your netbook sucks so you cant run Win7 Ultimate. Ha ha." Nothing of the sort came up, so I went ahead and installed all my up to date Acer netbook Drivers, all installed without a hitch.

To make a long story short, boot up time is less than 45 seconds, memory usage is a constant 30% (or less) when idle (no apps running), and I've just installed Office 2010 and Acrobat 9.0, all up and working fine.. Probably my biggest amazement was that every single windows Aero feature worked perfectly.. 700MB .avi videos play with no studder or glitches, and H.264 video playback is smooth for the most part but can be jerky at times if u move the mouse cursor around.. (using VLC or BS Player) System works 100% perfect. I dont know if it was that extra gig of RAM or what, but if anyone tells you that you need a netbook with win XP because it's not capable of running win7, tell em they're full of sh*t and stop reading false, misleading articles by so-called computer gurus.

Anyway just wanted to clear that up just in case anyone wanting to take the plunge but was hesistant with all the anti-win7 propaganda out there.

There are some minor tweaks one must to to optimize an already compromised system, such as disabling indexing svc, setting page file correctly, possibly adding USB readyboost drive for a wee bit more performance.. PM me if you want further details as to how to do this..

 

Windows XP with a Windows 7 "skin", is just wrong. But its good to know that even netbooks can run Windows 7. A 700mb .avi file is most likely well less than 720p, which even my ZuneHD can play. Some critics may say, that if you don't run it well, you ought not run it at all... I tend to agree. But its good that you found it useful for you

 

Its more about keeping the cost of the machines down and so microsoft can make a pretty penny from the people upgrading to higher editions.

 

Great bit of info PanzerHauptmann , thanks for doing this +REP

 

great attempt i give you some rep for that.

win7 should be able to install with no problems. maybe it was x32 instead of x64? don't get how you got the idea that w7 can barely run that many apps considering you just upgraded the ram.