ILuvJohn

In my last post I ranted a bit on why Windows 7 is the worst OS of all time, to date. Now, I am going to walk you through my experience on installing Windows XP on my Acer Aspire 5517-5671.

• Backup anything you want to save to an external HD or internet/network location. Download this torrent and burn the files to a CD. (Need help with torrents? They are simple, fast, convenient and secure!) You will need these drivers for your Acer Aspire 5517 to work properly with Windows XP. As well, you will need WinRar to “unzip” the drivers. These drivers are for your wireless card, LAN / Ethernet, Video Adapter, Sound Card, USB etc etc. You may not be able to use a USB Flash drive because the PC will not be able to communicate to the USB drives upon a fresh install pre-SP1. Some work, and some dont.
• Shutdown/restart and press F2 to get into your bios.  On the “Main” tab / page, at the bottom, there is a setting called SATA Mode. Change it From AHCI Mode to IDE Mode. If you don’t do this, you may get the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) while installing Windows XP. Don’t exit the BIOS yet, one more setting to change.
• Switch over to the “Boot” tab in the BIOS Screen. Use the plus and Minus (+ & -) keys to put the CD / DVD drive at the top (Mine was IDE1), and the Hard drive right below it (Mine was IDE0). Now place your Windows XP installation disk in your CD/DVD drive, then go to the exit tab in your bios and press enter on “Exit Saving Changes”. As the PC reboots, it should ask you to Press any key to boot from CD… go ahead and press the space bar to start the installer.
• If you do not want to use Windows 7 again the you can remove the extra partitions on your Hard drive, otherwise leave them be. Either way, you will not need them for Windows XP. I suggest creating a 10 GB partition that will be used for storing your drivers and misc software needed for reinstalling your OS. If you so choose to make an image/restore point for your newly installed OS you should also save it to this 6GB partition. Follow the Windows XP installer as usual. The next steps will take place after you have booted into your New Windows XP installation.
• Pop in that CD you burned at the beginning of this tutorial and copy all the files over to your desktop, then install each one. I tried to include all the drivers in this one release, I am not aware if I missed any. There are different variations of the same drivers too - You will have to check to see which ones you should use.
• Last but not least, after you install all your drivers and get it up to date with Windows updates, Anti-virus installed, your favorite programs installed, etc I suggest making an image of your OS. When your computer gives you trouble in the future you can restore from this point instead of jumping through all these hoops again.
• I personally have installed Windows XP on my new Acer Aspire 5517-5671 and have so far not found any issues with the XP OS on this PC.

I hope that someone out there who is as frustrated as I have been so far will find some comfort or relief from this.

Thoughts, comments, testimonials, successful/failed installations, other bug fixes related to this are welcome!

In case you missed the download link above for the torrent file for these drivers, you can download them from TheGhostBay: Download Windows XP Acer 5517-5671 Drivers Torrent

I have talked in the past about how much I hate Microsoft and their over controlling attempt on keeping users within the lines of “proper” computer use…But as uncontrollable circumstances have it,  I got a copy of Windows 7 on my work computer about a month or 2 ago. Though Vista should have been the death of Microsoft, I am finding Windows 7 to be quite a more pleasant experience, though it still has a handful of little things that piss me off when I use it.

What needs to change in order to make the Ultimate Windows Operating System:

• Internet Explorer needs to be completely SEPARATE from the rest of the Operating System. It is not a good idea to integrate any part of the Windows OS with the programs that come with the OS by default. I, as well as many others, completely block the Internet Explorer program because it is vulnerable to viruses, Trojans, and other forms of internet based attacks and exploits. Most common, are pop-ups that use Internet Explorer to display on the users system.
• With the exception of the Desktop, you can not manually move files in folders. That’s right - you can not organize files except by a bunch of predefined selections. This is a BIG issue for some people. Many people go to select large amounts of files but find a few that they do not want so they just move those files out of the way. Sure you could hold CTRL and click on the files to deselect them, but it’s still annoying you can not just move them out of the way. Microsoft, you need to stop trying to CONTROL users, and let them do what they way. Let’s say a user can move their files off of the visible screen or something….that’s ok because it gives computer Gurus like myself the opportunity to make a few $$ here and there giving others a hand. It also makes it let frustrating for the expert computer users to get done what they need done.
• Get rid of the control panel the way it is and use the classic control panel from 2000 / XP. The classic control panel was perfect and should not have been moved or changed. Also, all the programs in the Control panel have been changed to look different….they look like shit now. We want to the regular grey ugly boxes back because they were easy to read and work with. Now there is so much crap in these programs that unless you are used to it already, it is hard to figure out the first time you go in there. Basically you are turning off existing Windows users from using the new Windows Operating systems. We want something familiar to work with, that is less buggy than previous versions…..that’s all.
• The start bar is that of Vista. Windows XP / 2000’s start bar is much better. The start bar for Vista is stupid and hard to clearly read and understand it.

Though Windows 7 has a lot of things that irritate me, there are a few new things that I really enjoy.

• The Calendar is similar to that of Windows vista. I like it. Make it sound off alarms, or send emails when scheduled events take place, etc and we would be set. Just make sure it works with any email provider and not just hotmail / live, etc.
• Support for multiple monitors is excellent! Being able to drag and drop open program windows from full screen to small screen and vica versa is awesome and should not be altered for future versions now that it is part of the Windows OS.
• Although the start bar from Windows 7 sucks, you can download a program to change the start bar back to the classic version. I use the program called CSMenu in conjunction with a program to hide the original start menu. Download the latest CSMenu and Start Killer from their websites.
• Clicking on the shutdown button in the start bar shuts the PC down immediately….it does not ask you any extra questions. Perfect! I never use the log off function anyways.
• FTP locations show up as shortcuts in My Computer. This is excellent because you can browse your files on the internet as if they were right here on your local computer. I find this to be extremely handy! They should work to make this feature faster and even assign the location a drive letter so local programs can read / write to these FTP locations without any issues.
• Windows 7 actually seams to run faster than Windows XP does on a fresh install. Can’t argue with that!
  
• No More Defrag! Kiss it goodbye. Thank God!

That’s it for now. I’ll write more about Windows 7 as I become more and more familiar with it.

Comments and corrections are welcome. A link back to this page from your own website would be awesome as well!

Time to dump that old Windows OS! Since I am such security buff (not really, but I try), I thought I would show this to you since it has been an issue for me.

I have turned off ALL automatic updates for Windows. The PC continues to use automatic updates even though it is turned off. Today it had a dialog box asking for Windows Restart for the automatic updates it had just installed. I checked it all out and it was in fact windows update / program. I also double checked before restarting that Automatic updates were turned off.

When I restarted, it still said automatic updates were turned off!

So I did some looking around and found this:
http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/13/01-Microsoft-updates-Windows-without-users-consent

In my personal and professional opinion - Windows XP / Vista is 100% insecure. MicroSUCK has the ability to update your system at anytime with out your consent. This means that they can, at anytime, create an update that sends them a scan of your hard drive (for instnace). Who is to say they are not snooping your Hard Drive? I am looking into virtual machines and Ubuntu Linux (They do have a really nice graphical UI for it too).

Now we just need to catch / record proof of what is happening and start a class action law suit. If I don’t want Microsoft updates, I have the right to not have them. Yet it keeps happening. Not to mention the GIGANTIC security flaw this issue presents.

Who knows….Maybe we should make a stand against it - It’s out LEGAL RIGHT to have privacy. Microsoft intentionally made XP (and Vista apparently) with a “Back door”, if you will, and this “hole in security” is allowing a way for Microsoft to access YOUR PC at THEIR WILL. It IS an invasion of Privacy, weather they are using it for wrong purposes or not. The fact of the matter is that they COULD and there is nothing we can do to stop it except for not using the internet - but that is LAME. We should be able to surf the net securely, and let our PC sit while connected securely, and we should absolutely have the ability to control every single aspect of our computer. Updates, manual updates, programs, etc. Just because Microsoft made it doesn’t mean they have the right to invade it - We “purchased” it right? So why are they forcing this kind of stuff on us? With no regret at all,

IN THE NAME OF LINUX, I CURSE MICROSOFT CORPORATION TO THE DEPTHS OF COMPUTER HELL!

We should all concider sucking up our own thougts and make a stand by NOT using Microsoft. Within a short amount of time, I am going to make the transfer to Linux. I want to find the best Linux available for free that is the easiest transition for Windows Users. With Open Office and the internet, there is nothing we can not do on Linux whereas Windows have too many “rules” to follow.

If your with me, comment. Thanks for visiting.

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