Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware

OK Count Mike. Signing off now. look after yourself. Thank you for your input. It has helped greatly. if you have anything else that may help post it and i'll get back to you. Thanks

I've installed Windows 10 Pro on two older PCs than your (see my PC Spec 2). Here are some suggestions:

1. Backup all partitions of your current full working PC - I recommend Macrium Reflect Free.
2. Gather together the latest Windows 10 drivers for all your hardware - but note Windows 10 is usually good at finding them.
3. Try an in place upgrade using the Media Creation Tool. See Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10. If you lucky it all may work and Windows 10 activate for free - someone reported on the forum a few days ago free updates still work. If not, you will need to buy a licence key.
4. Configure Windows 10 and see how you fare. You can always go back to Windows 7 or install Windows 7 as a dual boot OS (new key will be needed).
5. I added a cheap £30 SSD for my system drive which gave a drastic speed improvement. My old AMD PC only has 3GB RAM but it's quite usable in Windows 10 with the SSD.

More details here
Windows 10 on 2004 PC?
How to Install & Activate Windows 10 & Windows 7 Dual Boot?

Regarding graphics drivers, you can install any driver from Vista 64-bit or 7 64-bit into Windows 10 64-bit. It doesn't have to be a Windows 10 64-bit driver. So I would create a backup, then upgrade Windows 7 64-bit to 10 64-bit (keep applications and data option). Install any driver I can find, including Windows 7 64-bit drivers for graphics. See how it goes, there is always the option to return to Windows 7 within some days. If you think you need a newer graphics card, then buy it, but I don't think you need one.

Have installed it on a few old pc’s with good results. Recently on an Eee PC mk90h which is a 9” atom netbook gma 950 and about 9 years old. Installed perfectly, no missing drivers. To speed it up I upgraded the ram to 2gb and turned off enhancements in settings and it runs nicely.

Depends on the graphics in my experience. Have an i3 Sony it won’t run in due to old nvidia graphics but my main pc is an old hp pavilion dm4 with an ssd and 8gb ram and it’s nice and fast.

Also have it on a 7 year old eee 1015px and very nippy - but that does have an ssd too. It crawls on an Eee PC 904ha which is Celeron. But a tip to turn off enhancements in settings makes a difference. On all of those Windows found all the drivers.

That should say transparency not enhancements.

For super fast performance on any computer, maximize RAM, replace standard mechanical disk with an SSD, install latest WDDM graphics driver (for Windows 10 or 7 or 7 or Vista), or replace the graphics card with a faster one. When all these have already been done, right-click on This PC, select Properties, click Advanced system settings. Then click the Advanced tab and under Performance click the Settings button. Select Adjust for best performance to uncheck all boxes. Now manually check only the four bottom boxes. This will disable all visual effects, but keep the modern look of the interface (otherwise it will be too basic and ugly).

Rather than run Windows 10 on a really old computer ...
Why not just run that old computer through the crusher at your local recycling plant?

margrave55 said:

Rather than run Windows 10 on a really old computer ...Why not just run that old computer through the crusher at your local recycling plant?

If you can afford a new PC, then fine, but some of us cannot afford a new PC or want to squeeze every juice we can from an old PC, just for seeing it can be done. If you have money to burn, install Windows 10 on a new machine and don't bother with this thread again.