[Editguy1900]

I upgraded a Asus laptop manufactured in 2007 with similar specs to 8.1 and it runs great. Went from nearly two minute boot time down to twenty seconds. Runs much better than it did with the original OS. Windows 8.1 is an excellent OS. in spite of what naysayers say.

[peachy001]

I would suggest, unless you hit a bottleneck you can stick w/ your current specs and upgrade to 7 or 8.1 with minor hiccups (Driver issues for legacy X1300 PRO but would work). Upgrading RAM to 4 GB and Video Card to a DX10+ would definitely help.

can I pick up one of those video cards cheaply? When I took it into a local PC store they looked at me like I was bonkers. However, they are likely top end users.

Also, I reckon that it may be more cost effective to just save up and upgrade the lot, the whole driver issue is one that I don't fancy faffing with. If I fo end up upgrading I can afford to then muck about with the spare machine. Trouble is, I can't risk not being able to use a PC.

[peachy001]

No offense but I think you need to do your homework on the subject. Microsoft has hardly missed a trick on this one. Windows 8.x will run easily and with resources to spare on an old netbook (I have done it as have others). .

no offence taken, I appreciate you taking the time to read my question and give me your opinion. I hadn't known anyone that had done it, and to be fair, when I see minimum specs listed I am always quite cautious as to what level of performance can be achieved at those speeds. As for homework, these forums formed part of my homework. When I searched for answers before I tended to drop into forums and sites of real PC geeks, they had the where with all to get out of any mess they got into. The forums here tend to be a bit friendlier and less confrontational, makes asking a silly question feel less silly. I wasn't about to faff about registering on another site, that I would likely not use again, to then get shot down for an impertinent question.
MS may not have missed a trick, but I reckon a lot of the answers on here, including yours, point to the fact that, contrary to the expectations of many, Windows 8 would actually run on older machines. I know they are not a charity, although the philanthropy of Gates sort of actually means they are closer than most businesses. However, there were rumours that they may consider giving 8 away with Bing, as some kind of cut down version. So maybe they could drag a couple of reluctant upgraders along that way. Again, thanks for the contribution, it has helped.

[peachy001]

I upgraded a Asus laptop manufactured in 2007 with similar specs to 8.1 and it runs great. Went from nearly two minute boot time down to twenty seconds. Runs much better than it did with the original OS. Windows 8.1 is an excellent OS. in spite of what naysayers say.

Thanks for that, there are a lot of posts here that are filling me with confidence. I am currently favouring the buy new route, and then play about with my old one and do it that way. I need the security blanket of a working machine. Good to hear a lot of people have tried it on old machines and won!

[pankaj981]

can I pick up one of those video cards cheaply? When I took it into a local PC store they looked at me like I was bonkers. However, they are likely top end users.

Also, I reckon that it may be more cost effective to just save up and upgrade the lot, the whole driver issue is one that I don't fancy faffing with. If I fo end up upgrading I can afford to then muck about with the spare machine. Trouble is, I can't risk not being able to use a PC.

I would definitely help but before that I would need the specs of your current PC's motherboard. I would say, download a program called Speccy (shows detailed specs of all peripherals connected to your machine) and post your existing motherboard details from it. Also do mention how much are you willing to spend. Also what do you currently use your machine for? (gaming, work, word processing, etc..)

[fdalbor]

I just bought a new HP Envy 23 touch screen with 8.0 on it (ugraded to 8.1) and it is fine. But I decided to keep my old Compaq desktop so I bought the full version (you can't use the upgrade on XP) of 8.1 and put it on the Compaq. It only has 2GB of ram a 300GB hard drive a Nvdia 6150LE video board and a single core Athlon64 3.8. It runs great under 8.1, much better than it did under XP(32bit) and I am a big XP fan. I think 8.1 will run on just about anything as long as you have a 64bit processor and 2 GB of memory.

[peachy001]

I would definitely help but before that I would need the specs of your current PC's motherboard. I would say, download a program called Speccy (shows detailed specs of all peripherals connected to your machine) and post your existing motherboard details from it. Also do mention how much are you willing to spend. Also what do you currently use your machine for? (gaming, work, word processing, etc..)

I will have a look. Use it mainly for work.

[pankaj981]

I will have a look. Use it mainly for work.

As long as your work doesn't involve anything that needs a powerful machine, you should be fine

[peachy001]

Nothing major at the moment. I will hunt down those other specs.