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#31
Windows 10 Home free upgrade on my netbook went smoothly
I have an ASUS Eee PC model 1018P-PU27-BK netbook with original main specifications of an Intel Atom N550 2 core 4 thread 1.5 MHz CPU, 10.1 WSVGA display, 1 Gbps network card, one USB 2 port, two USB 3 ports, and a 250 GB hard drive. It came with 1 GB or RAM and Windows 7 Starter which I upgraded to 2 GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. I recently took the free upgrade to Windows 10 Home and that went flawlessly, as have other Windows 7 machines that I have upgraded. The video adapter on the netbook is "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150" and surprisingly enough Windows 10 loaded a driver for that as well. Windows 10 Home is more responsive than Windows 7 Home was, and (in my opinion) this is probably because Windows 10 does not have the fancy "Aero Glass" feature that Windows 7 has. I miss the fancier graphics in Windows 7 (especially on my more powerful systems) but suspect the loss of it improves the netbook's performance. The wireless in the netbook was not very fast (only connects at 75 MHz) and it did not appear to be possible to replace the existing 150 Mbps wireless card with an 802.11ac one. Being a power user, I decided to buy an "Edimax AC450 Wireless LAN USB Adapter" and it typically connects to my TP-LINK AC1900 router at 433 Mbps so that really improves my web browsing experience and access to shares on my home network. The "Edimax AC450 Wireless LAN USB Adapter" only sticks out about 1/4" from the USB port, works well with Windows 10 using a newer driver that I downloaded, and can be used in a USB 2 port since it does not exceed the 480 Mbps speed of USB 2. The only concern I have about this USB wireless adapter is how long it will last as it is so small and it gets warm, but since it was on sale for $20 when I bought it, I bought two so I would have a spare.