D250 Users, What OS do you use?

Acer Aspire One D250 users, which operating system are you currently using?

o Windows XP
o Windows Vista
o Windows 7
o Linux
o Hackintosh

BTW, I'm using Windows XP but thinking of switching to Windows 7.

 

I'm using Win 7 (ultimate) and LOVING it. It's fast, stable, all the drivers were there upon installation, if not they were a breeze to install from the Acer Support site. Just make sure you have at least BIOS v1.26 to ensure your battery is monitored properly and your CPU is correctly reported in the System Properties window.

I also upgraded my D250 to 2Gb RAM the day I bought it... i don't think I even gave the stock RAM a chance to prove itself LOLs.

A side note to Windows 7's stability, I accidentally imported and over-wrote my registry, with a backup from my HTC Touch HD (running WinMo 6.5.3), and all I can say is that I had to re-adjust the registry strings for the User Agent. Having said this my primary browser is FireFux so the problem never arose in there. I do still use IE8 to view flash vids as it's proven to stop they jerkiness.

I would have given Ubuntu a chance, but having recently installed it on my bench-testing rig and having endless problems with the simplest things (can't change screen resolution on my Asus 22" LCD running from an integrated KM400 VGA chip, and Ubuntu refuses to recognise the on-board audio as being present), I chose not to dual-boot Win7 and Linux

I have slimmed my Win7 down considerably by deleteing a few services and de-slipstreaming a few items. The main one that comes to mind is ReadyBoost, and I see no ill-effects for having removed it.

Card reader, graphics chip, monitor, USB ports, VGA port all working great without a single hassle. Just be careful with your keyboard, as I had to replace mine within weeks because the space bar fell off and won't go back on, and several other users have had complaints about the factory keyboard. My replacement came from eBay for $14 AUD and I consider it to be of higher quality than the Acer OEM keyboard.

 

Dual boot Win 7 Ultimate and Ubuntu. Use Windows 7 most of the time because of flash/broadcom crystal hd support.

Still on 1gb ram here, and still runs quick and rock solid. Aero glass, aero peek, all visual enhancements enabled. No desktop gadgets.
As said above make sure you update your bios if going to Windows 7, you can still install and run everything fine, but theres some battery issues with certain laptops, and if you have a n280 atom chip in your D250, make sure to go all they way to 1.26 (and above if a later version is made). There was issues with the reading of the speed of the n280 chip.

Can't go wrong with Windows 7, everything works out of the box, and its a visual and technological modern update to the classic XP.

 

I will be installing Windows 7 Ultimate x86 in about 15 minutes.

*EDIT: It has been like an hour since I installed Windows 7 and it seems to work very well. The only driver I had to install myself was Atheros WLAN but others worked right out of the box. Awesome

 

i run win 7 home premium. didn't want to use my last ultimate key on the d250

 

Looks like everyone is using Windows 7 on their D250's. Got to admit, Windows 7 seems to be running better than Windows XP.

 

TBH I used to love XP, but even since Vista I've been hating on it something fierce. There's at least three computers I've ended up putting either Vista or Win7 on that suffered the most random BSOD's and other glitches under XP. Under Vista / Win7 they're all much faster and more stable for some reason, as much as everyone hated Vista, I gotta say I loved it from day dot. Needless to say the move to Win 7 took me a while, but I am so very glad I did. Even the x64 version I run on my quad-core PC works like a charm :mrgreen:

Just make sure you disable the annoying "User Account Control" and you're on your way

 

Vista got much better after SP1. Although by that point most people had written it off as a crappy, bloated OS.

As a long time linux user, Im used to pop up notifications for admin level tasks. Although I find the UAC in Windows 7 to be a bit less intrusive, and quicker (because of a simple yes or no click, instead of entering your password).

 

Turning off UAC (User Account Control) is one of the first things I do after installing Windows Vista / Se7en.
Vista is a great OS if you have a fairly good computer.

BTW, anotherr line appeared on my D250 screen so I will have to return it.

 

With my N270, 2GB ram, bios1.13, I'm running Win7 Pro. The most noticeable improvement came in the way 7 handled the memory. Slight improvement in multitasking, and perhaps smoother youtube video playback.
Some questions I have though:
Is there any reason to upgrade the bios?
Any experience with Win7's xp mode?
Does readyboost help any? I thought I noticed a bit of faster load times but my experimental process may have been flawed.

 

theres a few battery issues that can be prevented, not to mention any other updates acer has done before (only the previous 2 releases actually have partial?/complete? changelog notes. won't hurt to update.

the xp mode is pretty much never needed. but if there is some random piece of software you use that MUST run in xp, xp mode will work. xp mode is nothing more than a virtual machine run within a modified version of virtualpc.

ive noticed very marginal differences in multitasking and handling of larger apps (photoshop, dreamweaver, etc) using an sd card in readyboost. if you got a spare sd card, and don't use the sd slot too often, then just use it.

 

Hi,

two D250 HD's used here, both running Win7 Ultimate.

Mine : D250 HD (1280x720), 2GB RAM, 250 GB 7200RPM, Atheros Wifi-N, 5200 6-cell

Wifes : D250 HD (1280x720), 1GB RAM, 250 GB 5400RPM, Broadcom Wifi-G, 4400 6-cell

Especially enjoy the extra pixels, they do make a difference :lol:

Mine does feel more responsive/smooth when running multiple apps, but maybe this is also because of the 7200 rpm HARDDISK and Wifi-N ...

Overall, Win7 is a great match for the D250's ...

Marcher

 

How did you get 1280x720 on D250?

 

The HD editons support this resolution, standard versions only 1024x600 .

Marcher

 

Bought mine with Windows XP pre-installed, but upgraded immediately to Windows 7 Ultimate . I must say Win7 has worked flawlessly for me... recently upgraded my HDD to 250gb and RAM to 2gb - end result : better performance! Win 7 does handle memory well, even better than WinXP

 

Bought with xp, ans staying with xp.
Now if i bought it with win 7 starter windows 7 ultimate would of been put on it.
People may say that windows xp is old and gone, but with around 9 years of support this operating system almost found every little bug there is.
I have used every o/s of windows from good old ms dos to windows 7, and while i do like windows 7, xp on a 1.6 ghz atom seems more right to me.
No matter what operating system you use there are always tweaks to speed it up and keep it stable.

B-t-w, stop basing on vista, i had a acer aspire 4720z 1.6 dual core 1 gig of ram 160 gig Hd, and had the machine for over 2 years, only had to format once, and it is quick and stable. (even with areo)

 

Tried out windows 7 ult full version with some tweaks. 1GB ram

Had a problem with windows xp, and was thinking about giving windows 7 a try on this netbook.
Installed from an external dvd drive.
The install worked perfect. Went really smooth. (deleted the 139GB partition and installed windows 7 on it, leaving the recovery partition alone just in case for a roll back)
All the drivers except the wlan was there, a simple download from the acer website got it going easily.

Pros (from freshly installed) and a few performance tweaks
Everything works,
Nice appearance
All themes works
Has windows 7 features
Better Power scheme
Good network connectivity

I hated though. First it wasn't as snappy and smooth as windows xp, It had more of a choppy reaction when opening programs and closing them. Applications and programs were slower opening, Flash videos didn't play as well as xp. Longer boot time, almost double to my xp, 30 second boot. I didn't like the task bar with the icons. I rater take a quick look down at the task bar and see what i got open, ie chrome webpage and what on it, other than moving the mouse down and highlighting the icon waiting for the task preview to show me what it is. Windows 7 froze up on me 4 times, while i was using it. I had enough of it, so i reverted back.
Rebooted the netbook and hit fn+f10 to c what error i was gonna come across. I can't remember what it was call now though. anyway i booted up windows 7 again, download a partition program to c what partitions i had there. PQ--- something was still there but wasn't set as active. so i made it an active partition. click apply rebooted the netbook and did the recover to put windows xp back on.
Windows xp is old, and can be run on a pc with only 64meg of ram, even 32 if u do some hacking. It's been around for ages and a lot of the problems ironed out. If your system came with windows xp, and you don't plan on doing any hardware upgrades i would suggest you keep your windows xp. Netbooks are not high powered machines. I usally compares them to computer around 5 years old.

Like to add, though i tried windows 7 ultimate on a acer d250 stock, with 1 gig of ram. I'm sure if i tried windows 7 starter with 2 gigs of ram my view probably could of changed a bit.