XP upgrade to win 7? Advice & price?



My folks recently gave me an old laptop with WinXP on it. I can't even watch Netflix or install Steam on it, so I'm going to upgrade the OS to make it useful for something other than solitaire and basic browsing.

It's an AMD Turion64, 1.61 GHz, with 1GB of RAM and a 110GB HD.

1. What OS will be the best fit for it? (Will it even run Win7 or should I get a copy of Vista for it?)
2. How much am I going to have to pay for a suitable OS for it?
3. Where should I buy from? (I notice I can buy from eBay for about £3 but concerned it might be dodgy). Does anyone here own an extra (legit and unused) license key they could let me have cheaply?

Thanks in advance.

And yes I do plan to format the fucker.
I'd buy a second hand or new cheap laptop mate. That thing is so outdated you won't be able to run normal stuff on it as none of the hardware will be getting regular driver updates still.

Plus buying one should come with windows 10
 
W10 32bit. Download it onto a USB stick and install. Only requires 1GB RAM and the processor will just about handle it.

But seriously, treat them to a new one. Turion CPUs were crap, even back when they were new.
 
I'd buy a second hand or new cheap laptop mate. That thing is so outdated you won't be able to run normal stuff on it as none of the hardware will be getting regular driver updates still.

Plus buying one should come with windows 10

I still can't afford it.
 
Not really true these days though, the various Linux derivatives have turned even more bloated than windows.

Minimum recommended spec for Ubuntu Desktop is 2GB of RAM.

Minimum recommended spec for Win 7 (32) is 1GB RAM
Try one of the minimalist variants of Ubuntu, like Lubuntu or Xubuntu.
 
My folks recently gave me an old laptop with WinXP on it. I can't even watch Netflix or install Steam on it, so I'm going to upgrade the OS to make it useful for something other than solitaire and basic browsing.

It's an AMD Turion64, 1.61 GHz, with 1GB of RAM and a 110GB HD.

1. What OS will be the best fit for it? (Will it even run Win7 or should I get a copy of Vista for it?)
2. How much am I going to have to pay for a suitable OS for it?
3. Where should I buy from? (I notice I can buy from eBay for about £3 but concerned it might be dodgy). Does anyone here own an extra (legit and unused) license key they could let me have cheaply?

Thanks in advance.

And yes I do plan to format the fucker.

If you're going to install a copy of Windows on it, avoid Windows Vista at all costs. Windows 7 should run on that old specification machine better than Vista though performance won't be brilliant. I would install Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox rather than use Internet Explorer.

(Windows 10 can in theory and strangely Windows 8.1 might manage too, but also avoid Windows 8.0.)

If you can, get the memory upgraded. The manual will tell you what you can do. You might be able to make it to 2GB (spare slot or replace the SODIMM module already present) or even 4GB (probably pushing it) depending on the laptop. The hard drive should definitely be replaceable with something bigger too. You might get up 500 GB working on it.

Windows 7 can be picked up for next to nothing now with it approaching the end of it's lifespan. There's plenty offers on Ebay and Software Geeks, though I'm unsure of the legitimacy of some of the very cheap offers.

I note other posts about Ubuntu. Try but beware if you're a techy, however, if you're not too technical it can be a steep learning curve.

Not really true these days though, the various Linux derivatives have turned even more bloated than windows.

Minimum recommended spec for Ubuntu Desktop is 2GB of RAM.

Minimum recommended spec for Win 7 (32) is 1GB RAM

This.
 
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The hard drive should definitely be replaceable with something bigger too. You might get up 500 GB working on it..
Agree that a change of hard drive would help but is it has a SATA connection a lower capacity SSD would help with the system speed, especially if using page swapping due to lack of memory. You can pick up 12ogb drives for £20.
 
My folks recently gave me an old laptop with WinXP on it. I can't even watch Netflix or install Steam on it, so I'm going to upgrade the OS to make it useful for something other than solitaire and basic browsing.

It's an AMD Turion64, 1.61 GHz, with 1GB of RAM and a 110GB HD.

1. What OS will be the best fit for it? (Will it even run Win7 or should I get a copy of Vista for it?)
2. How much am I going to have to pay for a suitable OS for it?
3. Where should I buy from? (I notice I can buy from eBay for about £3 but concerned it might be dodgy). Does anyone here own an extra (legit and unused) license key they could let me have cheaply?

Thanks in advance.

And yes I do plan to format the fucker.
Dends what you want but these do licences (I've bought two before) Products | Softwaregeeks.co.uk
 

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