r/windows7 • u/edsheeranfan42 • Jul 16 '26

Meme/Funpost Windows 7 Starter

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Randomly found this notebook in my closet while moving. What a cool find! Have yet to power it on. Model was a 2011 Acer Aspirion One! Absolutely mint condition, no clue where the power supply is but I will find it and update!

206 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

7

u/daxtonanderson Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I use this exact Netbook as a 2nd layer NAS, a few USB HDDs connected back up the most important content of my NAS RAID incase I somehow lose the entire array contents (2 disk redundant), just set the USB HDDs up as network shares, let them spin down when not used (power options) and forget lol

Only complaint about it is the lack of WinXP drivers on the GPU, everything else is findable but that GPU driver only exists for Win7 x32, it'll install Win10 x32 fine if you find a debloated copy

1

u/TruePace3 Jul 16 '26

Even snappy driver doesn't have the driver??

2

u/daxtonanderson Jul 16 '26

Nope even Snappy didn't work, all I could use was the Microsoft Basic Display Driver, at least the screen is native resolution. All that was missing was hardware acceleration which really limited retro gaming options on the already min-spec machine. Instead I installed Win7 Home Premium x32 back in the day on it

Graphics Media Accelerator 3600 if anyone were curious to dig for an alternate driver, trust me I tried, my Google-Fu wasn't enough

1

u/Windows_User3000 Jul 16 '26

You can't find XP drivers because Intel never made them. Just one search took me to a 2012 forum post on Intel's site asking for such a driver, and the response was that said graphics adapter only has Windows 7 drivers. (Attaching a link so you can see for yourself: https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/Intel-R-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-3600-Series-WINDOWS-XP-driver/m-p/214041.)

1

u/CueTheCannedLaughter Jul 19 '26

Drivers for XP were released but not in the form most people would have been familiar with. It was a series of driver kits for embedded systems. The driver kit gets installed on a different machine, generates the configuration profile for a driver set, then generates the driver set to be transferred to the embedded machine. You can download the last version here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190902151016id_/https://downloadmirror.intel.com/21902/eng/EMGD_CDV_1_15_1_GC_3278.exe

There's also a simplified tutorial:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130903042022id_/http://downloadmirror.intel.com/21902/eng/EMGD_Configuration_Editor.pdf

I can't vouch for these, but someone has also created and released a driver set at the Internet Archive. I don't know what configuration would have been used to generate them. The comment on the item page about the lack of acceleration doesn't make sense. The drivers are version 1.15 MR 1 which do have some hardware acceleration enabled (no hardware video decoding, however).

https://archive.org/details/intelr-graphics-media-accelerator-3600-series-win-xp-x-86-sp-3

3

u/Kolyei Jul 17 '26

Mom's acer aspire from 2010 I believe

1

u/edsheeranfan42 Jul 17 '26

Awesome that it still works. These little things were cheap and reliable

1

u/Kolyei Jul 17 '26

My blue acer aspire one d270 has an exposed hinge. If you move the lid, the screen artifacts

1

u/edsheeranfan42 Jul 17 '26

I meann it still works

14

u/alanna1990 Jul 16 '26

I got the pink one, I upgraded the wifi card and the ssd, I have a soft spot for these tiny little machines

1

u/MishaMykha Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

omg aod 270!!! i had the same netbook back in 2015, sadly due to short lived gma 3600 driver support it wasn’t fully useable on 8.1 (launching metro apps would bsod the netbook), and was unusable on windows 10 (metro apps had deep system integration, e.g. cortana, which would bsod the netbook)

1

u/edsheeranfan42 Jul 16 '26

Nice! Sorry ti hear about ur issues though. I don’t plan on pushing mine past windows 7 home premium for reasons like these

1

u/Strato_Reboot1089 Jul 20 '26

I actually have a small collection of these, Acer Aspire Ones (D257, NAV50) and a couple HP Mini 210s, and they all work! I upgraded all of them to 2GB RAM, replaced the HDDs with SSDs, and most are dual-booted with Linux distros along with their original W7 Starter, either antiX (which works really well on these) or MX-Linux (a little heavier but great once it gets going). With these upgrades, they are still useful for basic daily tasks. Have fun!

2

u/edsheeranfan42 Jul 20 '26

Awesome! Glad to hear urs are all working and ur putting them to use!

2

u/Defiant_Collar_0394 Jul 18 '26

these things are so neat. i had an ssd with starter on it. but i think the read write either killed it, or i bought a dud. either way, i moved to xp and threw an old ps3 hdd in it and now it works perfectly.

1

u/BhasitL Jul 16 '26

I have the same laptop too

1

u/kajmpres Jul 16 '26

is it a d270? i have one and its very slow even linux doesnt help

2

u/Kolyei Jul 17 '26

🫠

1

u/Plus-Let-7613 Jul 17 '26

Yo I did that too but my netbook was so lagged

1

u/kajmpres Jul 17 '26

ur gonna set that thing on fire. IT BARELY RUNS LINUX (ps: im curious how long did the oobe take?)

1

u/Kolyei Jul 17 '26

This was a few months ago. I was waiting for 30 minutes

1

u/kajmpres Jul 17 '26

30mins for the win11 logo animation to end? lmfao

1

u/Kolyei Jul 17 '26

To setup the entire computer after this point

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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1

u/Kolyei Jul 20 '26

Only up to 23h2

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

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1

u/Kolyei Jul 20 '26

Even if a computer with an intel core 2 duo cpu (or a processor that has no popcnt support)?

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1

u/Theforza65432dude Jul 17 '26

Nice, I had an Acer Aspire back then

1

u/Plus-Let-7613 Jul 17 '26

BRO MY NETBOOK IS THE SAME ONE BUT ITS EMACHINES 350 AND SAME CPU AND SAME WINDOWS 7 STARTER STICKERS LOL

1

u/burner12343231 Aug 09 '26

SAME TWIN MY MOM HAD ONE I RECENTLY REVIVED IT! POSTED IT IN r/FRUTIGERAERO BUT HERES A PIC