Netbook Restoration

One of my all time favourite computers to this date is an Acer Aspire One AOD-257 that I received for Christmas in 2011. Although this machine was not intended to be a powerhouse, it was my first taste at owning my very own portable computer. This netbook originally shipped with Windows 7 Starter, a single-core Intel Atom N455 CPU clocked at 1.67 GHz, a 250 GB SATA Hard Drive @5,400 RPM, an upgraded 4400 mAh battery pack (that was double the size of the original and gave the netbook a nice ergonomic built-in stand), and 1 GB of DDR3 (that I later upgraded to 2GB).

Almost immediately after receiving this netbook, I decided to dual boot Ubuntu 11.10, since I really disliked the restrictive nature of Windows 7 Starter (you couldn't even change the wallpaper!). Running Ubuntu with Windows application compatibility provided me with an impressive, yet inexpensive setup that could still outperform the school computers I was using at the time, since Ubuntu used to run extremely quickly. I've used this computer to play some older titles, such as GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Half Life 1 (and the Blue Shift and Opposing Force titles that came after), as well as the original Deus Ex GOTY! Furthermore, I used this computer to experiment with modifying Ubuntu with custom animations, custom software packages to change core system functions, and even a custom startup sound that would make my computer sound like it was about to explode every time I logged in! This computer was my daily up until about 2015 when I replaced it with a newer Asus Transformer Book. However, when I replaced this computer, that opened the floodgates to all sorts of opportunities for experimentation! I loaded Android X86, many different Linux distributions, and even the very first Windows 10 public Insider Preview! I showed up to school with this netbook under my arm, and when I told my peers that I was running Windows 10 at the time, they couldn't believe it! I started getting questions such as "what about Windows 9?" and "There's no way! I have to see this", it really felt great to be on the bleeding edge of technology and this really pushed my ambition towards IT even further!

Fast-forward to today and, since the final release of Windows 10, my netbook became downright unusable. The fans would always spin up to their top capacity, the computer would constantly run red hot, and something as basic as opening Google Chrome became a 5 minute process. Things weren't much better on the open-source side of things with Ubuntu and many different Linux distributions switching to 64-bit support only. Many would have claimed that my netbook has officially been reduced to an obsolete pile of technological junk that belongs in E-Waste.

I had other plans for this netbook. I wasn't about to let a legacy of awesome experiences and memories just die out before my eyes. I had a goal set in mind to do whatever I could to restore this netbook. And that's when it hit me; I remember earlier in my youth, back when Windows Vista and later Windows 7 came out to the world, I was absolutely blown away by how advanced they seemed at the time compared to their predecessors. And at the time, I had only had experience with Windows 3.1-2000 and some limited exposure to XP. Additionally, I still believe that the era of Windows Vista and 7 still is one of the best to date, since there's nothing quite as appealing to my eye as the appearance of fully translucent 3D windows with a transparent or jet-black 3D taskbar and those gorgeous red, blue, and clear window control buttons. Not to mention the feature-rich applications that it shipped with, such as the fully translucent Windows Media Player 11, Windows Media Centre, and even an integrated dedicated DVD player that were all scrapped from Windows after Windows 7. Running Windows 7 Starter on this netbook was a real letdown, but it did have an upside in that it pushed me to use Ubuntu on a daily basis, so I could become much more comfortable with Linux. However, a part of me always wished that they would have at least loaded Windows 7 Home Premium or even Windows Vista on the netbook instead.

So my answer to the seemingly unavoidable retirement of my netbook was to, not only restore it with a 240 GB Kingston SATA SSD, but to also dual boot both Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 Ultimate and reload this computer with all of my original files that I had stored away on a backup drive, along with all of the games I used to enjoy and all of the Windows applications I used to run. I understand that Vista had a seemingly bad reputation back in the day, but I wanted to finally experience it for myself, since I had missed this chapter earlier on in life and made the jump from Windows XP straight to 7 Starter (and later, Professional, when I purchased my next desktop). I was determined to restore this computer, not only to its former glory, but to restore it with the software that I wished it had shipped with back when I got it, and the results were astounding!

The first thing I noticed when I loaded in Windows Vista was how fast my netbook had become! It was almost on par with the speeds of my newer computers (although I'm sure the increased SSD speeds helped, you could definitely tell that this operating system felt optimized for my hardware!). My core temperatures dropped significantly and my experience running my old software and games was really impressive. They even ran faster than I remembered on Windows 7 Starter and not to mention, they stopped being able to run with Windows 10! So next, I loaded Windows 7 Ultimate on my second partition (and a shared data drive between the two, to save on disk space from not copying files twice). The difference between Vista and 7 on this computer is like night and day! Windows 7 is noticeably slower and runs far less efficiently with significantly longer load times, higher CPU temperatures, more RAM usage, and more dropped frames when gaming; all of this totally contrary to the common myth that Windows 7 ran better than Vista. Of course, the support cycles have ended for these operating systems, so naturally, I have to keep them offline and scan every new file that I transfer onto this machine using Malwarebytes on Windows 10 on my Principal computer before I would even consider loading it onto Vista or 7. However, for my uses, this computer runs like a dream and still plays my favourite classic titles at very playable frame rates. Even the Windows Experience Index Scores between Vista and 7 on identical hardware, both run when I freshly installed the operating systems, is marginally different (see the photos below).

It almost makes me wonder, did Microsoft load these computers with Windows 7 Starter just to up-sell customers on their higher end laptops? A lot of netbook buyers from this era complained about how horrible these machines were, but my experience was and still is completely different from what most people say about them. However, I hardly ran 7 Starter and I believe that my experience was significantly better due to the fact that I ran Linux and now run Vista. Surprisingly, I have noticed the same thing with my current laptop. My Lenovo IdeaPad 110 was a budget laptop that I purchased on a minimum wage job to replace my (later broken) Transformer book. However, after just one year of ownership, Windows updates have crippled this machine to the point where I eventually loaded Manjaro (and now Kali) alongside a custom Windows 10 Enterprise on a 500 GB solid state, and again, the difference is night and day. Regardless, I'm proud that I saved this perfectly good netbook from going to E-Waste and that I can still continue to enjoy it to this date as one of my side-project machines.