New Laptop, V17 Nitro Black

Moving up from Dell Laptop to newer hardware and better screen.

Old - Dell Inspiron N5030 (2010), New - Aspire V17 Nitro Black (2015?).

The Good - Aspire is fast! Wide screen.

The Bad - Network jack sucks, who picked that hardware? Needs their heads examined.

The Ugly - It's an IPS panel but lacks on-board color controls. That's major disappointing, how did that happen?

Win 8.1 Metro GUI - Ugh, 'nough said.

Need to find <Num Lock> lock down setting. In the BIOS? How doI I get to the BIOS? ACER Onboard help is typicaly bad, lots of words,not the help I need. Why can't anybody get that right?

Could not install Xrite color management - says it needs dot net 4.6; hangs up on install and won't somplete. Drat!

Tried to install/update to Win 10. Hangs ups at 99% and won't complete. Drat x 2.

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starstudio

I agree - the network port is ridiculous... I have to use it a couple of times a day and it's a struggle every time.

re: WIn10 upgrade - it's worth it, so keep trying!

First - there are some people who report it can take up to 24 hours!!! for the upgrade to complete. But if you have given it that much time already - try running this tool: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9830262 and then try upgrading again.

Second - If that fails, you have little choice but to go through the process described by Andre de Costa on this page (it's not as big a deal as it looks) : http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/unable-to-upgrade-to-windows-10/b37a0ce7-2cba-4f11-9a98-fe72a2d504ff

Now... assuming you get Win10 installed, though this may apply to 8.1, too - The Num Pad is a pervasive Microsoft WIndows 10 issue - not an Acer issue. Here is a summary of solutions copied from the Microsoft meassage boards. Number 3, I made bold, because it is simple. common sense which will work even if the others fail:

1. Changing the computer BIOS will not help - bios turns on numlock, then Win 10 Fast Boot turns it off.

2. Editing the registry has no effect unless fast boot is disabled. This means you disable one of the good features of Win 10. The regedit is here: http://www.howtogeek.com/244606/how-to-enable-num-lock-automatically-when-your-computer-boots/

3. A simple solution: On the startup screen, you have to press a key anyway, to get to the login screen. (Another great "feature" of Win10). So... get in the habit of pressing NumLock. No extra keystrokes.

4. Last - a work-around that works on some computers: At the Login screen - press Numlock but do not log in. Instead, do a shutdown using the icon at the lower right. Upon re-start the Numlock mysteriously stays enabled, even throughout the quick boot process. (Again - this works for some people, but doesn't persist for others). And you STILL have to press a key at the Startup screen to get to the Login screen... although I use the spacebar, because it's BIG Smiley Happy