Will my laptop manage Windows 10

[Jcmg62]

Hey All

I guess this is more a question directed to forum members who are technologically (hardware and software) savvy...

I have a trusty old Toshiba Satellite laptop that I use heavily and constantly as my primary computer. Although it's only running Windows 7 Home I've been using it as my primary small business computer for 6 years. It has gigabytes of really important emails and documents on it (all backed up to Onedrive and Outlook.com so not really too worried about losing data)

It's running Windows 7, 32 bit. It has a 128GB hard drive (about 50GB free), 3GB ram and a Pentium Duel Core 2.10Ghz CPU.

Over the past 6 months I've noticed that it's starting to show it's age. Opening webpages has gotten really slow, email attachments take longer to open, video's take forever to load, even basic word and excel inputs have slowed down. It's been used to the point where the lettering has come off of some of the keys....this thing has taken a highly productive beating over the past half decade

I'm all hooked up to get Windows 10 when it launches but I'm really concerned that if the machine is struggling on Win7 then Win10 is just going to be way too much for it to handle.

Is it wise to crank such an old machine up to Win10 or should I stick with 7?

On a side note, can anyone suggest any really excellent diagnostics and repair software I can download (either paid or free) so I can give the old gal a bit of spring clean?

Many Thanks for help and suggestions in advance

 

[v535]

Hey All

I guess this is more a question directed to forum members who are technologically (hardware and software) savvy...

I have a trusty old Toshiba Satellite laptop that I use heavily and constantly as my primary computer. Although it's only running Windows 7 Home I've been using it as my primary small business computer for 6 years. It has gigabytes of really important emails and documents on it (all backed up to Onedrive and Outlook.com so not really too worried about losing data)

It's running Windows 7, 32 bit. It has a 128GB hard drive (about 50GB free), 3GB ram and a Pentium Duel Core 2.10Ghz CPU.

Over the past 6 months I've noticed that it's starting to show it's age. Opening webpages has gotten really slow, email attachments take longer to open, video's take forever to load, even basic word and excel inputs have slowed down. It's been used to the point where the lettering has come off of some of the keys....this thing has taken a highly productive beating over the past half decade

I'm all hooked up to get Windows 10 when it launches but I'm really concerned that if the machine is struggling on Win7 then Win10 is just going to be way too much for it to handle.

Is it wise to crank such an old machine up to Win10 or should I stick with 7?

On a side note, can anyone suggest any really excellent diagnostics and repair software I can download (either paid or free) so I can give the old gal a bit of spring clean?

Many Thanks for help and suggestions in advance

Are you using an SSD or mechanical one, a HDD? Install CCleaner to clear out garbage. For cleaning, its better to watch video on how to clean your PC by removing dust and replacing TIM. Maybe others knowledgeable on diagnostics software can help suggest tool ideal for the job.

 

[owensdj]

Windows 10 should run pretty well on that machine. Just make sure you do a fresh reinstall of Windows 10 after you do the in-place upgrade to Windows 10. A fresh reinstall will most likely fix that slowness you've been seeing lately.

 

[David Feifer]

You should be able to run windows 10 on that. If you really want to make that run like a new computer I would also suggest replacing the hard drive with an ssd. You would probably atleast double the performance you are getting right now. also install the 64 bit version of windows and max out your ram. In a business environment I would not even think about running a system on our domain without atleast 4 gigs of ram in it. We do not have a vdi or use virtual apps so I see the effect of our software on regular systems. ie. Just outlook by itself and Symantec endpoint protection with use up half the available ram. Once you use up 85% of system ram you start caching to hard drive quite a bit which is when you start noticing slowdowns and responsiveness issues.

For the short term, make sure you are running check disk and defraging in regularly. By default defrag should be running as part of the maintenance tasks every Wednesday at about 3am but I have seen a few of my users computers that always shut everything down when they are done which in the long term meant that the maintenance tasks had not run in months.

Also check the event viewer and verify that you do not have applications or system devices that are acting up. antivirus checking of attachments in email is a large performance hit and I have had a rash of office installation issues lately that required it being uninstalled and reinstalled since regular repair scenarios did not fix the issue.

Something else to keep in mind. There is a 50% failure rate of all drives by year 6. For every year after that you are looking at about a 12% increase in the chance that the drive will fail and need to be replaced.

 

[Marquis de Faux]

Windows 10 should run fine. I'm running it on my 10 year old Dell Dimension E521.
I would suggest a clean install, if you don't mind the hassle.
Otherwise, use disk defrag, disk cleanup, and go through your list of installed programs and remove anything you don't need. Also go to Run->msconfig and uncheck anything you don't need to run at startup.
When your computer is running slow, go to the task manager and see what is hogging resources. I would also recommend RAM upgrade.

 

[Jcmg62]

Thanks for your response. How do I perform a clean install? Not something I've done before.

Cheers

John

 

[Marquis de Faux]

Thanks for your response. How do I perform a clean install? Not something I've done before.

Cheers

John

Do you have the original OS disk that came with your PC? If not, you can create a Windows 7 install disk or USB using an ISO. Just boot into it and wipe everything and reinstall (some OEM disks say "Restore to factory state" or something like that. Make sure you have your license though (usually on a sticker under the laptop). Also make sure you back up all your files, as a clean install will wipe all files and programs.

I will not be accountable if you lose anything lol.

 

[Jcmg62]

Do you have the original OS disk that came with your PC? If not, you can create a Windows 7 install disk or USB using an ISO. Just boot into it and wipe everything and reinstall (some OEM disks say "Restore to factory state" or something like that. Make sure you have your license though (usually on a sticker under the laptop). Also make sure you back up all your files, as a clean install will wipe all files and programs.

LOL ok, I don't have the OS Disk anymore, but there's a program called Toshiba recovery disc creator loaded on the machine. I'll give it a go and hope for the best. Thanks for your help

I will not be accountable if you lose anything lol.

 

[arjan wolthuis]

You be amazed what windows 10 can run with. Tp cpuld run on my old C2D

 

[queentut16]

I took my old Dell laptop (similar specs to yours) from vista up to the Win 10 preview and it's working great (as well as can be hoped for on an 8 year old laptop). I regained a chunk of drive space that must have been used by the OS and things are running pretty smoothly (still feels like it takes a day and a half to start up and shut down, but my primary driver is an sp3 so that's not a fair comparison)

 

[jojoe42]

Thanks for your response. How do I perform a clean install? Not something I've done before.

Cheers

John

When you upgrade to Windows 10 you can go to Update & Recovery and hit reset. Windows will take care of formatting everything and reinstalling the OS for you