And in the name of heaven, when you have a netbook with XP on it AND a MacBook Pro, WHY would you do that to a really nice new laptop!!

Mad,

Isn't there still an even older computer (her Mom's) around the house somewhere, that works? Wouldn't messing with that laptop void the warranty too, I would think so.

Come on you guys...
People in the notebookreview forums do things like this all the time. They'll get a new laptop and the first thing they do is reformat and reinstall Windows. Some do it to get rid of the bloatware. Some do it to go back to XP. Some do it to set up dual boots with Linux or with XP. It's a personal choice. If Cruise02 really wants to get an A+ Certification and become a computer tech, doing something like this would be good practice.

That said, I would recommend making sure the computer is working properly before changing the default setup. That will mean using it with Windows 7 for a while, trying out games on it, and making sure it doesn't produce errors indicative of bad RAM, a bad hard drive, or some other hardware problem.


If you find out Windows 7 has unmovable files in the middle of the partition, you may not be able to shrink to 50% using Windows defrag. Some of the culprit files, such as the hibernation file and page file, can be turned off before defragging/shrinking and turned back on later, as is described ***here***. The biggest problem may be the MFT file, which may be located at the end of the drive and which will require a 3rd party defragging utility to move.

I agree that it's good practice and I hope it works out much better than previous attempts which did not go so well.

Knowing nothing techie of any significance I was only joining in because the increasing number of icons just tempted me too much !!

I would have done the same to ANY post that got to me in that way !!

Baaaaad me, eh ??

Bad Mad, bad Mad!

Thank you so much for sticking up for me, Jenny! You're one (as well as InlandAZ) of my buddies here at GB!



Just curious - what previous attempts did not go well - OSX and Win XP on my mac back in Aug/Sep 2009?

I guess it's just that we've already been down this road before and I'm concerned about your laptop you've wanted so much. And yes, I was referring to when you partitioned 400 GB for XP on a 500 GB MacBook Pro. I know your family made you restore it back to a Mac and you'll never know whether all that had anything to do with that one going bad on you. But it sure seems like you've learned a lot since then, like working on computers and keeping yourself from getting infected with virus after virus after virus like you used to. I'm glad to see you having goals and keeping on learning. Like I said, I think you've come a long way. Just be careful with that new laptop and do heed what both Jenny and Demosthenes have said. Are you going to get rid of your netbook with XP on it?

I would only have one word of advice for you - use the new laptop with Windows 7 on it for a few weeks before you decide to start partitioning it. You might find you really like Windows 7 and will have no need for XP on it, especially since you do have another XP computer. Then, see if you really need another XP computer. Don't forget that extended support for XP is going to go away in just a few years and you'll need to get rid of it anyway if you're using it on the internet. That's what was kind of nice about the netbook - you were just using it for older games, not surfing.

You initially said you wanted this new laptop to play all the newer games and it will be able to do just that.

Yes - I've learned how to put older OS's (via DOSbox, Virtual PC & VMware Player) on a newer PC, how to format, reformat, partition & reinstall XP on an XP-based PC.



Keeping myself from getting infected was the primary reason for buying the mac - in the several years before I got it, both my old Dell Dimension 8200 and HP Compaq Presario X6000 laptop used to repeatedly get infected and I'd have to wait several frustrating weeks for my too-too-too busy Penna. nephew to wipe the HDD's of all malware and reinstall XP on both of them.

Now that I surf the net only on the mac, it stays clean of all malware, no worries about getting infected - no antispyware, no antivirus, no virus scanners to buy a monthly/yearly subscription to.




Nope - Going to take all my older games off of it, put 'em on the new laptop, and use the netbook strictly for doing screenshot captures of all the DVD movies that I have in my home office DVD movie library - that's more HDD space to store movie screenshots on, as well as use it to study my CompTIA A+ Complete Study Guide in .pdf format.



I'll install & test my games on it this way to see how they run, ok?




Well, I have an old Dell Dimension 8200, but it's too old to run the newer XP games.



Actually, I'm going to keep XP, even when I put it on my new laptop, b/c I'm not going to do any surfing with it, except maybe to activate certain games.



Actually, I'm going to use the new laptop strictly for gaming on, whether I'm playing the newer games or my older games, as I've mentioned that I'm putting all (a few at a time) my older games on the new laptop.

Just to answer Jenny100's long-overdue question on the 1st pg. of this thread -



Where I heard NVidia GPU's was renamed Intel GPU's

Originally I thought the above (in my quote) but now I understand it wasn't NVidia GPU's being renamed Intel GPU's, it was actually a lawsuit that NVidia had against Intel.

I'll always have XP somewhere too. I even just built another computer for my old XP hard drive. It just wasn't happy in the computer I built a couple of years ago. I would just rather not deal with all the driver issues trying to make XP work on the same hardware that is running Windows 7. I'm sure it can be done, but what a pain. It's running better that it ever did in its new "home."

So, you'll have a new laptop that will run all your new games, the old Dell to run your old games, the Mac for the internet and the netbook for your screen capture. Sounds like a good arrangement to me.

I'll use the old Dell for my Thief series games and my driving games. Period. All other games (hopefully) will be played on the new laptop.

Be sure to let us know about any problems you have with games in Windows 7. Although the thread is locked, MaG is opening it up for important updates.

Thanks, Drac.

This is the laptop I bought (at 1 a.m. that nephew found)
Hope it's a good one - how old is this model?
My new laptop

For the price it's a nice pick Cruise - tinkering is one of my favorite pastimes, it sounds like you're in the same camp

Because the Core i3 370M is a fairly new processor (released 3rd Quarter 2010) the laptop can't be too old

You mean, tinker with the new laptop? How? What can I tinker with on it?

I'm in the same camp with who or what?

Tinkering isn't just hardware related -

This --


Here, I agree with Jenny on this. I've d/l Easy BCD plus I bookmarked how-to's on setting up a Win 7 PC up as a dual boot for Win 7/XP, and as my HDD is going to be 500 GB, I'm going to split it 50% - 50% W7/WXP, and I'm aware of the fact that I'll have to install all the device drivers from Acer's website for my new laptop's hardware on the XP partition.


-- is considered tinkering as well

I'd like also to tinker with laptop hardware (as well as desktop HW) - disassembly, upgrade, repair, etc.

Check out this place, people - could I get my hands-on experience here tinkering?
Computer Goo Roos

People - my new Acer laptop came today by FedEx, I've set it up, it has Win 7 Home Premium, didn't come with a Win 7 OS reinstallation disc, so told Mom I was going to have to buy a win 7 installation disc on ebay/Amazon.com, but after saying this I discovered the eRecovery feature on this laptop, am now burning "Factory Default Recovery" DVD's at the moment. This eRecovery is broken up into 2 parts - burn factory default recovery discs, and the burn drivers and applications discs. Is this a new feature in the latest computers/laptops?

Could you please tell me more about this?

Many new laptops have something similar to the eRecovery feature. Unfortunately it's not the same as having a Windows disc. It only restores your hard drive to the state it came in from the factory. You can't use it to set up a dual boot or do anything else besides set it back to the way it came from the factory -- with all the bloatware/trialware you might not want installed.

The reason I told you about shrinking the partition Windows was on was that if all goes right with the procedure, you wouldn't need a Windows 7 disc.

It's still a good idea to make recovery media just in case you want to set the laptop back to its default configuration.

My grandsons HP laptop from last July did not come with the recovery discs, you had the choice of burning them yourselves or purchasing from HP for $27. I would rather have had them included in the purchase price since I had to buy them anyway. For some reason, though the HP would burn other discs, they would not burn these. This was after my daughter picked up the exact discs that were needed. I spent a lot of time on the phone with HP support working through this, having the discs available at the time of purchase would have been much easier all around.

So then, after I burn these factory default discs (takes 4 4.7 GB DVD's), won't burn on my DL DVD's, I have only 6 4.7 GB dvd's on hand (used up 2 of these while burning the Acer laptop factory default media), don't know if I'll really have to burn a driver DVD, but don't want to burn the applications (this might be bloatware?) onto the next set of discs.

So, yes, Jenny, I'm going to tinker with my new laptop tonight, shrinking the W7 partition, etc, etc, but I'd like to get rid of any bloatware/trail programs on it - how do I do this?

Regarding a W 7 disc, I'll either have to see if I can get one off my nephew, or buy it on ebay/Amazon.com?

You'll have to look at the applications themselves to decide whether they're bloatware or not. Some applications, like the application to configure the touchpad, or the application to set screen brightness, might be useful to you. But any trialware is probably something you don't need.

Before you start with anything like shrinking the partition, you should probably use the laptop for a week or two (minimum) to make sure it has no hardware problems. It shouldn't hurt to uninstall any unwanted programs (bloatware) though, and you can run ccleaner after uninstalling them. When ccleaner asks if you want to back up your registry before it cleans, say yes. You can also check out some games and see how well they play.

I've used PC Decrapifier with great success to get rid of bloatware. But like Jenny says, you must determine which things are actually bloatware - such as trial versions of Office, trial versions of Norton or McAfee etc. PC Decrapifier

And I can't agree enough with using this laptop for at least a few weeks before touching it with anything like reducing partitions. If there are problems with anything that would be under warranty, you may be voiding the warranty by messing with partitions or installing another OS.

Am doing this now. I'll test the hardware by installing games on it and see how they run for a week or so, ok? And I'm going to keep a list of what games run ok on W7 during this test period and what games don't run.

So far (to Drac) the Alter Ego (us, x86) that I got from Jenny100 back in Aug.2010 installed & runs ok in my new laptop, no tweaks; Black Mirror 2 (x86) installed & runs ok.

New laptop/W7 testing update - Jazz & Faust: intro runs ok, but when I got into the game proper, game crashed - will try J&F on Virtual PC under W98SE later.

Virtual PC 2004 SP1 - Incompatible with W7 x64. Will have to partition, set laptop up as a dual boot for WXP (32-bit) and W7 (64-bit).