Quote:
Originally Posted by Arctic Fox
Yes, a retrograde step but I need to do it
I have just bought a new Acer Aspire laptop preloaded with Windows 10 64-bit.
I regularly use an old DOS program that runs fine on any 32-bit machine but is very clunky if I have to run it through DOSBox or similar on a 64-bit machine.
Microsoft tells me that I need to reformat the hard drive and load Windows 10 32-bit from a back-up USB dongle that I can make but, since the laptop came with no CDs, I am concerned that I will not have any specific drivers for my machine that also came preloaded.
Is this likely to be a problem, or are the drivers that come with Windows sufficient?
Thank you
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The first thing I would do is create windows 10 bootable media with the media installation tool
here:
Download Windows 10
you can install it on a CD or flash drive.
I would then make sure you're logged into a real microsoft account on that computer. This will allow your windows license to transfer when the computer is re-installed.
I would back up everything that you want to have on the new installation onto something removable.
Go to the MFG website of your device and download the NIC/network driver, put it on something removable.
Pick a 32 bit install during the installation.
Run the installation media, do not blow away the the file structure when you choose where to install it.
You will get a warning that a current installation exists and will be overwritten, accept it and continue. If this part works, all your files will still be there when it's done installing. Your programs will have to be re-installed.
When it is done, log into your microsoft account, it should recognize the hardware and activate your license.
The drivers and everything else will almost certainly install during the installation. If it does not, run the NIC driver you downloaded above. Once the network driver is installed, you can go to the MFG website and pick up any drivers that were missed.
If by chance it will not let you install without re-creating all the drive partitions, you'll have to blow it all away and start from scratch. This happens some times, not sure why. It's why you need to back up anything you wish to keep.
If your license won't activate, hopefully the key is on the device somewhere. Sometimes it is not. Most of the time you can downgrade from 64 to 32 as long as you're in the same class, like home to home or pro to pro. If you try to go from home to pro it won't activate.
Good luck.