I don't think the installer has a problem, but I do have seen Windows Setup fail on some old AMD 64 machines. The workaround is to install Windows 7 32-bit first, activate it and then upgrade to Windows 10 32-bit. Windows 10 64-bit does not work in most old AMD 64 machines because they lack certain instructions. Stick with 32-bit, your RAM shouldn't be higher than 4GB anyway.
When Setup fails with unknown errors, like "something happened" there is no Windows error reporting, so MicroSoft can not engineer the problem. It's faulty, and there's no fix unless the Windows development team get some old Intel or AMD hardware to reproduce it, and they are not going to do that, are they?
The failures I have seen in old AMD machines are probably because Windows Setup doesn't find the appropriate drivers to install while installing Windows 10. Installing Windows 7 first, also install some generic drivers that do work and allow the system to complete setup. Then you can either update the drivers and then upgrade to Windows 10 (recommended) or upgrade directly to Windows 10 and let Windows Setup update any drivers (works but risky).
Another poster suggested to install Windows 10 to another machine and transfer the disk to the target machine. I have to warn you that this will work only if the source and target have similar hardware (Intel and Intel or AMD to AMD with a few generations difference) or the required drivers for the target machine are already available in Windows. In Windows 10 there are many drivers by default or can be downloaded at the first startups in the new machine, so there is less chance for a BSOD when transferring the disk. Of course the possibility of BSOD is still there, even if it is smaller, so I would try this method with caution. Always the safest method is to install Windows directly on the target machine, avoiding transferring the installation from another machine. I do use the transfer method when upgrading the old machine with much different new hardware (motherboard, CPU, RAM), but I avoid mixing Intel with AMD. If the old machine is Intel, to play safe I should upgrade to Intel. If it is AMD I should upgrade to AMD. Mixing rival technologies has a high risk of BSOD.
Yeah totally. I have plenty of machines that are just 1 gen newer than the Pentium-M I'm trying to get working.
Also, anyone daily driving their old machines?
I have an old laptop I bought in December 2004. Here are the specs:
HP Pavilion zv5380us Notebook PC
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.2GHz
- RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR-333 (2x1GB)
- GPU: nVidia Geforce 4 440 Go (64MB dedicated RAM)
- Display 15.4in (1280x800)
- Network: Realtek RTL8101L 10/100Mbps
- WiFi: Broadcom 802.11b/g
- Sound: 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible
- Hard Drive: 80GB IDE (4200RPM)
- Chipset: nVidia nForce 4
It came with Windows XP but I am now running Windows 7 Home on it. Everything works but it is really slow.
Hint: to speed up the computer do this:
Control Panel > System & Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings
Select Adjust for best performance
I tried to upgrade to Windows 10 Home 32-bit. That failed with an automatic restore of Windows 7.
I repartitioned the hard drive leaving 38GB unallocated. This free space was for Windows 10.
On my Windows 10 desktop I used Media Creation Tool 1909 to create a Windows 10 install on a flash drive. Unfortunately when I booted the laptop I discovered there was no option to boot from a USB drive.
I went back to Media Creation Tool and downloaded the Windows 10 ISO file. While in Media Creation Tool I selected burn DVD. It finished but failed the verification.
I rebooted and then used Nero to burn the ISO again. This time it verified OK.
I did a clean install of Windows 10 Home 32-bit. I had a lot of problems with the install but I finally got to the desktop.
When I brought up the Device Manager I discovered a disaster. Only the basic drivers were working. Everything else was not. Examples of failed devices:
Geforce Geforce 4 440 Go (only basics drivers) 1024x768
Audio Device (failed)
Realtek RTL8101L (failed)
Broadcom 802.11b/g (failed)
Touch Pad (failed)
Card Reader (failed)
Modem (failed)
PC Card (failed)
I tried to find either a WiFi or Network driver but could not find any that worked. If I could have I could have used Windows Update to search for drivers for other failed devices. I finally gave up.
I rebooted into the other partition with Windows 7. I deleted the partition with Windows 10. I resized the Windows 7 partition to reclaim the free space.
Last edited by MisterEd; 04 Apr 2020 at 15:06.
There is no Windows Vista or newer graphics driver (WDDM) for nVidia GeForce 4 and earlier cards. WDDM driver exist from GeForce 5 FX series and newer. So Windows 10 doesn't find any driver and is using Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. This has zero hardware acceleration (software only) and makes the computer very slow. I suggest you run Windows 7 32-bit and use the Windows XP graphics driver (XPDM) to have some acceleration. For the rest devices search for drivers for Windows 8/10 or 7 or Vista (in that order, the newer the better) and install them. In worst case you could use the Windows XP driver, but it is best if you install Vista 32-bit or newer instead. If you install all drivers properly, including the Windows XP graphics driver, your system should be at least as fast as with Windows XP and much more modern. This means better compatibility with new peripherals and applications.
I have said that in some previous post, but I remind that here: Check for drivers first (especially WDDM drivers for graphics) before installing Windows 10. If you install at least Vista 32-bit graphics drivers (WDDM 1.0), then you should have some acceleration. If you cannot find WDDM drivers install Windows 7 32-bit instead and use the XP graphics driver (XPDM). Also there are no Windows 10 drivers for that old machines. Look for Windows 7 32-bit or Vista 32-bit (in that order, then newer the better). In worst case you could use the Windows XP drivers for some devices, but it should be your last resort, not your first choice.
I was disappointed when Windows Vista came out in January 2007. Unfortunately I think HP only provided Vista updates to computers that came out around mid 2006. People with older computer were out of luck because no drivers newer than Windows XP would ever be available.
I have been using the nVidia Windows XP driver from HP with Windows 7. That was the only OEM driver I needed with Windows 7. Everything else worked so I left them alone.
When I tried to upgrade to Windows 7 the nVidia driver was already installed under Windows 7. I should have stopped there because before the upgrade started I got a warning that there was no nVidia driver for Windows 10 available.
I tried all the HP drivers I had for Windows XP but none of them worked. I found newer non-OEM drivers online but none of them worked either.
I have two other old computers that started with Windows XP and were upgraded to Windows 7. They work OK but slow with Windows 7 but in no way would be suitable to be upgraded to Windows 10.
One of these computers was build back in 2002. It has an nForce2 chipset, an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ CPU, an nVidia GeForce FX5900 GPU, and 2GB DDR RAM.
BTW, I made the move to upgrade these computers to Windows 7 in December 2011. I managed to find a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Family for $130. This was a bargain because I could use it to upgrade up to 3 computers with it. It also had both 32-bit and 64-bit disks for Windows 7. I used it upgrade two desktops and one laptop to Windows 7 Home 32-bit. Years later I even I pulled out the 64-bit disk and upgraded one of these computers from 32-bit to 64-bit. Note I upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 8GB also.
Last edited by MisterEd; 04 Apr 2020 at 15:31.
The first step to find drivers for a laptop (or OEM computer) is to visit the manufacturer's support site. In your case HP support site. Some times the manufacturer will not offer Windows 7 or 10 drivers on purpose to force you replace the old machine with a newer machine, hopefully from him again. This doesn't necessarily means that the laptop cannot run Windows 7 or 10. So the next step is to search for drivers at the component manufacturer's support site.
How do I know the hardware of my system to search for drivers? That is easy. There are several utilities such as Aida64 and Speccy that can tell you details about your hardware without any drivers installed. So you know what to look for. From the two I prefer Aida64 because it shows much more details and also have benchmarks you can run to check performance (after drivers are updated). It frequently points you to the appropriate support site to download the drivers. You can also Google the device, once you know what it is.
For example, my main PC is custom-build by me, so I have to look all the components separately, starting from the motherboard (chipset, sound card, network card). I load Aida64, then I go to Computer->Summary and I find the key devices:
CPU: Intel Core-i3 3220, so I should need Intel chipset drivers, see below
Motherboard: Asus P8H61, so I visit www.asus.com and search for drivers for P8H61. I start with the chipset driver.
Chipset: Intel H61, just in case I want to download latest chipset driver directly from Intel | Data Center Solutions, IoT, and PC Innovation
Video Adapter (aka graphics card) : Geforce GT 620 (this is nVidia), so I visit www.nvidia.com for drivers.
Sound card: Realtek ALC887 High Definition, so I visit www.realtek.com and search for HD audio codec software.
Network Card: Realtek PCIe GBE (Gigabit), so I visit Realtek and search for PCIe and then Gigabit.
The last two devices should have drivers at Asus support site (motherboard) but I prefer latest drivers directly from Realtek.
For more devices I can then navigate to Devices -> Windows Devices and see which ones do not currently have a driver.
Or I can navigate to Devices -> Physical Devices and have a look at the list to identify the remaining devices (harder, for advanced users).
So if at your case HP offers only XP drivers, no sweat, use Aida64 to identify your hardware and then manually search for each device.
A far easier way is to use a driver utility such as Snappy Driver Installer to automatically identify your devices, download and install drivers for you. However there is a risk that unnecessarily updating drivers for the chipset (in my case anyone starting with Intel) could give you a BSOD and fail to load Windows at next restart. So use such tools with caution. Avoid updating the chipset drivers (Intel...something or AMD...something). I would also avoid any updates (blue color) and only install missing drivers (green color). After I have all drivers installed (no yellow ! at Device Manager), I would enable System Restore Points, create one, restart and THEN try any updates. But as wise men say "if it works, don't fix it".
My biggest roadblock was I couldn't find a driver for either WiFi or NIC. That made it impossible to use any third party software to find updated drivers and download them.
BTW, I only did this as a challenge. The laptop that replaced it is much faster anyways. It has an AMD Ryzen 7 2700U APU with a separate dedicated Radeon RX540 graphics chip, 8GB RAM, and a 500GB M.2 SSD. It boots a whole lot faster than the old laptop ever did.
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