ASUS Eeee PC 1000HD Win7 Install

[Allen Drake]

In my attempts to max out this netbook I have replaced the HDD with a
Crucial SSD and upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM and am now wondering if it
would be better to keep Windows XP Pro or install Win7. I will be
doing so on a system that is only running a 900 MHZ CPU and Windows 7
Advisor reports it will be running slow so I have to ask if it will
even be worth it. Cost doesn't matter as by adding the SSD, RAM and
Win7 will be more then the original price and I simply want a small
device I can mount in the front of my car as a GPS with a 10" screen
and can access email and Google with no need for any other intensive
apps. I like being able to carry around this tiny thing on the go and
on the job.
I have also considered purchasing a totally new portable. I already
have an ASUS G73SW but that is just to big and expensive to take on
the road.

Any of you people have automobile mounted portable Win7 machines and
have any suggestions?

Thanks.

Al.

 

[Stefan Patric]

In my attempts to max out this netbook I have replaced the HDD with a
Crucial SSD and upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM and am now wondering if it
would be better to keep Windows XP Pro or install Win7. I will be doing
so on a system that is only running a 900 MHZ CPU and Windows 7 Advisor
reports it will be running slow so I have to ask if it will even be
worth it. Cost doesn't matter as by adding the SSD, RAM and Win7 will be
more then the original price and I simply want a small device I can
mount in the front of my car as a GPS with a 10" screen and can access
email and Google with no need for any other intensive apps. I like being
able to carry around this tiny thing on the go and on the job.
I have also considered purchasing a totally new portable. I already
have an ASUS G73SW but that is just to big and expensive to take on the
road.

Any of you people have automobile mounted portable Win7 machines and
have any suggestions?

For your intended uses, XP is fine, and will be considerably less
demanding of your hardware than W7.

Stef

 

[Allen Drake]

You plan to use it while you're driving? There are a lot of netbooks
with Windows 7. Here's a few:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=772&name=Netbooks

Thanks for the link Alias. I did see many out of stock in my own
search so that narrows it down a bit. Am now wondering how much of a
difference would be noticed with a 1.66 Ghz CPU using what I would be
limiting myself to. Email and net browsing. I have already tried
Delorme Street Atlas and Topo North America and found them to be much
better then any of the GPS units I have. I especially like Google live
traffic reports with the Navigator application along with Internet
radio So I can't help but wonder if Win7 would show any improvements.

I wouldn't mind spending another $500 if I would see something that I
wouldn't with the 900 MHz I already have.

Al.

 

[Allen Drake]

For your intended uses, XP is fine, and will be considerably less
demanding of your hardware than W7.

Stef

What hardware demands would there be as I don't quite understand in
terms of a computer with no moving parts. Although I guess I could fit
a printer in the passenger seat {)

I have a laptop mount to the right and a Roadmate 1700 7" GPS/Video
monitor for rear mounted camera in the center under the rear view
mirror. Takes the monotony out of a 80 mile per day drive to the next
state to work 6 days a week. Most of the traffic crawls as I look to
the right and left and see many using cell phones and actually have
seen some reading when there is no movement at all.

 

[John Williamson]

What hardware demands would there be as I don't quite understand in
terms of a computer with no moving parts. Although I guess I could fit
a printer in the passenger seat {)

W7 uses more processing power and memory than XP. The aero interface in
particular is a resource hog, even with an application maximised.

This machine has a 1.6GHz, hyperthreading CPU, and even with 2Gig of
RAM, isn't fast enough to stream decent quality video, which it does
under XP with no problems. The battery life is shorter under W7 as well.

As a marginal case, the EEEPC 701 will just about run XP, bt has no
chance of even coming close to running W7. It runs the lighter Linux
distributions with ease, of course...

 

[Allen Drake]

W7 uses more processing power and memory than XP. The aero interface in
particular is a resource hog, even with an application maximised.

This machine has a 1.6GHz, hyperthreading CPU, and even with 2Gig of
RAM, isn't fast enough to stream decent quality video, which it does
under XP with no problems. The battery life is shorter under W7 as well.

As a marginal case, the EEEPC 701 will just about run XP, bt has no
chance of even coming close to running W7. It runs the lighter Linux
distributions with ease, of course...

Thanks. This is very useful and helpful to know. I guess I will be
keeping XP in this case.

Al.

 

[Ken Blake]

In my attempts to max out this netbook I have replaced the HDD with a
Crucial SSD and upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM and am now wondering if it
would be better to keep Windows XP Pro or install Win7. I will be
doing so on a system that is only running a 900 MHZ CPU and Windows 7
Advisor reports it will be running slow so I have to ask if it will
even be worth it. Cost doesn't matter as by adding the SSD, RAM and
Win7 will be more then the original price and I simply want a small
device I can mount in the front of my car as a GPS with a 10" screen
and can access email and Google with no need for any other intensive
apps. I like being able to carry around this tiny thing on the go and
on the job.

I have a 1GB EEE which I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7
Ultimate (a two-step upgrade--first to Vista, then to Windows 7; it's
not possible to upgrade directly). As I expected, it runs Windows 7
very slowly. I did it because it made my life somewhat easier if my
desktops and my laptop were all consistent in what operating system
they ran, and because I use the EEE for almost nothing but e-mail when
traveling (and its slowness hardly matters for that use).

Unless you're like me, you'd probably be better off sticking with XP.
I didn't spend anything to do mine, but it's unlikely to be worth it
for you to spend the money to upgrade your hardware.

 

[Allen Drake]

I have a 1GB EEE which I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7
Ultimate (a two-step upgrade--first to Vista, then to Windows 7; it's
not possible to upgrade directly). As I expected, it runs Windows 7
very slowly. I did it because it made my life somewhat easier if my
desktops and my laptop were all consistent in what operating system
they ran, and because I use the EEE for almost nothing but e-mail when
traveling (and its slowness hardly matters for that use).

Unless you're like me, you'd probably be better off sticking with XP.
I didn't spend anything to do mine, but it's unlikely to be worth it
for you to spend the money to upgrade your hardware.

I have never upgraded an OS so I should rephrase that. I always like
to have a full Windows install. I have several that I have installed
on other desktops and some systems still have XP. All but one have
SSDs. I just bought another copy of W7 today in anticipation of using
it but I guess I will leave the netbook with XP. I did notice a big
difference when I cloned to the SSD for the netbook. I plan to do a
clean install of XP if I finally decide to keep that OS as I over did
it when I installed to many apps just to see how much it would take. I
tried removing many but it didn't seem to regain any speed and left
remnants and most likely is bogging down the registry or what ever
else happens when you do what I did. Clean installs always make me
feel better. It's like spring cleaning.


You are saying it is not possible to use a Win7 Upgrade disk with XP
and must go through Vista or are you referring to Ultimate? I did have
some major problems trying to do a repair install on Ultimate. It
seems that can't be done PERIOD.

 

[ray]

In my attempts to max out this netbook I have replaced the HDD with a
Crucial SSD and upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM and am now wondering if it
would be better to keep Windows XP Pro or install Win7. I will be doing
so on a system that is only running a 900 MHZ CPU and Windows 7 Advisor
reports it will be running slow so I have to ask if it will even be
worth it. Cost doesn't matter as by adding the SSD, RAM and Win7 will be
more then the original price and I simply want a small device I can
mount in the front of my car as a GPS with a 10" screen and can access
email and Google with no need for any other intensive apps. I like being
able to carry around this tiny thing on the go and on the job.
I have also considered purchasing a totally new portable. I already
have an ASUS G73SW but that is just to big and expensive to take on the
road.

Any of you people have automobile mounted portable Win7 machines and
have any suggestions?

Thanks.

Al.

IMHO - you'd be a lot better off installing Debian Stable. It's a trivial
thing to do and would probably give you significantly better performance
than either of the MS alternatives. Have it installed on my wife's eeepc
- I've just upgraded it to 2GB and a recent 32GB SSD - runs very nicely.

 

[Allen Drake]

IMHO - you'd be a lot better off installing Debian Stable. It's a trivial
thing to do and would probably give you significantly better performance
than either of the MS alternatives. Have it installed on my wife's eeepc
- I've just upgraded it to 2GB and a recent 32GB SSD - runs very nicely.

Well Ray thank you very much for that? I'm psyched. I just Googled
and I am ready for it.

Al.

 

[Allen Drake]

IMHO - you'd be a lot better off installing Debian Stable. It's a trivial
thing to do and would probably give you significantly better performance
than either of the MS alternatives. Have it installed on my wife's eeepc
- I've just upgraded it to 2GB and a recent 32GB SSD - runs very nicely.

I just have to find out if it will run DeLorme applications first.

 

[ray]

I just have to find out if it will run DeLorme applications first.

I've not dabbled with that but: I can pretty well guarantee that it won't
run any software made by delorme - it's almost certainly MS only.
However, have a look at gpsbabel.org - that may help.

 

[Stefan Patric]

What hardware demands would there be as I don't quite understand in
terms of a computer with no moving parts. Although I guess I could fit a
printer in the passenger seat {)

CPU and RAM, mainly. W7 is a resource glutton, but not as bad as Vista.
Microsoft's recommended hardware minimums for W7 are 1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM
for 32-bit OS, and 2 for 64-bit. These are the absolutely barest of
MINIMUMs. Just enough to install, boot and run the OS. And even then it
will be sluggish. It will be hitting virtual RAM a lot when running any
apps, which will further negatively affect performance.

Stick with XP.

FWIW, just as a comparison since someone recommended Linux. A little
over a year ago, I set up a EeePC 900--900MHz Celeron M and 1GB RAM--with
Eeebuntu 3.0, a customize version of Ubuntu Linux for the EeePC. It
installed without a hitch and everything worked. It took 1.7GB of the SSD
to install, including the apps. For e-mail, web, word processing,
playing and streaming video, etc. it worked great. Much smoother and
more responsive than the version of XP (Home, I think) that was
originally on it. Although, XP didn't run all that badly. Still very
usable. You just had to be careful not to open too many browser tab
windows, or run too many apps at once.

To give you an idea of RAM usage after booting to the desktop, no apps
running: Eeebuntu 262MB; XP 476MB.


Stef

 

[Allen Drake]

CPU and RAM, mainly. W7 is a resource glutton, but not as bad as Vista.
Microsoft's recommended hardware minimums for W7 are 1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM
for 32-bit OS, and 2 for 64-bit. These are the absolutely barest of
MINIMUMs. Just enough to install, boot and run the OS. And even then it
will be sluggish. It will be hitting virtual RAM a lot when running any
apps, which will further negatively affect performance.

Stick with XP.

FWIW, just as a comparison since someone recommended Linux. A little
over a year ago, I set up a EeePC 900--900MHz Celeron M and 1GB RAM--with
Eeebuntu 3.0, a customize version of Ubuntu Linux for the EeePC. It
installed without a hitch and everything worked. It took 1.7GB of the SSD
to install, including the apps. For e-mail, web, word processing,
playing and streaming video, etc. it worked great. Much smoother and
more responsive than the version of XP (Home, I think) that was
originally on it. Although, XP didn't run all that badly. Still very
usable. You just had to be careful not to open too many browser tab
windows, or run too many apps at once.

To give you an idea of RAM usage after booting to the desktop, no apps
running: Eeebuntu 262MB; XP 476MB.


Stef

Thanks Stef this is very good info. I am thinking of trying Linux
keeping a fresh install of XP and swap drives if things don't go well.
I wonder if I can install to an SD card and run a dual boot system.
Either that or partition a 256G SSD. Just a thought.

Al.

 

[Allen Drake]

I've not dabbled with that but: I can pretty well guarantee that it won't
run any software made by delorme - it's almost certainly MS only.
However, have a look at gpsbabel.org - that may help.

I'll have to check it out. The last I knew DeLorme was the only app
that has the capabilities of cutting maps. I have two of their hand
held units and will be getting their newest that has a satellite
communicator.

http://envelope.delorme.com/emailma...5f52450adebd689f26bb533e6be&S=834&L=430&N=368

 

[Stefan Patric]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:55:56 +0000 (UTC), Stefan Patric

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:25:45 -0500, Allen Drake wrote:

[big snip]

Stick with XP.

FWIW, just as a comparison since someone recommended Linux. A little
over a year ago, I set up a EeePC 900--900MHz Celeron M and 1GB
RAM--with Eeebuntu 3.0, a customize version of Ubuntu Linux for the
EeePC. It installed without a hitch and everything worked. It took
1.7GB of the SSD to install, including the apps. For e-mail, web, word
processing, playing and streaming video, etc. it worked great. Much
smoother and more responsive than the version of XP (Home, I think) that
was originally on it. Although, XP didn't run all that badly. Still
very usable. You just had to be careful not to open too many browser
tab windows, or run too many apps at once.

To give you an idea of RAM usage after booting to the desktop, no apps
running: Eeebuntu 262MB; XP 476MB.

Thanks Stef this is very good info. I am thinking of trying Linux
keeping a fresh install of XP and swap drives if things don't go well. I
wonder if I can install to an SD card and run a dual boot system. Either
that or partition a 256G SSD. Just a thought.

All those options are possible. You can even use two SSDs: XP on one;
Linux on the other. Linux doesn't care which drive or partition it is
on. It will boot from where ever. Even off another computer, if the two
are networked properly. However, XP is still your best choice, since you
are familiar with it, and all the software you use runs on it. Plus,
Linux has a high and frustrating learning curve.

Stef

 

[Allen Drake]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:43:17 -0500, Allen Drake wrote:

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:55:56 +0000 (UTC), Stefan Patric

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:25:45 -0500, Allen Drake wrote:

[big snip]

Stick with XP.

FWIW, just as a comparison since someone recommended Linux. A little
over a year ago, I set up a EeePC 900--900MHz Celeron M and 1GB
RAM--with Eeebuntu 3.0, a customize version of Ubuntu Linux for the
EeePC. It installed without a hitch and everything worked. It took
1.7GB of the SSD to install, including the apps. For e-mail, web, word
processing, playing and streaming video, etc. it worked great. Much
smoother and more responsive than the version of XP (Home, I think) that
was originally on it. Although, XP didn't run all that badly. Still
very usable. You just had to be careful not to open too many browser
tab windows, or run too many apps at once.

To give you an idea of RAM usage after booting to the desktop, no apps
running: Eeebuntu 262MB; XP 476MB.

Thanks Stef this is very good info. I am thinking of trying Linux
keeping a fresh install of XP and swap drives if things don't go well. I
wonder if I can install to an SD card and run a dual boot system. Either
that or partition a 256G SSD. Just a thought.

All those options are possible. You can even use two SSDs: XP on one;
Linux on the other. Linux doesn't care which drive or partition it is
on. It will boot from where ever. Even off another computer, if the two
are networked properly. However, XP is still your best choice, since you
are familiar with it, and all the software you use runs on it. Plus,
Linux has a high and frustrating learning curve.

Stef

I will consider all the options and will in the end most likely stick
with XP even though I am just as familiar with Win7 having used it for
a few years now. XP even longer of course. I have been spending some
time speeding up this little beast so it boots in just about one
minute compared to about 5 minutes over loaded with unneeded SW. I
also read that DeLorme is not planning on keeping up with Win7 drivers
so that just about says I am better off leaving things just the way
they are now.

I will do some more reading on Linux before I go down that road
though. There are so may versions I am not sure which would be better
then another. I am having second considerations with the learning
circle involved.

 

[Allen Drake]

Linux Mint KDE is pretty easy to adapt to after Windows. Check it out at
http://www.linuxmint.com/ It doesn't have much of a learning curve and
the Mint forums are pretty helpful and good.

Looks good to me. That's where I'll start.

Thanks.

Al.

 

[BillW50]

In Ken Blake typed:

I have a 1GB EEE which I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7
Ultimate (a two-step upgrade--first to Vista, then to Windows 7; it's
not possible to upgrade directly). As I expected, it runs Windows 7
very slowly. I did it because it made my life somewhat easier if my
desktops and my laptop were all consistent in what operating system
they ran, and because I use the EEE for almost nothing but e-mail when
traveling (and its slowness hardly matters for that use).

Unless you're like me, you'd probably be better off sticking with XP.
I didn't spend anything to do mine, but it's unlikely to be worth it
for you to spend the money to upgrade your hardware.

I have one EeePC 701 and two 702s (all with 2GB of RAM). And I put
Windows 7 on one 702. It was huge mistake. As Windows 7 ate up 50% of
the processor at idle. Running anything required lots of patience and
takes forever.

XP does run very well on such machines though. And Windows 2000 even
runs faster. Windows 2000 is even faster than any Linux distro I have
ever ran. Plus Windows 2000 is Windows compatible while Linux is not.

 

[BillW50]

In ray typed:

IMHO - you'd be a lot better off installing Debian Stable. It's a
trivial thing to do and would probably give you significantly better
performance than either of the MS alternatives. Have it installed on
my wife's eeepc - I've just upgraded it to 2GB and a recent 32GB SSD
- runs very nicely.

I would be very careful about recommending Linux. As Linux is only good
at running Linux applications. And quite frankly, I find Linux
applications to be very substandard. And every time I fire up one of my
Linux machines, it feels like I am using one of my PDA applications.

And for many of us use multimedia a lot. And Linux on an EeePC and
multimedia doesn't mix. Even just playing audio is choppy. And forget
about video. As full screen video results in 1fps. And all of these
problems disappear when you run Windows 2000/XP on the same machines.