Gf's bro has a new Acer laptop

z0mbi3

z0mbi3

z0mbi3

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He got one through his school yesterday. They still had to pay for them mind, all in all the bill came to around £1000. It's a pretty descent spec as expected for the price (core duo) and as expected its come loaded with bloat. 57 proccesses when I had a look last night and he's barely touched it.

So I want to cut the dead weight. First plan is to get rid of the norton crap that's come with it and replace it with avast and a firewall. I don't use software firewalls so can someone recommend something low on resources and does everything under one process that will do the job for him? It has to be fairly intuitive so that I don't get any calls saying he can't get on the net.

I'll be going through the services and turning off anything he doesn't need. Are there any specific services he should have enabled since he gets his internet via cable?

If anyone can think of anything else I should be doing let me know. I've already put firefox on there btw ;)
 
Presuming that it is most likely to have XP SP2 on it, then just use the Windows firewall, it is probably in by default anyway.
 
first thing i do if a client hand me a new machine is to just give it a full format and start from scratch. guaranteed to get rid off all the bloat and have a proper clean install.
 
Had it been bogged down with spyware and the like then I would have done that. Since its new I should be able to get by with just removing the apps that are on there and giving it a good defrag.
 
If it's anything like the Acer laptop that my fiancee's bro got, it will need a format to be totally clear of the crap. That and they seem to format the HDD FAT32 and in two partitions - nice and slow! :D

A standard XP disc will do it - depending on what version is already installed - as Acer keys work fine with non-Acer XP discs. At least in my experience anyway.

I formatted his laptop, reinstalled XP Home with a 60/20GB NTFS partition, updated, installed IE7, Windows Defender, Avast and Spyware Blaster. All is now good; so much faster.

All the drivers are available on the Acer website.
 
As much as I'd like to do a full reinstall I cba! I'll try fixing it up first and if it still feels slower than my opteron then I'll do a fresh install.

My plan for the time being is to clear all the dead weight software off of it, install bare essentials, sort out the services, run regclean, get him to run it for a day then let OO defrag by access.

Touch wood, jobs a good'un.
 
After 'fixing' several laptops this month for friends, I'd also recommend a fresh install of Windows before he gets any files/work/etc on it. Also you can nicely partition the HD. But make sure first you have all the drivers, software, etc. Download the latest from the manufacturers website :D
 
z0mbi3 said:
As much as I'd like to do a full reinstall I cba! I'll try fixing it up first and if it still feels slower than my opteron then I'll do a fresh install.

My plan for the time being is to clear all the dead weight software off of it, install bare essentials, sort out the services, run regclean, get him to run it for a day then let OO defrag by access.

Touch wood, jobs a good'un.
Click to expand...
to be honest, doing a clean install will probably be quicker than sifting through the crap thats on there, then install what you want, then running a defrag etc...etc...
 
I'm not ignoring your advice but I'm going to try it my way first. It's less hassle for me this way if it does work (I know its more if it doesn't). I won't leave it half done though, if its genuinley doesn't look like I can get it up to scratch without a format, then I'll format it.

Thing is I've been using a work laptop for the last year and the amount of crap that was on there that I've been able to sort without reinstalling windows is quite impressive if I don't say so myself.

Also if it is FAT32 then I'll definitley re-install it.
 
Acers come with two FAT32 paritions, so I would really just do a fresh install, delete both partitions, create single or two NTFS partitions. Before the install download and burn off drivers onto a CD-R.
 
Lame. OK I guess my hand's forced then. Screw doing that tonight tho. Clearly sounds like a weekend job. See how keen I feel.

What's onthe other partition?
 
im gonna jump into this thread if u dont mind :)

my gf bought an acer laptop aspire 5672 i think, and when u look at the processes running its near 60 :/ also its a fat32 drive and when u goto defrag it, it takes about 6hrs on which ive only installed a couple programs.

i had been tempted to format its drive to ntfs but as acer seem to have a secret 3rd partition(around 4gb) with all its backed up programs on it that when i format and convert the other 2 partitions to ntfs it would render the 4gb hidden drive useless and would not be able to install.

norton and ms works came on cds so thats not a problem although i'll be taking out a nod32 subscription.

could i delete all 3 partitions then make 2 new partitions (ntfs) and install all the drivers from the net? this wouldn't screw the laptop up would it as its only 1mth old and i wouldn't want to kill it or she would kill me :/
 
I'm gonna jump in as well. :D

I have an Acer laptop, I never really noticed it having loads of bulk on it though. Mine just had Norton, the Acer eRecovery thing and PowerDVD that was it, doesn't seem like a lot of processes to run. Although I never really checked it out so I'm probably wrong as usual. :rolleyes:

I did partition the HDD to NTFS though, and merged the two partitions, which helped a lot, didn't do a complete format.

Having said that, if you did do a complete format and removed/setup new partitions, wouldn't you be voiding your warranty anyway?

If anything went wrong with say the screen or a hardware fault, surely if you did a complete rebuild it won't be the same as you got it from the manufacturer i.e. with a different version of windows (not the acer incorporated one), so they could refuse to fix it or make you pay for it.

I'm sure it's highly unlikely that will happen over a year, but you never know, maybe someone can clarify that.

If not, I'll be formatting mine tonight then. :D
 
evulboo said:
{snip}could i delete all 3 partitions then make 2 new partitions (ntfs) and install all the drivers from the net? this wouldn't screw the laptop up would it as its only 1mth old and i wouldn't want to kill it or she would kill me :/
Click to expand...
If you get all the (latest) drivers & software you should be fine. Personally I've never liked hidden recovery partitions or DVD/CD-ROMs after on one machine I erased everything including personal files!

Get/invest in these very useful programs (will make all the above much easier to do/undo :D );
 
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