Vista

[Charlie_D_]

I have an old Dell laptop with Vista. Seldom use it but what can I do to install a newer operating system? I suspect buying an upgrade but the Dell is so old, slow and would like to spend a lot of money.

[mr__ed]

trb46 wrote:
Charlie D...You might want to consider pulling out the hard drive, buy an external case for it, and use it as additional storage for photos or other files. Just a thought. I've done that with several old drives.

X2. I did just that, using the hard drive from a damaged Toshiba laptop. It doesn't have a huge capacity, but does fine for a not-too-large backup.

[TimnJo]

I just put an SSD in my brother's old Dell Precision laptop. $80 for the speedy new drive, $60 for Windows 10 OEM from a local, small retailer.
So, for $140, my brother gets a usable laptop, nothing ends up in the landfill
and he's indebted to me, which is handy 'cause he owns a cabinet shop and will be re-doing the kitchen in our fifth wheel!

[ol_Bombero-JC]

barth wrote:
Reformat the drive and install Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon. It's fast and is free. The desktop will look like your XP or Vista desktop. I've done that to several old laptop and people are very happy. Don't throw away your laptop. It still has a couple years of life under Linux.
Download Linux Mint 32 bits to a DVD or USB key and boot from it to try it. You don't even have to install it to try it!

Good advice!

~

[Tom_M1]

I have a 10 inch NextBook tablet with Intel Atom processor with 2GB of memory that I purchased at Walmart for $100. It came with 32-bit Win 8.1 that I upgraded to Win 10 32-bit without a hitch.

[Charlie_D_]

trb46 wrote:
Charlie D...what did you decide to do?

At this point I have removed all person data, websites, etc. and installing photos from SD cards that I use on digital photo frames. May try barth's suggestion.

[joebedford]

Fizz wrote:
Your Dell is a 32 bit computer and will not accept a Windows upgrade.

Uhhh, probably wrong.

W10 Requirements

[trb46]

Charlie D...what did you decide to do?

[barth]

Reformat the drive and install Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon. It's fast and is free. The desktop will look like your XP or Vista desktop. I've done that to several old laptop and people are very happy. Don't throw away your laptop. It still has a couple years of life under Linux.
Download Linux Mint 32 bits to a DVD or USB key and boot from it to try it. You don't even have to install it to try it!

[mr__ed]

trb46 wrote:
Charlie D...You might want to consider pulling out the hard drive, buy an external case for it, and use it as additional storage for photos or other files. Just a thought. I've done that with several old drives.

X2. I did exactly that when I accidently dropped by 1st Toshiba laptop and broke the screen. It didn't make sense to repair it, so I formatted the hard drive and installed it in an enclosure and now use it as an external storage media.

[mr__ed]

Lwiddis wrote:
I wouldn't spend much on any old laptop. New Dell laptops from $250 to $350 are ready to go.

X2. You'll also get the latest operating system (probably Windows 10) at the same time. My previous laptop (Toshiba, running XP) worked fine, but I knew I wanted to eventually go to Windows 10, and since my Toshiba was getting a bit long in the tooth, I decided to buy a new Toshiba with Windows 8 installed, knowing I could upgrade when the time came. It was a good decision, although I wish I kept my old Toshiba with XP, just to play with.

[Bill_S_1]

Interesting thread, and similar to one I started several years ago. We still have 2 HP laptops with Vista, and have probably a few thousand pictures on one of them. They never get used any more. Wife has been using an ipad for 3 years, and I have a couple of better laptops, for home, shop and RV.

I happen to be posting this on a Lenova Ideapad 110 laptop that I just bought in Staples last week, for $249.00. It is a 15.9", Pentium i3, 6gb memory, and 1TB hard drive. It is plenty fast for browsing, videos, email, etc. Definitely not a gaming computer, but we don't do that anyways.

Tough to find even less capable used laptops for $249.00.

[Charlie_D_]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have 2 digital frames that have pictures of each of the Grandchildren and another with vacation and special events. When the Hp failed it corrupted the SD card, among other things,and I am trying to reload the card from other sources. I will keep the Dell, and as suggested, keep pictures and such on the Dell for future needs and possible recovery of future hard drive issues.

[Fizz]

Seems like I was misinformed about a 32 bit running Win 10.
If it was free I would give it a go, otherwise it's a waste off money.

[DownTheAvenue]

I have an HP desktop that has an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33gHz with 2.00 GB of RAM that originally came with Windows Vista. I bought it used and Windows XP was loaded on it when I bought it. I loaded Windows 10 on it when they were annoying the $hit out of me to load it for free. It was painless to load, and works perfectly albeit a little slow.