As mentioned in my earlier blog on the ASUS Eee PC 701SD, I would install Windows XP onto it since a few of the programs that I wanted to use (actually it was mainly 1 program) would not work under Linux. One of the functions that I wanted for this netbook was to be able to connect to my Slingbox. Installing Windows XP onto it was the easiest solution since Sling Media has SlingPlayer for Windows. During my research, I did find some instructions on how to get SlingPlayer to work under Linux but with the other Windows programs that I wanted to run, the easiest solution would be to install Windows XP onto it.
The first thing that I did even when I was running the preinstalled & customized Xandros Linux was that I upgraded the memory from 512MB to 2GB. The next thing that I did was to download all the Windows XP drivers from the ASUS support website. I also downloaded/updated the firmware on the ASUS Eee PC 701SD.
There are ways to install Windows XP using a USB memory stick but since I had my Windows XP Home DVD and I also had a portable DVD/CD drive (see my review on this *HERE*), I opted to do it the easy way and just install Windows XP from DVD. I connected my portable DVD drive to one of the available USB ports on the netbook and booted it. I then selected the option of deleting the existing partitions and used the entire 8GB SSD drive for the installation of Windows XP.
Windows XP installed without any issues. After the netbook rebooted, I ran each of the executable files from each of the driver files (since my Windows XP DVD did not have all the necessary drivers). After each driver installation, I rebooted the netbook. At the end, I had installed all the drivers and they all seemed to work.
During the installation of Windows XP because the netbook had 2GB of RAM, the virtual memory paging file was automatically set to 3GB (1.5 times the amount of RAM on the netbook). This left me with less than half of the 8GB SSD drive for my other applications. Before installing the other applications, I reduced the virtual memory paging file size to 2GB. I also went through the Windows Update process until the netbook was up to date with all the Microsoft security patches. I also downloaded Microsoft's Security Essentials (Microsoft's free antivirus/anti-spyware program) which is not part programs listed in the Windows Update screen.
After doing this, I installed the standard programs that I normally install (Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Mozilla Firefox, TrueCrypt, OpenOffice, Axcrypt, Google Chrome, and SlingPlayer for Windows). The important thing about installing these programs is to install them one at a time since I found that with less than 8GB to "play with," I also had to compress the hard drive.
In terms of the speed of the ASUS Eee PC 701SD, I found that it was very slow. I know that because of the hard disk encryption and the compression of the hard disk as well, this slows down the netbook but the netbook is almost unusable. The netbook would pause/buffer often during YouTube video viewing and the light showing SSD activity would almost be constantly on.
Surprisingly, SlingPlayer for Windows viewing is very good (better than YouTube video viewing). It does pause occasionally but not as often as it does during YouTube video viewing even when the netbook is accessing the Slingbox via the internet as opposed to the internal network.
With Windows XP installed, I did not experience the same problem with wireless access which leads me to think that my earlier problem is not a hardware problem but a driver issue.
I find that this netbook is usable for a light user but for heavy users, I would not recommend it. It is slow enough (even with a memory upgrade from 512MB to 2GB) that most people would find it annoying.
If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section.
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