Windows 8 - totally dissatisfied. Drivers for downgrade to Win 7 ?

I recently bought a new V7-581 laptop. To my dissapointment it came preloaded with Windows 8. I heard enough bad stories about Win8 but figured I would give it a try and form my own opinion. Save to say, I am completely dissatisfied with it. It might by good for phones and tablets but not for a laptop or desktop computer. This isn't a touchscreen computer but even if it was, I can't see being productive using a touchscreen and keyboard. But that's besides the point. I am extremely frustrated with the charms popping out at me whenever my finger crosses the right edge of the cursor pad. The charms cannot be turned off in Win8. I even tried installing a utility called Classic Shell which makes Win8 look and feel more like Win7 however it still does not disable the charms.

I would like to "downgrade" to Windows 7 but need to know if all drivers are available before I take the leap.

And if that doesn't work out for me, how do I go about re-installing Win8 ?

BTW, I love the laptop but MS really goofed trying to implement a mobile device OS on a laptop.

Thanks.

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Sharanji

hi...

As per Acer support website, windows 7 drivers for this model is unavaliable for this model.

radeohedca

That's very unfortunate.

So I'm stuck with a laptop with which charms and Windows screens continue to pop out at me nearly continuously.

I will go back to the store where it was purchased to see if i can return it for a full refund.

jescott418

Lot of times Windows 8 drivers work with Windows 7. Some don't. I have a V5 122P and tried Windows 7 instead of Windows 8. Frankly Windows 7 worked OK but some important drivers never worked right. I had issues with brightness not adjusting and bluetooth appeared to work but could never connect to a device. I finally went back to Windows 8. If I wanted to I could have spent more time searching for alternative drivers. Sometimes hardware makers have generics that do give basic function if not complete function. But not all of them do, and it really does depend a lot on the hardware. Windows 8 is dreadful in many ways although the more I use it, the more I tolerate it. If I did not need Windows OS specifically I would install something other then Windows.

radeohedca

I hear you about being forced to use Windows. The Linux derivatives are putting more effort into providing drivers for the high-end gaming sector... hopefully it will continue into the mainstream market and more software vendors will port their apps and make drivers available.

In the meantime, I wonder if MS had the wisdom to tame the popping out charm bar issue in 8.1 ?

Cory-Acer

I just want to add alittle to this conversation. Microsoft announced that Windows 8 users will be upgraded to 8.1 for free, so it may be worth that wait since it's only a couple weeks away.

Next, take a look at this article, it will show you have to create USB media of the default Windows 8 image and how to reload it so you can try going to Win7 and if it doesn't work for you, you can always jump back into 8.

http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/29934

Hope this helps.

radeohedca

I am so dissenchanted with the charms problem in Windows 8. Nothing I've done will totally disable it.

From what I gather MS does not regard this as a problem so Win8.1 will does not fix it.

I cannot be productive with the laptop in this state.

Did I mention how frustrated I am... neither Acer nor MS have a resolution for this.

dex13

whats really frustrating is that its now 2014 and ACER still has a problem with this. Most of other manufacturers (including synaptics) have drivers which ALLOW one to disable the edge swipe but Acer does not. The synaptics v17 driver has an option but Acer only allow the v16 driver.

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