Question on Notebooks:

My Acer Aspire One D250 runs on Windows XP and Acer will not be providing upgrades for this model to Windows 7. As Windows 7 is touted to run well on Netbooks, I wanted to do a custom installation. But when I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, the results showed that the graphics adapter, Intel GMA 950 cannot support the Aero user interface.

Is this correct? Can Windows 7 Home Premium actually run smoothly with the Aero interface on my AOD250 or am I stuck with XP?

Submitted by Reader

Answer:

Netbooks running on the Atom processor with the integrated Intel GMA 950/500 graphics chipset are unable to run the Aero user interface competently. As such, new minilaptops come with Windows 7 Starter edition instead of the higher versions.

However, all is not lost. You can still install Windows 7 Home Premium on your system. Simply disable the Aero interface from the Desktop preferences and you are all set to experience Microsoft's latest operating system, minus the eye candy.