Installing windows 7

[Eddy B]

I took my new computer to a computer shop yesterday to have windows 7 installed. 4 hours later I went back to pick up but the guy said that he could not install it as there were problems getting the drivers to work. MY computer is a new Acer aspire TC-710, i7 Intel 6700 3.4MHz with 4 GB of ram. I am not sure if he is either telling the truth or just that he is not competent. Any ideas??

[briley]

Suspect the truth. I have two Lenovo computers pre-installed with Windows 8 - I could not install windows 7 without a major effort and re-formating the hard disk. Then I found that Lenovo did not do the drivers for Windows 7.

[NeverSure]

What OS did your computer ship with, if any? What did it have before?

A while back I bought a new laptop with Windows 8 and didn't like it. I wiped the HDD and installed 7. Then I found out that some of the hardware manufacturers never made drivers for Win. 7 and I had to put 8 back on. Since then it's been updated to Win 10, no problems.

It is indeed possible that all drivers for Win 7 aren't available for your box.

??

[Pib]

It could be true. I see the Acer support website only list Win 10 drivers for a TC-710. Sometimes the manufacturer's drivers are just needed to make the computer work "optimally" but in other cases some of the drivers are critical to the computer's proper/full operation.

Why don't you just download the Win 7 ISO, install it yourself, and see with Win 7 install properly. You won't be able to activate Win 7 without a license key but at least you could see if it works/loads with Win 7.

Or maybe just load Win 10. I've been using Win 10 since 29 Jul 15...day one of its release...works fine on my 2 year old Lenovo laptop...the best of Win 8.1 and Win 7 combined. Win 7 is now considered a legacy system...go with Win 10...move on.

[KhunBENQ]

Suspect the truth. I have two Lenovo computers pre-installed with Windows 8 - I could not install windows 7 without a major effort and re-formating the hard disk. Then I found that Lenovo did not do the drivers for Windows 7.

Likely true.

New HW and old OS.

Some HW manufacturers simply don't take the effort to still provide Win7 drivers.

It's a tedious job to go through the complete HW list/inventory and find which HW does not have a driver.

Why don't you just download the Win 7 ISO, install it yourself, and see with Win 7 install properly. You won't be able to activate Win 7 without a license key but at least you could see if it works/loads with Win 7.

And don't forget to try the 64bit version. 32bit makes no sense with 4GB RAM.

Also drivers for 32bit for new HW are even rarer.

I hope this was not the "problem" at the shop.

Edited January 22, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[JaseTheBass]

Win 7 is obsolete now. A lot of hidden stuff especially with regard to connectivity and networking is out of date and will only get worse. Win 10 is the only real choice if your computer is relatively recent.

[WhizBang]

I suspect lack of drivers was in fact the issue.

However, there may still be a solution. There are programs out there that can inventory your hardware and then seach the web for drivers. Driverpack Solution is one such option. I have used this program many times with good success.

Install win7 x64 and try one of these driver search programs.

[KhunBENQ]

I suspect lack of drivers was in fact the issue.

However, there may still be a solution. There are programs out there that can inventory your hardware and then seach the web for drivers. Driverpack Solution is one such option. I have used this program many times with good success.

Install win7 x64 and try one of these driver search programs.

I use "SlimDrivers" when reinstalling (Win7) and occasionally look for driver updates.

https://www.slimwareutilities.com/slimdrivers.php

And sometime I will learn what I am missing with still using W7

What I know is that I can probably throw away my well running quadcore PC of 2008.

Edited January 23, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[scooterboy]

^Wow! Throw it this way if it's still working nicely - I can certainly use it...

PM me if interested - thanks...