Aspire 5536

I've just bought one of these as a "refurbished" item and have very mixed feelings.

The good thing is it seems to be quite a nice machine for basic computing.

The bad things include:

1. It has no ExpressCard port. I researched extensively prior to purchase, and most sites listing this model say it has such a slot. The Acer site doesn't, but that site doesn't mention the slot on my AS 2920. I really need such a slot to use my firewire card. Is there a guide anywhere to what the numbers and letters mean after the main Acer type number?

2. It came with Vista, but I thought it might be upgradeable to W7 as there are drivers on the Acer site, and it was a current model while the free upgrades were available. The latest bios, 1.11, still reports 2.0 in the slic dept. Can anyone suggest any way to progress this? Is any sort of cheaper paid-for upgrade possible?

3. I'd hoped switching on virtualisation would be easy, but nothing seems to appear in the bios. I've seen the other thread here. Frightening!

4. I've been running Windows 7 64-bit within the 30-day limit. The mouse driver from the Acer site breaks the touchpad's operation completely, so I've had to revert to the basic drivers. Other drivers from Acer seem OK. W7 seems to have fixed some of the networking problems seen in Vista, but why has the underscore suddenly become forbidden in a network name?

5. I'm planning to purchase W7 Professional if I like Win7 after about 25 days, or load Ubuntu or some other Linux instead. Anyone running Ubuntu on one of these?

 

1) If whoever you bought it from said it had get a refund . .if not there many confusing variants especially in retail stores

2) SLIC affects OEM licenses not retail licenses. Your Vista license key won't work with W7 whatever version of SLIC you have. Retail w7 will install even without a bios SLIC. If you are thinking of trying to use an OEM key for 7 you will be found out by the latest Windows anti piracy measures

3) if the Bios has no setting use software to check its status
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163321 If not wait for a hack

4) Load chipset drivers, let windows have another look. Only user Acer drivers on a clean load where something isn't working properly
Underscores are a dangerous thing in some areas SMTP etc. I think they are trying to standardise on a safe character set

5)

 

1) Unfortunately I can't find the original advert, but the price was so good that I'll just grin and bear it.

2) I'm a bit confused by all this. I assume that if I actually buy a non-Acer OEM licence (with a new HD to put it on and make me a builder), I won't get involved in an argument with Microsoft's lawyers.

3) Will do

4) There don't seem to be any W7 64-bit chipset drivers on the Acer support site. I am happy with a basic mouse anyway.

5) The underscores are a pain in that I have only tried W7 because I support some people running businesses and a couple of them have bought Win7 laptops. They have both used underscores in their naming conventions in the past, but have hit trouble, and I've tested it out here and found I can't see files on a machine with an underscore in the name. I've just never seen this mentioned anywhere so it came as a bit of a surprise.

 

Thanks Bruboo. I'm now on to the next hurdle.

The 5536 passes the Hardware assisted Virtualisation test and says it is configured.
I then tried to install the 3 files for running XP Mode.
The XP Mode file seems to install correctly
The Virtual PC runs identifying itself as a Microsoft update, but gives a message saying it is not applicable.
The XP Mode update also gives the not applicable message (as expected).

I then hit the start button, but there is no VirtualPC XP Mode option.

Could this be down to the fact I'm trying to install during the pe-activation period? All the validations etc. were passed OK.