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How do I install new drivers after installing Windows 7 7
I have an Acer 5715z notebook and going to upgrading it to Windows 7 and how do you install drivers to the computer once I load my new OS?
I have an Acer 5715z notebook and going to upgrading it to Windows 7 and how do you install drivers to the computer once I load my new OS?
There are several ways:
1) You have an Acer oem machine with vista, so there may or may not be win7 drivers available. Look up the acer support page for your model and download the win7 drivers if they are available. Of course this can be done after upgrading too.
2) If only vista drivers are available, you can use those but in addition you can locate generic drivers for well known devices such as Realtek high def audio (thats the sound card you have). Your machine has somewhat older hardware such as the 965 express onboard gfx, I think no drivers were released for this one after 2009, you can look up intel's support page for this.
3) Device drivers are also offered through windows update or just go to the device manager, right click on the device then click update. But windows database drivers may not be updated.
4) If you have the .exe file for the driver, just double click to install, if its zipped extract to a local folder first then run the setup file.
5) A nifty thing you can do is to backup existing installed drivers using a tool like Double driver. After upgrading to win7, you can restore any of he backed up drivers if no updated driver is available. Will save you some bandwidth if you're on a limited connection.
6) All installed drivers are saved in he location "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository", so one can also backup this folder, then point the devices in device manager to it.
Thank you both for the advice!
Oh I forgot to mention, I checked my manufacturers website for support drivers. They have some some options for some drivers for my system but they only seem to have stuff for things I will get additional once I upgrade and they have drivers for that and they only have options for the x32 bit version of my system but I'm going to getting a x64 bit. Should I just go for the x32 bit for the drivers or go on to x64 bit or it wouldn't matter?
Last edited by Spirit of Iron; 16 Aug 2011 at 14:52.
I've just checked, and whilst there is nothing listed for W7 64-bit, there is for Vista 64-bit. You can try to see if those drivers work, alternatively try the hardware manufacturer's websites (Intel, Realtek, Bison, Chicony, Suyin, Broadcom) to see if they have suitable W7 drivers.
Unfortunately, the English user manual seems to be missing from their site. There is a French one, but my French is virtually non-existant.