Gateway LT2104u Netbook and Windows 7 Starter Edition – A Review by Apoc

It’s not often I find myself writing reviews for products, but every now and then, something comes along that just screams for my attention.

This Valentines day, I was fortunate enough to have a loving gift of a netbook bestowed upon me by my beloved fiancee. In fact, I was even able to pick out my own, along with a RAM upgrade. Sweet deal!

My first impressions over the first couple of days were mixed. I never had to deal with it being really bad on speed because when we picked out our netbooks from Best Buy, we were smart enough to pick up 2GB of ram each, which was installed the second I opened this thing.

I picked this one out of the bunch at the store, because after spending an hour tinkering around with all the netbooks on display, this one was determined to have the best Windows Experience Index, which strangely enough, did not improve after doubling the ram. Oh well, yet I digress.

The speed is acceptable for a netbook, and works just fine most of the time. It tends to run cool most of the time, and the battery life is more than acceptable. It comes with 802.11n wifi, which makes surfing the net quite a pleasant experience, as should be expected from a NETbook. I only had one real gripe from the beginning… the complete lack of Windows XP.

Instead, all the new netbooks at Best Buy now come with Windows 7 Starter preinstalled. This is why I am writing this review. I must warn the general public, and speak my outrage. Listen carefully now.

Windows 7 starter SUCKS.

It is horrible. I can’t even call it an operating system. Seriously, Microsoft, fuck you.

Why on Gods green earth would you make it a limitation on Windows 7 starter that you CAN NOT change the wallpaper of all things? What the FUCK? Seriously? If I could give a grade lower than F for an operating system, this one would win it. I’m serious. It is that bad.

Unfortunately, things get worse from there. After spending roughly 14 hours trying to figure out how to get a Windows XP install onto a usb thumb drive and making it boot, I finally got Windows XP pro on this thing. Only problem was, it was missing the drivers for video and sound. That kind of tends to be a big deal, so I logged into the support site for Gateway computers to download new drivers, and what do you think I found? They only provided drivers for Windows 7. For a laptop that I knew for a fact ran XP up until about a month or so ago.

I contacted Gateway customer support via email, and 6 hours later, the only response I had was a support representative asking me where I acquired my windows xp disk from.

I was pretty upset at this point (no, fuck upset, I was raging) and responded to the rep that my source of windows xp was completely irrelevant to them sending me a link to download some drivers for the laptop I JUST bought from them. A couple hours later I heard back and they basically refused to provide me with drivers, even after I told them if I didn’t get them I was going to return the netbook for a refund.

I will not be buying from Gateway again. The worst part of the experience? The preinstalled recovery partition is corrupt and doesn’t work, so I’m pretty much on my own there.

I don’t recommend purchasing this netbook for anyone who isn’t very tech savvy, and very patient. It will drive them nuts. But I suppose if someone is willing to just accept the limitations of windows 7 starter, and just use it as-is, it’s a fine product.

Read between the lines: The hardware is good, but the operating system and the customer support are horrible.

So this one gets a big middle finger to both Microsoft (especially them) and Gateway. Learn the lesson. Don’t put such hefty restrictions on an already expensive product, and if somebody asks you for help with the $300+ product you just bought 2 days ago, GIVE IT TO THEM.

Fortunately for me, I am tech savvy, and I did have the patience, and I finally did manage to track down windows xp drivers from, of all places, the hardware manufacturer’s web sites, Gateway, how hard would it have been to just send me there?

Note: I will be posting another article later explaining just HOW to get Windows XP on a thumb drive, get it installed on your netbook, and will provide the drivers needed for this one on my web site, just so all of you don’t have to spend hours hunting it all down too. Unfortunately, tools like PeToUSB did not work for me, and I expect many others to encounter the same problems.

UPDATE! Tutorial for installing Windows XP on this laptop

Ok, so this turned out to be a rather popular article, if the page hits and comments are any indication! Now for me to make good on my word and provide a step-by-step for everyone else to follow.

Step 1

You need a copy of Windows XP, and I recommend searching torrent sites for a Windows XP Black Edition release, since they are well put together and clean, and is what I used for this netbook. They are basically an n-Lite version prepackaged with some good freeware utilities.

Step 2

There is no need to mount the .iso using Daemon Tools or any other program. Simply use WinRar or any other compatible archiving program to extract the contents of the disc on to your drive.

Step 3

Download WinSetupFromUSB and install it.

Step 4

Run WinSetupFromUSB, and it should look like this:

Step 5

Under Windows 2000/XP/2003 Source, select the folder that your windows install cd (i386, etc) is located in. (The folder you extracted the .iso to)

Step 6

Select the target USB thumb drive. I picked up a PNY 4GB thumb drive from Wal-Mart for about $12, but anything with 2GB or better will work fine. Note: It may or may not be necessary to format the thumb drive as FAT using Windows prior to this. Usually, the RMPrepUSB button will format the thumb drive just fine.

Step 7

Click GO! This process can take a while, depending on your hardware. Do not interrupt it or remove the drive at any time during this process.

Step 8

Enter the BIOS of the netbook, and be sure it is set to boot from USB. Mine was already automatically set to this, so odds are good yours will be too.

Step 9

Insert the thumb drive into your netbook with it powered off, and turned it on. You should see a “press any key to boot from CD” option or something similar.

Step 10

Proceed as normal with XP installation. In some cases, you may not be able to install to the C:\ drive. This is OK and will not impact anything. Sometimes the default restore partition will insist on being the C:\ drive, just create a new partition, and format as NTFS, then install to the new partition.

Step 11

The first part of the XP install will finish, and the computer will reboot. There is no need to press any key on boot this time, but DO NOT REMOVE the thumb drive yet. If you do, you can cause serious problems. Instead you will be presented with a special menu provided by WinSetupFromUSB, providing about 5 or 6 options to pick from. Start at the top option, and press enter. These options are presented because of the variable “accidents” that can happen from this sort of hack. If the first one does not work, reboot again, and select the second, and so forth. The 3rd option worked great for me.

Step 12

Let XP finish it’s install, and then you just need to track down the drivers. Gateway, unfortunately, is no help at all in this department. Simply open device manager, and go to the vendor web sites for the hardware, and download the updates yourself. Windows update might be able to grab some for you too. I recommend grabbing the Intel On-board Video drivers first, since it will make things easier.

DON’T PANIC

Assuming you use this method on the Gateway LT2104u, using the Windows XP Black install, you will have wireless and LAN drivers, and pretty much all the stuff you will need to be able to get the other drivers off the internet. If I can track down where I backed mine up, I will zip them up and post them here for download later.

Step 13

Enjoy Windows XP on your new netbook! It runs much better than Windows 7 Starter does, and can probably run more apps.

Notes: This tutorial is not entirely specific to the Gateway LT2104u, and should work on most computers, as well as desktops. If this is too much for you, your other option is to buy a usb cd drive (I got a cd-r/w drive on ebay for $20 with shipping) and proceed to install Windows as normal.

I hope this helps!

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