Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware

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  1. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #411

    Last week I trashpicked a Late 2006 White 24" IMac, took it home (weighed a ton to carry it the 200 metres to my home), found a power cable, USB Keyboard and Optical Mouse (all previously trashpicked!), and fired it up. It took an age to boot from the OS X 10.7 Lion install disk it contained (this gift keeps on giving!), but I couldn't install the OS, or get the disk to eject.

    I had to learn a few Mac tricks, since the last Mac I had used was back in 2002, an IMac G3 with transparent blue case!

    Sadly the IMac's white screen bezel was broken, So I took it off and glued it together as best I could. I found a 500GB hard drive (from a trashpicked Sky+HD STB) and replaced the 320 GB Western Digital inside the case.( Later this seemed to be working fine as drive E: in the screenshot!)

    I had learned that when the Apple startup chime sounded, if you right-clicked on the mouse (not a Mac mouse) the DVD should be ejected, and after a few tries, out it came, filthy, but only slightly scratched. I cleaned and dried the DVD and it looked not too bad.

    On rebooting, I managed to install to the HDD, and after not too long I had a working IMac running OS X Lion 10.7, with Internet running on Safari from way back when. I found an update to ver 10.7.5, and installed it. I discovered that the most recent Firefox to run on this deprecated OS I could find was Firefox ESR 45.9 (final update May 2017). So altogether, the IMac was pretty limited - like an XP PC from the same era is nowadays cut adrift through lack of support from 3rd party software.

    Still, the processor was an Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHz, and there was 2 GB of DDR2 RAM on board, and I knew I had an old Dell Latitude E6400 that failed to boot lying around, with 4GB DDR in it, so I upgraded the memory. I also remembered that the Windows digital license could be transferred to another machine...However the BootCamp version I had had support for Windows 7, so I dug up a Win7 setup disk, and installed it on the BootCamp partition I made using the Disk Utility App.

    Everything was getting easier now, back on familiar ground. I downloaded 18362, and tried to install it but the Windows 10 setup insisted that the processor did not have the "NX" bit - which it definitely does have, so I cheated and copied a 32-bit 18362 zipped VHD installation, unzipped it from 3.5 GB to a 40GB VHD, attached it in diskpart, mounted it as drive g: and ran bcdboot g:\windows to create a boot entry on the Windows 7 bootloader.

    And it runs beautifully. The only drawback is the time it takes to get to the windows boot menu. Perhaps a SSD will remedy that.

    I may swap things around and install Windows 10 in the Bootcamp partition as a 64-bit windows, and get the 32-bit Windows 7 to run in a VHD, I'll see how things go.

    So if you see an old White Intel-based IMac or MacBook from 2006/7 being given away or going for peanuts on EBay, Check it out. You might get a nice solid piece of a retro design classic that makes an excellent Windows 10 machine.

    As a postscript, you don't need to keep the Mac GPT partitions 1, 2, and 3 if you don't want it - it will run fine as a Windows 10 only machine, either as UEFI or MBR.
    Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware-image.png
      My Computers


  2. Posts : 1,481
    W10 22H2 19045.3031
       #412

    Persistence pays off..congrats...
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #413

    It really was worth it for the experience.There are Macs this old going on EBay etc. for ridiculous prices, or being recycled to plastic waste and metal and electronic recyclable scrap when their owners dump them. They will probably have another 5 years on Windows 10, and longer with Linux as usable machines.

    I'm thinking of obtaining a couple more to upcycle and sell on!
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 7,861
    Windows 11 Pro 64 bit
       #414

    Fafhrd said:
    It really was worth it for the experience.There are Macs this old going on EBay etc. for ridiculous prices, or being recycled to plastic waste and metal and electronic recyclable scrap when their owners dump them. They will probably have another 5 years on Windows 10, and longer with Linux as usable machines.

    I'm thinking of obtaining a couple more to upcycle and sell on!
    Well done to MS for continuing to support old hardware unlike Apple. I have a 2006 PC running Windows 10 just fine (System 2)
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 282
    Windows 10, 8.1, 7, and Vista
       #415

    Nice job, Fafhrd. So sad to see that people throw away perfectly good computers. Not sure if it is possible, but if you put an SSD on that iMac, it would fly.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 5,048
    Windows 10/11 Pro x64, Various Linux Builds, Networking, Storage, Cybersecurity Specialty.
       #416

    @Fafhrd -

    Interesting story, sort of like Mad Max. I like your tricks!
    However, unless you have a spare SSD, save your money. Apple produced so many of these systems.

    Maybe have it compute the value of Pi to the last digit?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #417

    Compumind said:
    @Fafhrd -

    Interesting story, sort of like Mad Max. I like your tricks!
    However, unless you have a spare SSD, save your money. Apple produced so many of these systems.

    Maybe have it compute the value of Pi to the last digit?
    Yeah, Mad Max - I like that, but I have a couple of spare SSDs, so I shall give this a go anyway - keep tuned in !
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 282
    Windows 10, 8.1, 7, and Vista
       #418

    GUYS!!!!


    I don't know what happened, but my crappy LG laptop UPDATED TO 1903 WITH NO PROBLEMS!

    After reading Fafhrd's work with the iMac, I decided to try updating my Pentium M laptop that refused to update from 1709 to 1903 and gave BSOD's all the time.

    I literally did NOTHING different, I just ran the ISO directly from the desktop and it suddenly worked. I have no idea why, but it worked!

    I am now on 1903!


    Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware-capture.pngLet's run Win10 on really really old hardware-capture-2.png
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 7,861
    Windows 11 Pro 64 bit
       #419

    Fafhrd said:
    Yeah, Mad Max - I like that, but I have a couple of spare SSDs, so I shall give this a go anyway - keep tuned in !
    I updated a 2006 PC with a cheap SSD and there was a drastic speed improvement. The PC is quite usable for normal tasks - office work, web browsing etc.
      My Computers


  10. Posts : 3,505
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 21H1 (May 2021 build 19043.1083)
       #420

    Steve C said:
    I updated a 2006 PC with a cheap SSD and there was a drastic speed improvement. The PC is quite usable for normal tasks - office work, web browsing etc.
    Unless you also want Mac OS X, I recommend wiping the disk and install Windows 10 natively, not via Bootcamp. Make sure you backup the Apple drivers before you do.
      My Computer


 

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