Update OS on Old Laptop (will it take?)

Thanks Porthos. I have beggining to test this one by Glenn Delahoy. In all aspects they behave almost in an identical way.

so windows 10 works fine, but has those pre-included apps she won't want (minecraft, candy crush, etc...), so ill have to figure out how to un-exist them from the system; had to look for the wifi/wimax link drivers myself since driverpack didn't find them with 8.1, or 10 strange enough (and im not downloading 14.6 GB of driver files just for what probably amounts to 10 something MB of data), but it was easier in terms of updates (used ntlite to embed the latest cumulative update and others needed),then again windows update for 8.1 and 10 acted a bit screwy when trying to download the missing drivers themselves (kept failing); but overall it is her decision on which she wants.

I messaged her a little while ago on what OS she would want on her computer if she wanted to upgrade (Windows 7, 8.1, 10), and it will be a while till I hear back from her. I'm betting she'll lean towards either 8.1, or 10

If Snappy won't find the driver automatically, you still have the option to download it from manufacturer's site. If there are no Windows 10 drivers, you can use (in that order) Windows 8 or 7 or Vista (worst case) drivers instead.

I would put Windows 10 on it It's so easy to install and Windows finds all the drivers. I've clean installed it on loads of old netbooks and laptops. The only one it wouldn't run on was a netbook with a Cedarview processor (that machine will only run Windows 7 and won't even run Linux so it's a bit of a one-off). Neither would it run on an old Sony Vaio with Nvidia graphics (there wasn't a graphics driver for it). But honestly it's much easier to install than Windows 7 - Windows 7 takes about 3 days to do all the Windows updates! Plus it reaches end of life in about 18 months.

I agree about skipping Windows 8. Someone was selling a retail copy of Windows 10 for not too much on ebay (check their ratings and description - this one was someone who had bought it but then bought a Mac) so I am sure there are legal cheap options for activating Windows 10.

My 84 year old Mother just bought a Windows 10 laptop and finds it very easy to use. The apps on the start menu can just be removed - and you can add things you want to it - like Word, calculator and the Control Panel. I'd leave Solitaire on it though she might like that!

Once you remove a lot of the start menu apps it can just be used like Vista - use the internet - check the folders - and that's it. No real maintenance to worry about. You can ignore the app store completely and never need to use it.

Windows 10 finds more drivers than Windows 7. So it would be a case of either getting a licence/product code for the Windows 7, activating and then see of Windows 10 will activate with the Windows 7 licence (which it may not if it's a new install). Or just get second hand copy of Windows 10 on ebay - for the product code. You can download the iso and install it to see if it works ok before activating.

I once upgraded a Vista Machine to Windows 7 and found it better to stick with 32 bit even though it had both - it had slight overheating problems with 64 bit.

So go with 32 bit to be on the safe side and if it's Windows 10 select the same thing - ie Home or Professional - at install time. (Both are on the Windows 10 iso).

If you install Windows 10 and there is an important missing driver (which I think is unlikely unless you have Nvidia graphics) then you could wipe the drive and put Windows 7 on again and activate that. The only reason to wipe the drive is - I found it hard to get W7 back on after installing Windows 10 on a couple of occasions. Just running one pass of zeros cleans it (I used parted magic for that).

If your concern about Windows 10 is their user interface, then you can make them look just like Windows 7. Google for ClassicShell, Winaero Old calculator, CustomizerGod etc. There are relevant threads in the Appearance section of this forum, look for my posts.

She messaged me back a few hours ago, and she told me she'll take windows 8.1; I got OpenShell to change the start menu to look more windows, got some other apps to further customize it, finally found the intel wifi/wimax link 5150 drivers after combing through bing search engine. Overall, everything is set, just need to install, customize, then figure out the rest later on

thanks for the help people, better than anywhere else that's for sure

Try to convince her getting w10. It's better than 8.x
You just need to tame it and customise it to your needs.