Downgrade?) new Acer Aspire XC-710/Windows 8.1 to Windows XP?

[Roffen]

I got me a new mini pc, Acer Aspire XC-710 with Windows 8.1. It works reasonably, but at the recommended resolution of 1920 x 1080, the image stretches a little beyond the limits of the Samsung tv screen. I don't know if there are ways of getting an exact fit of image on the screeen?

But since I don't care much for Win 8.1, what would happen if I tried installing XPSp3 (or Sp4) instead? If unsuccesful, I suppose the machine will be spoiled without any means of getting it back to life again? 

EDIT January 19, 2017: i returned the machine, didn't like it.

 

Edited January 19, 2017 by Roffen
Adding info.

[MikeyV]

I would recommend to check the system to see if it has any "Burn recovery media" type software to create a backup first. If not, i would look into 3rd party software to create a ghost image before attempting anything.

Checking the Acer website, they dont even have win 8(.1) drivers listed, only windows 10, which is even more reason to try to make an image backup of what you currently have.

As far as getting XP running on it, you might be able to, but you may run into problems with drivers. Searching the net i see some 3rd party sites have drivers and list XP, but im not familiar with the sites.

[jaclaz]

With 8.1 it was mandatory to have a RE environment and most laptop manufacturers (if not all, and definitely including Acer) used additionally a "recovery" partition and an easy way to create recovery media.

Specifically the recovery media needs to be a USB stick 16 Gb or bigger:
http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/26287

jaclaz
 

[Roffen]

With a little snoking I discovered that the OS is Windows 10. Even with a 46" tv, I don't find working from my sofa at 3 m distance as comfortable as I would like. I am used to having a 20" monitor on the desk right in front of me. Maybe glasses designed for just that distance might be useful. I am trying to redesign my home for my new life since my wife now is in a nursing home with Alzheimers and she won't be coming back. It is a terrible loss. she's been a wonderful companion for 60+ years. I'll see her tomorrow but all she's talking about is why can't she come home with me?

Well, I hope I'll get used to the new system, and I'll have to accept that there is nothing that can be done with the slightly oversize image bitmap that extend beyond the frame. It seems finding the ideal H and V parameters is not as easy as with a proper monitor.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Roffen

[MikeyV]

Sorry to hear about your wife :(

If you say the TV model, maybe i can dig around and see what resolutions it prefers, or find where they hid picture options.

I dont personally use a tv for my pc, but when i did, i had some trouble with resolutions (for my specific old video card). With a wrong resolution all i got was a black picture, once i dropped the resolution down, then it was working.

Since you have it up and running, you could try to make windows resolution a little smaller, which would make everything bigger, and might even fix the extended picture youre getting.

[jaclaz]

There is not really a "preferred" resolution (which sounds a bit too "politically correct" for my tastes ) things are binary, a LCD monitor or TV has a "native" resolution, you either can make it with your video card or you cannot,*anything else* will be either blurred or deformed (or both ).

There could be some better or worse results depending on the interface used (VGA vs. HDMI, etc.), in theory there shouldn't be (if not in the perverted mind of some video fanatics), and in practice on a perfectly working video card and a perfectly working monitor/TV (and with a good cable) there is no difference that can be appreciated, but there are "somehow faulty" monitors and/or video cards that are sensible to using the one or the other, see also:

(in some cases it is possible to "force" the EDID to solve auto-detected resolution and/or modify the video card BIOS to support another resolution).

We need the EXACT video card and TV make/models.

And actually we already talked about the matter some time ago (just for the record):
 

jaclaz
 

[HarryTri]

On Δευτέρα, 3 Οκτωβρίου 2016 at 9:41 PM, Roffen said:

I am trying to redesign my home for my new life since my wife now is in a nursing home with Alzheimers and she won't be coming back. It is a terrible loss. she's been a wonderful companion for 60+ years. I'll see her tomorrow but all she's talking about is why can't she come home with me?

Just to express my sympathy.