Upgrade Acer W500 Tablet Windows 7 to Windows 8

westonr
westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

 

 

I have posted on this site hoping that some one might have an answer to this.

 

 

My upgrade was quite eventful with a lot of work searching to resolve  several issues, and a complete reinstalling  I did expected some difficulties considering the difference in the operating system from 7 to Windows 8 also installing windows as an upgrade and on a Tablet that has been on the market for almost two years. See my previous posts Acer Support Web Site.

 

  I am very impressed with the performance of the Acer W500 and Windows 8 not so the support from Acer it is very much a suck it and see approach in windows 8  I know the release version has only been out less than a month or so and Acer have really not responded to issues people have raised after the up grade to Windows 8 on W500.

 

Firstly it seems very much a hit and miss if you can get your Rotation and Blue tooth, to work on the W500 (I have installed the G-Sensor) there have been fixes for this on the net, Upgrade AMD Drivers , install device controller, HD monitor, rotation lock and the list goes on, all reported with varying degrees of success. I used the scan tool from Acer to see what driver I should install and it gave me three :- Blue tooth, VGA ATI/AMD and Wireless LAN,  which I have installed some posts say that it is essential that you upgrade the AMD drivers as the Screen rotation will not work without upgrading them ? But still no screen rotation and I have lost my Blue tooth after installing the new software which was recommended by the Acer scan tool.

 

So I have a Tablet that works extremely well with Windows 8 I must say that I cannot believe the transformation in it's performance this up grade has made to the W500, but I would like to have the rotation working as well so you would think that Acer would have informed us that to get the rotation working after the Windows 8 Up-grade you do X, Y  and  Z  and some might also say you did not purchase a windows 8 tablet ? so what do you expect.

 

After doing a little bit more research I am lead to believe that the consumer preview  of Windows 8 when installed on this machine, that all the functions worked rotation as well, but that this issue is only with the final release version of windows 8 ? So is this an issue that Windows needs to address or is it Acer  ?..

 

Anybody have any opinion or a fix for this.

 
 
 After again doing my own searches (no response from Acer) there are two other important down loads from the Applications section that need to be installed the Device Control and the Auto Screen Rotation Blocker according to other post. After installing the two Applications I was able to turn the blue tooth back on in the device control  application each time I launched this a lock appeared but I could not turn this off so the rotation was locked ? The next issue was that the tablet became unstable in Google Chrome flashing on and off ?

I next un-installed Chrome then several of the programs that I had recently installed Photoshop CS2 and all the Applications Device control, Auto Screen rotation, Wireless Lan, Blue tooth but not the ADM driver and managed to get the tablet stable and working again.

 

So where do I go from here other people report that they have the screen ration working without any problems start again ? Come on Acer I want some support you still have not replied to my request for HELP. A step by step of what actually needs to be installed to get all the tablet to function working in Windows 8.

 

 

I think I will post this on the Microsoft site maybe they will be able to help as I have seen some post to them about the W500. Probably more helpful than Acer

 

Answers

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

    History

     

    I firstly set the tablet up using windows 7 downloaded the updates SP1 and then installed Windows 8 Pro 32bit had to remove a lot of software to get this to run I had an issue with the installation clearing the Old Windows 7 Files had to repeat this (using recovery Discs) and windows 8 installed again after experiencing problems This time I removed the Old windows files in windows 8. Every thing was working well.

     

    I then had a further issue with an unstable desktop when launching applications such as Chrome, Control Panel and any thing that launched in this manor, I had tried to get the screen rotation to work so I had updated the VGA ATI/AMD, Blue tooth, Wireless LAN from the Acer site which are recommended after up grade to 8 used there scan tool to identify the required drivers. Also the G sensor , Device control and rotation lock as reported by many W500 users to get the rotation working. Applications that launch in the metro screen seem to be stable no issue here I say lunch in the metro screen as I do not see the desk top before these launch unlike the others ?.

     

    I tried to recover the unit back to Factory settings again but using the recommend procedure would not work so I reinstalled windows 8 in windows 8 telling it to keep nothing so not an up-grade ?.

     

    It took about 45 minutes then did all the updates installed my software customized the metro screen  then started to install the recommended driver so I have installed VGA ATI/AMD   G sensor and Launch Manager which seems to have replaced Device controller in the applications list under windows 8 ? But I am still having this issue with the unstable desktop from time to time if I touch the screen when this occurs it seems to stabilize this ? But still no screen rotation. I have not installed the following drivers Wireless LAN or Blue tooth which are all working and I can turn them off or on  I have also not installed the rotation blocker.

     

    So I am at a bit of a loss as what I should do next The device seems quite stable some times, but I turned the unit on again and the keyboard fail to launch, restarting launched the keyboard  sometimes the key board symbol on the keyboard flashes in and out with a clicking sound ?. I have also noticed an opaque semi circle flashing in the bottom left corner of the screen when this happens ?

     

    Have I got a faulty Tablet ?

     

    UPDATE

     

    I have got the rotation working and  what is in the current  list (windows 8 Upgrade) is a bit misleading you have to go to windows 7 to get the applications required which are Device Controller, not Launch Manager as listed in Windows 8 Upgrade list. Then G-sensor and Auto Screen Rotation Blocker.

     

    I have not Installed Blue tooth or Wireless LAN as they seem to be working in Windows 8 able to switch them on or off .

     

    The only issue is this Instability It did occur when searching in Goggle Last night I am  soak testing the unit to day to see when this occurs and in what applications and weather it might be Wifi LAN issue ?. Have used tools within Windows 8 called View Reliability History which is a quite sophisticated Monitor To Launch this go into Search and type Reliability Monitor   and lunch application it will give you a list of  sources, applications, summary, date and Action required I had two critical events which are Microsoft  Windows installer stopped working and Install Script Set-up Launcher stopped working with check for solution  so I checked for solution and none found (Error Reported!) I will pass this issue on to Microsoft see what they say.

     

    Anybody have any Idea what might be causing the instability issue.

  • westonr
    westonr Member Posts: 35 New User

    All problems resolved unit sent back to Acer for repair all working well now.

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