Windows 7 or Windows 10 on low-spec netbook?

strusmig · 19 Sep 2015

Hi!
I have to reinstall OS on low-spec netbook.

Should I stay with Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) or update to Windows 10 (update & make clean install)? Any performance improvements?

Acer Aspire One AO722
Processor: AMD Fusion APU C-60 (1 GHz and up to 1.33 GHz, dual core)
RAM: 2 GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 6290
Hard Drive: Seagate ST320LT020 (320 GB)
Screen resolution: 1366x768

Netbook is used for web browsing, movies and Office (Word, Excel).

Thank you in advance for any advices.

NavyLCDR · 19 Sep 2015

I'm liking Windows 10 much better on low spec netbooks, including the Acer Aspire One. I think it performs much better than Windows 8 did.

dogpark · 19 Sep 2015

strusmig said:

Any performance improvements?

I would say yes. See my thread How to make Win10 lean & mean on older PC
Some very good advice from Nus & AveYo on how to improve performance. Just upgraded last night to WinX & my PC does run faster.
:)

WhyMe · 19 Sep 2015

strusmig said:

I have to reinstall OS on low-spec netbook.

Should I stay with Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) or update to Windows 10 (update & make clean install)? Any performance improvements?

Hi and welcome to the forum:)

If you make a complete image of your existing system then you don't have anything to lose with trying it out. Everyone's experience will be different due to the unique combination of hardware and software configurations on any given device.

The upgrade is free. You can go back to your old Win7 any time you like by using the full system image you will have created. If you have never done an image before, then I recommend using Macrium Reflect Free. (And don't forget to make one of their bootable rescue disks to access your image just in case the Windows 10 installation makes your system un-useable)

I definitely recommend giving it a spin and then making an informed judgement based purely upon your own personal experience of how it works on your device, using your hardware, and with your installed software.

Good luck!!

eLPuSHeR · 19 Sep 2015

Win10 has a tighter more optimized kernel. That means it will yield more free RAM. It's also more optimized on other areas too. If your modest laptop can run w7 it will probably run w10 even better.

I have installed w10 on some Acer netbooks with just 1GB RAM and it ran quite well when compared to w7 that it would be choking on low memory even after restarting.

strusmig · 20 Sep 2015

OK, so I just updated this machine to Windows 10 and I retrieve product key by this tool.

I had a valid Windows 7 install on my laptop. I upgraded through this link: Windows 10

The key thats currently used I googled and found it's a generic activation key, not unique to my device and not the Windows 7 key.

Is this normal? How to do a clean install of Windows 10 now?

WhyMe · 20 Sep 2015

strusmig said:

OK, so I just updated this machine to Windows 10...

...The key thats currently used I googled and found it's a generic activation key, not unique to my device and not the Windows 7 key.

Is this normal? How to do a clean install of Windows 10 now?

Yes this is normal and to be expected. The Win7 key is not valid for your Win10 upgrade. The identifier for Windows 10 is now linked to your device and hardware configuration. The identifier is stored as a hardware hash on the Microsoft servers. A product key is no longer required for your upgrade or for any subsequent Win10 clean install on the same device. A clean install will fail if the Win10 upgrade has not been successfully activated first.

The instructions for performing a clean install is in the first tutorial below. The second tutorial provides instructions on how to create the Windows 10 USB installation media
How to Clean Install Windows 10
How to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10

strusmig · 23 Sep 2015

Thank you all for your help. Everything works like a charm :)