How to install Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One with 8GB SSD

win7-aspire-one

8GB is plenty of storage space for Windows XP or most Linux distributions. So if you have one of the first generation Acer Aspire One computers with an 8GB SSD, you should have no problem running those operating systems. Windows 7, however, is another story.

If you try a normal install on a system with just 8GB of free space, it will hang near the end. But David at Electronic Pulp found a solution. All you need to do is apply a little disk compression. The process takes a really long time to complete. Like instead of taking about 30-60 minutes to install Windows 7, it will take 1-2 days. But with patience, you can install Windows 7 on a netbook with just 8GB of storage and still have nearly 2GB of free disk space when the install process is complete.

The disk compression probably takes at least a little toll on the computer’s speed and performance. And the Acer Aspire One is notorious for using slow solid state disks which work well enough with Linux but are a bit pokey for Windows XP. So I imagine an 8GB Aspire One won’t be quite as zippy as some other Intel Atom-based netbooks when running Windows 7. But if you’re determined to give it a try, check out the instructions at Electronic Pulp.

via Eee PC.net

Posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009, 3:31 pm by Brad Linder

Steve

You must have had a dud Acer. I done the same thing on my wife's AAOne and it went really smoothly. The only problem I had was that only the USB on the left-hand side would work with my USB mouse. The two on the right side worked with every other USB gadget I threw at them but not the mouse !!??
Loading some programs was slow due mainly to the small (and slow) SSD; it said I had about 800MB left after install so I use a 4GB SD card for games, etc.
Non-memory intensive game and programs ran well for 1/2 gig RAM!
Steve
kaczmo

Hi. I found a better way how to do it in 2 hours. Interested? Just mail me kaczmo@gmail.com. The secret is: imagex.exe nad that's it.
meh

Jesus christ this thing can hardly run xp, I had to install the lightest linux i could find to even make it useable.

The 8gb SSD is a scam , most people spend money and get an external usb drive and use it as the main drive, or mod it to use CF card instead of the stupid 8gb ssd

I hear its better to get an 8gb memory stick and install xp as RAID
michaelyemen

@ meh:
Bullshit !
I installed W7 (lite-version) on my 8GB SSD. Runs fine, takes only 5,5 GB. Only problem: some programs (eg. Itunes) will simply not install. Others (Adobe Lightroom, MediaMonkey) run without any issues. Visual candy (Aero peek etc.) is no problem either.
I had enough of Linux-related issues (plenty of crashes, hardware problems).
http://windows-7-howto.blogspot.com/ Ronald

To install Windows 7 in 8GB space is very critical. But worth for a try. Compress method is not a good solution. It cost lots of speed juice. Anyone can trim the system file in order to fit into it ?

I also have a Acer Aspire One 150 and installed Windows 7 RC1 also. Feel free to visit my blog.
http://www.energizedtech.com/ Sean Kearney

I found the other trick is if you get your hands on an external DVD reader via USB it works without the compression. The catch is the USB install for Windows 7 likes cache the 2+ gb installer file onto the hard drive. But the DVD install doesn't.

Either way the results are great. Aero interface, Bitlocker to Go. Did you download the mouse driver (Vista version) from Synaptics? You'll find there is a feature in their driver that controls “Bump” where you find the mouse jumps all over the screen from “bumping” it as you type.
http://www.energizedtech.com/ Sean Kearney

The other trick I did to save space, All my profile folders and new applications sit on the secondary 8gb drive. No compression used. Hibernation is disabled (didn't really need it) as well as System restore. No application issues either. I found a lot of that is resolved by installing OR running the application in a Compatability mode from that version of the O/S.

No performance issues on this side. I even have Office 2007 sitting on this and no lag in use.
Fergus

wow that was swift it did tae quite a long time but it worked out the box nothing needed to be changed no drivers or anything wi fi workede out the box aswell i used rc1 that may have changed it?
frameraid

And by “a bit pokey” you mean “slow as shit” right?
salguod

This is the worst advice for installing Windows 7 that I've ever seen. You can make yourself a custom Windows 7 installation that removes many of the components that you don't need. To do this, you use programs like vLite. Search for more info you'll find that it's already been done for you.
tom

i used vlite to make my files 1.4gb, then made my 4gb memory stick bootable, copied the files to the memory stick ,i booted straight away, now installing, its just gone onto completing instalation.
tom

i used vlite to make my files 1.4gb, then made my 4gb memory stick bootable, copied the files to the memory stick ,i booted straight away, now installing, its just gone onto completing instalation.

How to install Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One with 8GB SSD

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