After performing a clean install of Windows 7 on a Acer Aspire 5040 I found that the WiFi was not was working. According to the users on sevenforums.com this is because Acer’s Launch Manager application was not installed. This piece of software will enable the WiFi switch which in turn allows you to enable WiFi. To install the Launch Manager on Windows 7:
- Download and unarchive the Launch Manager
- Select and right click “Setup.exe”:
- Select properties
- Change the compatibility mode to Windows XP
- Exit properties
- Select, right click and select “Run as administrator”
References:
- Acer Aspire 5040 Launch Manager
- Original forum post that led me to the fix