Switching to windows 7

Hello. I own an Acer Aspire 6920G. I'm thinking about changing my OS from Windows Vista, to Windows 7. Is there anything I should know, like driver and software problems? Anything I should be ready to fix if I decide to install Windows 7 On this laptop?

 

Hey Solo! I moved to Windows 7 myself from Vista on a similar machine.
What kind of change-over are you planning - an in-place upgrade or a clean install?
Have you burned your recovery DVDs yet?
The new operating system may remove the Acer-customized Master Boot Record (MBR), thus preventing you from using things such as Acer Arcade Instant-On, and possibly even the Disk-to-Disk Recovery partition.

Most Vista drivers will work with 7 right out of the box, but I would get the newest graphics drivers from Nvidia themselves instead of Acer's older ones.

 

I have an ATi card, but I understand. Thanks for your reply. The acer instant-on is not a problem, but the D2D however, Is. If I had a recovery disc, would that return my computer to how it is now, should anything go wrong? I am going to do A clean install, if I do get Win7, as upgrade copies are not going to be shipped in the UK.

 

Good thing ATi's new Catalyst 9.7 drivers support mobile GPUs on Windows 7, eh?
The Acer recovery DVDs restore your system to a factory-fresh state. You can make them yourself using the Acer eRecovery software.

If you're doing a clean install, make sure to burn your Drivers & Applications disc using the eRecovery program too. That'll have all of the Acer-customized drivers you'll need - Realtek sound, Dritek Launch Manager, JMicron card reader, fingerprint reader, etc.
Everything else can be had from the manufacturer's website.

 

Sure, I will. Thanks very much for your help!

 

Hey, it's my pleasure.
Post back here with your experiences (if you're going to try the RC before the final product).

 

I'll be waiting for the final, but I'm not 100% sure I will be getting it, yet. More like, 90%.

 

What on earth is the reason NOT to?
Unlike the XP-to-Vista transition, all previous drivers will still work on 7.
The UI is a nice change.
And although I have no concrete benchmarks, it feels a lot more responsive and spritely than Vista ever did.

 

just do a switch today and suddenly I can see PQSERVICE as drive A:, weird..

 

Of course, because that installation(Windows 7) would terminate your PQservice aka Acer MBR stuffs. So, the hidden partition(which use to do a recovery to system default) would appear. Acer has hidden the partition and locked it to prevent it from corrupt or infection. And to waste our HDD space. LOL.

Question:
If we install the original OEM vista back, would the partition be hidden again?

 

Probably not - the Acer-customized MBR would no longer be there.
You'd have to use the recovery DVDs you made.
(I think there's also a fixmbr.exe on the recovery disc, but I could be wrong...)

 

Isn't you try it before?
I mean you installed Windows 7 and Windows Vista x64 into your AS 6920G last time.
Then, when you were going to Acer Canada HQ, you did a OEM recovery(vista x86) on your AS 6920G. So, you might know it is the Acer MBR still there and the hidden partition too? Unless you deleted the hidden partition and make it unite with the other partition.

 

Uh, no. I never did that.
I went from the Acer-customized Vista Home Premium x86 to a clean install of retail Vista Ultimate x64, which I kept even while visiting Acer Canada. I never did a factory restore there - they just swapped in a factory stock hard drive - and kept Vista Ultimate until moving to Windows 7 RC x64.
Plus, I deleted the hidden partition when doing the clean install last year.