Acer laptop freeze - factory reset - Acer eLaunch, step 7/8

[dufusgonesplat]

I see an old thread labeled "Acer laptop stuck after factory rest at 7/8” but I don’t see any solutions. I basically have the same problem. I want to reset an factory Acer Aspire 5315-2713 using its built in factory reset option. Everything loads fine until it gets to 7/8 of Acer's "Empowering Technology" software. At least I assume it's called "Empowering Technology" - it loads eLock, eNet, ePower and a bunch more (all ending in the word Management). Step 7/8 is apparently trying to load eLaunch.

First time I let it run for over an hour and decided to re-run the factory reset. Because I went out, I let it run for over 5 hours - still frozen on 7/8. I use Task Manager to shut it down. Program not responding - gee what a surprise. Vista did an automatic update and reboot and this program started again and stayed frozen all night. I did another Vista update and again it started and froze on the reboot. No error - no messages - it just pretends to be loading.

Any ideas?

 

[dufusgonesplat]

I'm going to make a quick answer to my own query. Because I have no need for Acer's Empowering Technology, I disabled it's ability to keep trying to install after startup. This link details how to do that.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/stop-program-running-automatically-windows-starts#1TC=windows-vista

I then went into "Control Panel - Programs - Uninstall a program" and uninstalled Acer Empowering Technology which appears to have uninstalled its components (the components didn't work anyway - I assume because the whole package hadn't loaded). Now I can concentrate on readying this computer for donation.