Acer Aspire 5043 WLMI Series Laptop - Prepping the System for Use

The laptop comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home installed in it as operating system. When one starts up the laptop first up one will have to spend about 40-50 minutes before actually begin to use it. The operating system is installed in the laptop at the factory only, and after furnishing all of the correct registration info, along with the date and time zone settings, after about 30mins the system to complete installing devices, while running sadly at a new desktop that one is not able to use while the system installs all of its 3rd party applications. The preinstalled branded software is a mistake, as many users will get rid of it anyways and will install the software’s they prefer.

After the system restarts it will ask the user to copy a backup of the system. This is a great concept and all users must do this to make sure the ability to reload a fully functional version of their system, with all of the programs and documents loaded already.

For the most part this appears not so important while reinstalling the operating would be assisted by a re-installation of all the drivers and related software in one disk. However, should any these preloaded applications need a un-installation or re-installation to restore functionality, one will be left with the fact that one will require to reinstall the whole system back to day one to resolve the problem. And also, if Windows need a file from the installation CD to resolve a problem one will again be required to format and reload the whole OS to get it done. Under most of the circumstances the OS has been corrupted as a backup of inimitable documents and images has occurred. An easy repair of Windows or the return of a few corrupted files would allow saving files but not the case with this system.

After the system is fully packed and when I stated using it, a surprising detail popped up. The 100 GB HDD was divided into 2 parts automatically. Most of the companies don’t do this from the factory, and this was a bit surprising. However, another detail pops up. Both partitions are formatted using FAT32. The NTFS file system is far more secure and versatile than any of the FAT brothers and its lack of execution is also very confusing. As the launch of Windows XP about some 5 years back it became the standard method of formatting a HDD very quickly, and any Windows upgrade on an older system will advise change to NTFS over the FAT system. This surprising detail will undoubtedly amaze most of the user that are unaware of how to convert the file system in Windows or what third party utilities existing out there to satisfy the this requirement. Most would surely be left confused as to why the computer is not performing or doesn’t have the capacity of many of the feats they would expect from such a strong hardware layout.

In the cost competitive market of the biggest computer producers, each opportunity to trim every penny off from the cost of computer systems is seen as a benefit irrespective of the price to the end user.