Installing win 7 on a Travelmate B3 TMB311-31-P1L1

cayrick49
cayrick49 Member Posts: 14

Tinkerer

I bought this laptop used and it is designed for windows 10 and in the Acer Support site there are no windows 7 driver options. Can I install win 7 on this computer. I have read win 7 cannot be installed on a computer that does not support Legacy bios. I don't know that status on this laptop but if possible would like to install win 7 because I like it; too old to change. Please let me know if you have info. Thanks!

Best Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    No, you won't be able to run Windows 7 natively, there aren't drivers for the chipset or many other devices. You should be able to run a Windows 7 VM on it though, since the VMs don't have to deal directly with the hardware.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    VM is short for Virtual Machine. It allows a simulation of a computer to run as a task and is typically used on server hardware to run several servers on one box. For instance I have a rack mount server that has a domain controller VM, a database VM, an email server VM and a web server VM all running on it. One slot on the rack for four different 'machines'. For consumer use doing something like a Windows PC on a Mac or an alternate OS on a Windows machine are probably the two biggest uses.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • Easwar
    Easwar Member Posts: 6,727 Guru
    Hi @cayrick49,

    Microsoft stopped updates for Win 7 if you wish to install win 7 unit will be outdated supporting drivers may not available.
  • cayrick49
    cayrick49 Member Posts: 14

    Tinkerer

    Thanks. I am aware of this limitation but nevertheless I have a personal preference for win 7
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    No, you won't be able to run Windows 7 natively, there aren't drivers for the chipset or many other devices. You should be able to run a Windows 7 VM on it though, since the VMs don't have to deal directly with the hardware.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • cayrick49
    cayrick49 Member Posts: 14

    Tinkerer

    Thanks! This is very helpful. Now I have to figure what a VM is and decide whether I need to upgrade my knowledge base to encompass win 10 or try to follow your instructions on win 7. This info no doubt will save my hours of brain damage because otherwise I would have tried to load win7 and then fiddle with drivers from the nearest win 7 machine to this model until I lost patience. 
  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,064 Trailblazer
    edited November 2021
    cayrick49 said:
    I bought this laptop used and it is designed for windows 10 and in the Acer Support site there are no windows 7 driver options. Can I install win 7 on this computer. I have read win 7 cannot be installed on a computer that does not support Legacy bios. I don't know that status on this laptop but if possible would like to install win 7 because I like it; too old to change. Please let me know if you have info. Thanks!

    Hey cayrick49 as you favour Win-7 over Win-10???? Don’t know why??? The simplest and best way and cheapest way is to get an old Aspire laptop that came OEM with Win-7 64 bit which are pretty cheap these days and then you will have all the drivers and BIOS updates from Acer for this older laptop. I've got one of these Aspire 5750G's that has an i7-2620QM CPU and comes with an NVIDIA GeForce GT540M and can have 8GB DDR3-1600MHz max RAM and this thing is a bullet proof and a great older Acer laptop, so and then, you will be able to have all the Win-7 fun and usage with this great laptop.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    VM is short for Virtual Machine. It allows a simulation of a computer to run as a task and is typically used on server hardware to run several servers on one box. For instance I have a rack mount server that has a domain controller VM, a database VM, an email server VM and a web server VM all running on it. One slot on the rack for four different 'machines'. For consumer use doing something like a Windows PC on a Mac or an alternate OS on a Windows machine are probably the two biggest uses.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.