Notebooks & Netbooks

[larryjam]

I have bought a used Acer Aspire 9402WSMi, that has xp installed. I would like to install vista, but I cannot find the drivers or the bios update listed in the downloads. It does not list this model???

What am I missing here> Where can I download drivers?

[finlux]

Hi larryjam

I've done a little research too, for the Aspire 9400 series laptops and there do not appear to be any Vista drivers.

You may find with Vista, that drivers like Ethernet, may be prebuilt, and Windows Update will find all the rest, but this is unlikely!

You can use programs like Belarc Advisor which will tell you the make of the components inside your laptop. You can then go to the manufacturor's website to try to download Vista drivers from there. Once you've found all the Vista drivers for your components, save them to disk or USB memory stick, then proceed to install Vista.

Just remember, Vista is a resource-hungry beast, so you may need to install more memory.

If, however, you cannot find all the drivers, then it will mean your laptop is unsupported with Vista. You may have to use a Linux Distro on it instead.