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Old laptop

lordsummit

lordsummit

Moderator
I’ve an old windows machine, it’s quite a decent spec, but has been sat in a cupboard for years since I went all Mac. I could do with another computer, kids at home and all that. Just wondering it has the spec I think to do Windows 10, can I make a Windows 10 disc and install it as a clean install? It’s painfully slow and littered with crap. Alternatively is this going to be a world of pain? Can’t use Mint as I need to use Microsoft on it for the kids.
 
In theory it's easy enough. In practice anything on a computer is littered with traps for the unwary. "what do you mean you didn't know you had to reconfigure the register? Oh FFS, any f*ing HALFWIT beyond the age of 9 knows how to reconfigure the register. Christ..."
And so on. Good luck.
 
From what I understand, depending on the specs you could take out the old hard disc and put in a £50 SSD which would speed everything up very noticeably, and then do a clean install of Win 10. But for this to be worthwhile, it would need to be a reasonably fast/recent CPU (at a rough guess a mid-high end CPU not more than 5 or so years old) and at least 8 GB of Ram. I've done it (thanks also to help from others here) and it works.
 
Hi Lord

If you are able to at least boot it then head over to microsoft and download windows 10 from that laptop.

Just type in 'download windows 10' in google and its the first hit. You can then create an installation media. The media creation tool you download from MS will look for a 8gig or more USB stick connected to your laptop and will create an installer for you.

reboot the laptop and determine how to prioritize the boot order or pull up a boot menu screen, for instance on a del its F12 you hit that as soon as turning on the laptop. This will then offer up the USB as an installer, click that and then the windows installer will load you can then proceed to install windows. Bear in mind however I am proposing to wipe clean the laptop with this method.

You dont need to enter the windows 10 code at the installer stage, as you already have it installed it will know this and you shoul dbe set. However you need to determine which version of windows you have a licence for and make sure you pick that when installing.
 
I’d be inclined to buy a USB stick, they are real cheap and far less chance of failure compared to writing a DVD on an old optical drive. They’ll be one of very few ‘in stock’ items at Tesco!
 
I've got a 2012 HP DV7 (i7 first gen) with 8Go RAM ans Win 10 runs fine on it. SSD almost compulsory here.
 
Rcook said:
If it's running XP, I think it might struggle with Windows 10.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, Win10 has a lighter footprint than most previous Windows. An SSD and as much RAM as possible should make it fine for surfing and basic use.

What is the spec lordsummit?
 
cutting42 said:
Not necessarily, Win10 has a lighter footprint than most previous Windows. An SSD and as much RAM as possible should make it fine for surfing and basic use.

What is the spec lordsummit?
Click to expand...
Can’t remember, but it was a high spec machine. I’m working on nothing ventured nothing gained. I remember running the Windows 10 year on it and it said it would be fine.
 
For what it's worth I'm running Windows 10 Professional 64bit on a Lenovo Thinkpad t60p which has a T7200 Core2 duo processor and only 3Gb or RAM and a spinning drive and it's just about bearable to use. Little bit of a pain when Microsoft sends down yet another update but its perfectly usable

Not a slouch by any means. It's mainly used for maintenance of other kit and for downloading trial software which these days is a high risk activity

eddie
 
Same here. I have an old T60 32 bit and run Win 10 (including Enterprise) without problems. Using an old SSD improved performance and is well worthwhile.

If you have a DVD/CD burner its a simple matter to download the ISO and burn it to DVD. This will always work.

You don't even need a license to install and run Win 10 - go for the pro version. You'll just get the occasional nag bottom right of screen. You can always buy a license later for around a fiver sometimes even less!

Once installed and if you have a large enough disk you will be able to shrink the Windows partition to make room for a another partition for a linux installation and have a dual boot system.

Cheers,

DV
 
If you get it working OK with the mechanical hard drive consider ordering an SSD and installing Windows again on the SSD as it will be way faster.

A Western Digital green SSD is all that is needed for an older laptop, no need for high end for this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076Y374ZH/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Prices are high just now because of the demand, they where £30 or less a few weeks ago for 240 Gb.
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Mark Grant said:
If you get it working OK with the mechanical hard drive consider ordering an SSD and installing Windows again on the SSD as it will be way faster.

A Western Digital green SSD is all that is needed for an older laptop, no need for high end for this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076Y374ZH/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Prices are high just now because of the demand, they where £30 or less a few weeks ago for 240 Gb.
Click to expand...
You don't have to do this as you can clone the HDD to an SSD before swapping them over. Just for info if you have a more modern machine with a USB 3.1 gen 2 port you can actually (if you are a whizz) clone a portable Windows installation to an external SSD or even a fast USB stick and boot from that. I was amazed at how fast my Samsung 128GB stick ran Windows 10 Pro on a 9 yo Dell XPS - these newer USB sticks are fast.

Cheers,

DV
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Probably fair to say though it’s a damn site easier just to put the ssd in then install Windows though
 
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