Aspire XC-605 Downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7

Hi Folks,

I need some quick guidance on an Acer Aspire XC-605 Desktop PC and hope you can help me. My Buddy just bought an Acer Aspire XC-605 for his family to use. It comes with Windows 8 but he hates that OS. He called me yesterday and asked if I could "downgrade it" to Windows 7 as I'm a bit geeky with PCs.

But I read a horror story on someone who wanted to downgrade an Acer Aspire XC-600 and it didn't seem very simple => so I expected the same for an XC-605. (I try to research a bit before taking the plunge.)

Here's a summary on how to get Windows on an Acer Aspire XC-600 from that post:

1.Completely shut down your computer.

2.Power on the system. As soon as the first logo screen appears, immediately press Delete to enter the BIOS.

3.Use the right arrow key to select Authentication.

4.With Secure Boot highlighted, press Enter and then the down arrow to select Disabled.

5.Use the right arrow key to select Boot Options.

6.With Launch CSM highlighted, press Enter and use the down arrow to select Always.

7.Press Enter.

8.Press the F10 key to save changes and restart the system

9. Re-enter the BIOS, by pressing Delete, and go to the Advanced menu.

10. Go down to the Integrated Peripherals menu.

11. Change onboard SATA mode to Native IDE.

12.Press the F10 key to save changes and restart the system

By doing this you can, from the Win7 DVD, delete all the existing partitions and not get any errors about not being able to install to that HDD.

After Win7 installed the only drivers Win7 didn't find were the Wired LAN, the Realtec USB Card Reader and SM Bus Controller. (On the XC-600)

My understanding is Win 7 will use Win 8 drivers without an issue. So I used them for the devices as I found a similar driver issue on the Acer Aspire XC-605.

This PC has SLIC 3.0, UEFI & Secure Boot, which is why a complete erase of the Hard Drive is required; as with UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) & Secure Boot => the Bios "marries" the Hard Drive to the Motherboard. At least that is what I found out to date. I typically have maintained recovery partitions on OEM boxes as an insurance policy => just in cas something goes wrong, and I can't install the desired OS. Of course wiping the whole thing clean negates this useful back-up. Comments please?

PS - I forgot to mention my Buddy dropped it off yesterday afternoon while I was out helping my Mom with Light fixtures. It was still in the Box.

The Box was Brand New! - it never had been booted up! I couldn't believe he didn't want to even try Win 8 on it so I called him again, and he said he was certain he didn't want Win 8. So I did the same as above for an XC-600 and blew it away.

However if you change onboard SATA mode to Native IDE as stated above in 11, Windows will not let you install it from a USB Stick as it hangs when Expanding Files at 1% on the XC-605. If you use a Win 7 Disk it advises you right after you size the OS partition, and tell it to install there, that the Drive is not set up in Bios to be Bootable. Setting it back to ACHI allowed Win 7 to be installed from the Disk (I didn't try the Stick but it probably would have worked as well).

There were a few more Drivers needed than with the XC-600 above - so I installed all of the Win 8 Drivers from the Acer site, and they all worked, but there is one device listed in Device Manager, under Other Devices => Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller that has a yellow triangle next to it. It doesn't have a driver associated with it and Windows Update can't find it. I find it strange it sees it as a USB Controller as as all of the USB ports work now. I'm thinking Windows has made an error in detecting this device so I'm headed down that path now.

I've tried the Auto Detect function from Acer and it says to enable a Bluetooth, Lan, and Wireless LAN and try to detect again. So I enabled the Wireless LAN, (the Wired one is connected?) but I'm trying to find something Bluetooth to activate that, but I think that's just a red herring.

Hopefully someone will chime in and advise how to figure out this last Device is before I pull out all my hair...

Thanks for reading...

Accepted answers

kakpcsupport

I went to Intels downloadpage and download a new Chipset for windows 7( Setup chipset 10.0.13 PV). That will fix the problem with Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller. No more yellow triangle.. I hope it will works for you 2. /KAK PC-SUPPORT Sweden

All comments

-Jim-

Hi Folks,

I somehow thought downgrading (and I'm not sure if that's really the case) to Windows 7 would have been more popular here. I thought there'd be a few replys, or suggestions, by now on what device is missing it's driver.

Oh well, maybe it won't cause any grief without it?

-Jim-

Hi Folks,

I never got a reply so I gave up. My Buddy now has his new Win 7 PC in hand for over a week with no phone calls about problems. So I assume the missing USB driver is a non issue.

Well, onto other things!

kakpcsupport

I went to Intels downloadpage and download a new Chipset for windows 7( Setup chipset 10.0.13 PV). That will fix the problem with Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller. No more yellow triangle.. I hope it will works for you 2. /KAK PC-SUPPORT Sweden

-Jim-

My Buddy did the download and it worked like a charm.

Thanks M8! Smiley Wink

myn1955

Personally I would suggest if you want to try the downgrade do 2 things. 1. buy windows 7 professional at least and 2. buy a new hard hard drive. This way you still have your old hard drive you can reinstall and be right back where you are now (unless you do a chipset or bios change) when they drop support for windows 7. I am planning this as well as making it a solid state hard drive. I did this on my old acer and it increased battery life by 80%.

AceBob

Thanks for the guide Jim. Very helpful and will save me time & headaches.

domric

Thank you very much Jim, I have a computer with a bad HDD, so I tried to install W7 but some detail was missing in the BIOS config. With your post, I found that the CSM (whatever this means) parameter was not set right.

I also learned that W8 drivers are often good for W7 :-)

-Jim-

Glad to be of help. Sharing our experiences is what the web should be all about. Smiley Wink

Jrrush09

Please help i cannot seem to get this. My new computer says that it is not seeing any drivers while doing the install. New computer doesn't have a os at all how can i get drivers onto the computer to install Windows 7(i have the same model as your friend)

glecas

Great post! The process is somewhat similar on a XC-603, but one would have to update BIOS first

mousebelt

I am glad you solved this problem, because now I am having the exact same problem: I have an Acer Aspire AXC-605 that I purchased to work from home. I knew that it came with Windows 8, and intended to install Windows 7. I gave Windows 8 a try, started reading "Windows 8.1 for Dummies", and I hated Windows 8 more and more: I really hate it. Robot tongue

So, I used an old install disc for Windows 7 (build 7601) and wiped the hard drive. The basic problem is that this computer does not have an onboard wireless adapter, and it would not recognize the wired connection. So I re-installed Windows 8 and started hating it more and more.

Now I am determined to install Windows 7 back onto this machine and get it to work. At first, I thought it was the old install disc (from perhaps 2011) and that the disc I was using required a wireless connection (to download updates - the disc works for all of my laptops), and that I simply needed a more recent install disc; but now I am thinking that the problem is more complex. Do I need to download the Windows 8 drivers & the Intel chipset on another computer and burn them to a disc? You said that your problem was that the USB controller did not have a driver associated with it: my USB mouse DID work, and come to think of it, I was able to connect a USB hard drive to it successfully.

Can you give me any advice?

Thank you.

mousebelt

All I had to do to solve my problem was go to here:

http://www.driverscape.com/manufacturers/acer/laptops-desktops/aspire-xc-605/102270

...and I was able to download and install the Ethernet drivers.

RevoMaxx

WOW an OLD post, However it has good info for people that want to go to Win7.....

However I would like to say that with all Honesty Win 8.1 and now Win 10 is a Great Windows. I have installed it now on most of my Machines Win10 that is. I love Windows 7 and I thought I would try out 10 on one of them before doing other upgrades. Now I am not going back.