Updating to Windows 10/ancient computer

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FIYes

Full time employment: Posting here.
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I am trying to decide whether to update my laptop to Windows 10 or replace or some other alternative. It is currently on Windows 7. I purchased this laptop 11 years ago. I used it quite a bit the first couple of years. Since then it has been relegated to use for Turbo Tax and the occasional power point presentation for clubs that I am member of. These uses mean that it has pretty much not even been turned on this past year...tax season ended and no in person club meetings. I installed Windows 10 back in the day and didn’t care for it. Due to a malware attack we had a computer fixit guy clean up my laptop and DH’s desktop. As part of that clean up he took both machines back to Windows 7.

Right now I’m exploring whether or not I can still access a free Windows 10. I realize that an 11 year old laptop isn’t worth putting much money into and a new laptop might be a better alternative.

Anyone else dealing with this thought process?
 
From my experience, Win 10 seems to work better with Intel processors than AMD.

Had an old Dell desktop with an AMD processor. Fell for that free upgrade to Win 10 offer when Win 10 just started. Installed seemed to work fine but for a strange reason the computer would just crash. Found out was due to an AMD chip.
 
I would look at getting a new machine unless you want a project. I converted an old machine to Windows 10, but I also added some memory, installed an SSD and started with a fresh install of Windows 10. It wasn’t that hard, but if it’s not your thing and you want to save time, just get a new laptop. Even a low end computer built today is going to be better than an 11 year old laptop.
 
Slight variation: A newer laptop with SSD and rolled back to a clean Win 10 installation, bought on CraigsList. For your needs you don't need leading edge hardware. These are frequently available from home-based computer businesses who can provide some hand-holding during the transition. Your "computer fixit" guy might be a good source too.
 
My main PC is a desktop that I built in 2009. It's been through XP, Vista, Win7 (for a long time), and now Win10. The change from 7 to 10 was the easiest I've ever done... and totally free. I used some instructions on CNET that took me to a Microsoft Win10 download page.

It took about 1.5 hours with almost no prep. It converted all my programs and configured everything exactly the way I had it in Win7. I was expecting it to be like the old days of reinstalling an OS, which is an all-day process. But it was more like updating your phone to a new version of Android. Super easy.

Windows 10 is MUCH better than when it was first released. Still, I spent some time carefully going through the privacy settings and removing some useless MS bloatware. I'm very happy with how it's working on a very old PC. I subsequently installed it on DMIL's old desktop as well.

I think if your laptop is still working OK, give it a try. The upgrade is free, so there's no risk.
 
My thoughts on this are -- "If it's not broke, don't fix it".
If you are happy with the performance under W7, then continue to use it.

A few caveats apply here however,

#1) Eventually you may have trouble browsing web sites as the security/SSL/TLS evolve over time. You might see this with financial web sites where you have accounts first, but eventually start to see it on all web sites. I see this when I run on my Windows 2000 machine in year 2021.

#2) Backup your computer "often enough" so that if you lost all of your work since your last backup, you would not be unhappy. Test your backups to ensure that you can recover from your backups if necessary.

#3) Only have information on this machine that you would would not be unhappy if it were to be disclosed publicly. This information would include anything you type into your computer such as your online banking/brokerage passwords -- Understand your risks of loss if this indeed were to be the case.

#4) Only have information on this machine that you would not be unhappy if it were to be changed without your knowledge or consent.

I mention items #2 - #4 because running an old system past support will introduce security risks. I have tried to list here the major security risks, as I see them, so that you can make a decision if the risk is worth the benefit.

-gauss
 
Last edited:
gauss said:
My thoughts on this are -- "If it's not broke, don't fix it".
If you are happy with the performance under W7, then continue to use it.

A few caveats apply here however,
Click to expand...

I think the caveat is that he wants to use it for Turbo Tax. I haven’t kept up on the thread, but I think there’s a member here that is trying to install TT on a Win 7 machine and unable to do so this year. He might have figured it out by now, but I don’t think it was a simple tweak.
 
I just did the free 7 to 10 update on my laptop. I did it mainly to run Turbotax.

It went fairly well.

I like Windows 10. I am observing the following negative issues:
- It seems to take a long time to bring up the Windows sign in password menu.
- I had an older version of Microsoft Office installed from a coworker. That license was expired, so a new $100 annual fee is now required to use Office. I installed Openoffice for free, and it works great.

An Openoffice issue:
- I keep all of my passwords in an encrypted Excel file. Possibly a stupid practice. Openoffice won't let me open and convert that file. I'm going to open it on my friends computer, save it as non encrypted Excel, convert to Openoffice, and save it with a new password. I haven't determined if a password protected Openoffice file is encrypted yet.

Take care, JP
Jerry1 said:
I think the caveat is that he wants to use it for Turbo Tax. I haven’t kept up on the thread, but I think there’s a member here that is trying to install TT on a Win 7 machine and unable to do so this year. He might have figured it out by now, but I don’t think it was a simple tweak.
Click to expand...
 
FIYes said:
I am trying to decide whether to update my laptop to Windows 10 or replace or some other alternative. It is currently on Windows 7. I purchased this laptop 11 years ago. I used it quite a bit the first couple of years. Since then it has been relegated to use for Turbo Tax and the occasional power point presentation for clubs that I am member of. These uses mean that it has pretty much not even been turned on this past year...tax season ended and no in person club meetings. I installed Windows 10 back in the day and didn’t care for it. Due to a malware attack we had a computer fixit guy clean up my laptop and DH’s desktop. As part of that clean up he took both machines back to Windows 7.

Right now I’m exploring whether or not I can still access a free Windows 10. I realize that an 11 year old laptop isn’t worth putting much money into and a new laptop might be a better alternative.

Anyone else dealing with this thought process?
Click to expand...
I had a similar replacement or upgrade thought process 5-6 years ago, and decided on a new Dell desktop. Kept the old Windows 7 laptop, installed Linux, and occasionally use it. Now I am contemplating the next purchase, as the circa-2015 desktop hardware is getting long in the tooth.

Why spend valuable time in retirement on this? You can cut in a very nice notebook and really enjoy things for the next 5 years (or further maybe). At least this is how I view things. FYI, I am able to install TurboTax years 2011 through the present with no problem. I needed to do this to help someone file past years, and everything worked, except for e-file in past years.
 
I think the oldest processor that will run Win 10 is a very late Pentium 4. Core 2 Duo runs it ok, but much better with an SSD.
 
I upgraded my 10 year old desktop from windows 7 to windows 10 six months ago. It is/was still a free upgrade. I got the details of how to do this on line...from pc mag I believe.

So, the upgrade went very well. I am still getting used to 10. Performance is much better. This may be because I replace the system disk and restored prior to moving to 10. Got rid of a lot of junk than may have been impeding performance.

It went so well, and was so easy that I did the same on a 10 year old notebook that DW uses from time to time.
 
JP.mpls said:
I just did the free 7 to 10 update on my laptop. I did it mainly to run Turbotax.

It went fairly well.

I like Windows 10. I am observing the following negative issues:
- It seems to take a long time to bring up the Windows sign in password menu.
- I had an older version of Microsoft Office installed from a coworker. That license was expired, so a new $100 annual fee is now required to use Office. I installed Openoffice for free, and it works great.

An Openoffice issue:
- I keep all of my passwords in an encrypted Excel file. Possibly a stupid practice. Openoffice won't let me open and convert that file. I'm going to open it on my friends computer, save it as non encrypted Excel, convert to Openoffice, and save it with a new password. I haven't determined if a password protected Openoffice file is encrypted yet.

Take care, JP
Click to expand...

I will urge you to try keepassXC from https://keepassxc.org/

It is so much better than using a spreadsheet for passwords. It's free.
 
FIYes said:
I am trying to decide whether to update my laptop to Windows 10 or replace or some other alternative. It is currently on Windows 7. I purchased this laptop 11 years ago. I used it quite a bit the first couple of years. Since then it has been relegated to use for Turbo Tax and the occasional power point presentation for clubs that I am member of. These uses mean that it has pretty much not even been turned on this past year...tax season ended and no in person club meetings. I installed Windows 10 back in the day and didn’t care for it. Due to a malware attack we had a computer fixit guy clean up my laptop and DH’s desktop. As part of that clean up he took both machines back to Windows 7.

Right now I’m exploring whether or not I can still access a free Windows 10. I realize that an 11 year old laptop isn’t worth putting much money into and a new laptop might be a better alternative.

Anyone else dealing with this thought process?
Click to expand...
(Bold emphasis mine).

YES - - a new laptop is the perfect alternative. I think you should definitely go for it! Windows 10 is much improved, and I doubt that you would miss Windows 7 for more than about 10 minutes. You would not miss your 11 year old laptop either, if you replace it with a slick new laptop with SSD drive.
 
I was able to update to Windows 10 for free!
 
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^^^ I think you did the right thing. AFAIK, Windows 7 no longer receives updates and patches, which could make it more vulnerable to malware etc.
 
FIYes said:
I was able to update to Windows 10 for free!
Click to expand...


Great to year. I also have a 10 year old laptop that I do not use much (primarily as an input to the home theater receiver for stuff via the PC) that i updated to Windows 10 a couple of years ago for free, no issues.
 
The only issue you may run into is drivers for older hardware like printers and scanners. You may need to run the Windows 7 driver to get your older printer/scanner to work on Win 10.
 
I buy used laptops on eBay that run Windows 7 or have Windows 7 COA and upgrade them to Windows 10.
I have had only one that had a problem that I could not solve.
It was an ASUS and the trackpad driver simply would not install.
When Googling, it appeared to be a known issue. The odd thing is that the Windows 8 driver supposedly worked. It also may be a hardware issue as the flex cable was not in best of condition.

Use Macrium Free Reflect to make an image backup of your hard drive to an external hard drive. You should be doing this regularly anyway.
And also backup your important files to a USB flash drive.
.
 
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