Windows Vista upgrade to Win7?

On 10/21/2015 1:46 PM, XS11E wrote:
FredW wrote:

I know slow ain't broke but can slow be fixed?

I can and will change from 1G ram to 2G ram, that's really cheap
and might help some.

If its really cheap proceed to 4 GB.

2G is max for the laptop, don't know how much it'll help but it's less
than $30 so it's worth a try.



This is old info, but...
I found a major improvement going from 512MB to 1GB of ram.
The improvement to 2GB was much less dramatic.
I had a xp system with 5400rpm hard drive. Changing to 7200rpm
made way more improvement than I expected.
Sample size is 1, so YMMV.

"Slow" is a very vague term. Can you be more specific??
I once had a laptop where the boot time was longer than the battery life.
But, after it was up, it was quite usable.

I've found that, as time marches on, malware protection eats up more
and more of the system horsepower.

Download linux. I like MacPup 550 for diagnostics because it
seems to play well with any hardware configuration with no fuss.
Boot the CD and see how it performs. Runs out of ram, so
it's about as fast as it gets. If it ain't fast enough, not much
you're gonna be able to do with a windows OS to suit your needs.
I'm not suggesting that you convert to linux...it's a
comparative diagnostic test.

I wouldn't put ANY money into that laptop.

s|b wrote on 10/21/2015 4:16 PM:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:01:41 +0200, FredW wrote:

it is s l oooooo w...

Use more RAM

I'd say install a SSD if possible. More RAM doesn't necessarily mean
more speed.

An old XP pc probably was IDE HD, you'd have lots of issues finding a IDE SSD.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
[]
A 32 bit OS runs 32 and 16 bit apps (important for
older 16 bit installer code - it's not usually the
application which is 16 bit, just the crusty installer).

A 64 bit OS runs 64 bit and 32 bit apps, but then
any older software using a 16 bit installer won't install.
[]
I've been reading this for sufficiently long and sufficiently often that
I'm willing to accept that it's true (does the same apply back into
history, assuming there is such a thing as 8 bit software?).

However, I've yet to see a good explanation of _why_ it is so - why, for
example, you can't run 16 bit software on a 64 bit OS. (Or why the OS
creator[s] decided to do things that way, if that's a better question to
ask.)

Windows has a WOW subsystem (Windows On Windows) that
takes care of the lower-bitness code launching. I've read
that in theory, they could extend operation to 16 bits
(so 64-32-16 on a 64 bit OS), but the complexity
of doing so would potentially mean introducing more
bugs. And heaven knows, we wouldn't want that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_On_Windows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOW64

Paul

In message , mike
writes:
[]
This is old info, but...
I found a major improvement going from 512MB to 1GB of ram.

For XP, that cheered up my brother's laptop a lot (also some while ago).

The improvement to 2GB was much less dramatic.

For this netbook, 1G to 2G made very little difference _at the time I
did it_. (I only did it because "received wisdom" was that XP - I bought
it in the last days of XP, in order to get XP rather than Vista - would
be much happier with 2G, so I bought a 2G stick about the same time I
bought the computer; after a few months, I thought I'd better get round
to fitting it.) _Now_, I am usually using more than 1G (1.27 ATM),
mainly Firefox, so I _would_ notice it. (_Then_, I was only using about
7xx MB most of the time.)

I had a xp system with 5400rpm hard drive. Changing to 7200rpm
made way more improvement than I expected.

I wonder, though, how much of that was due to a bigger buffer, rather
than the only 50% increase in rotational speed.

Sample size is 1, so YMMV.

Ditto.
[]
I wouldn't put ANY money into that laptop.

I _sort of_ agree: depends if you actually intend to use it. If you do,
then the more RAM probably _is_ worth it.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
[]
A 32 bit OS runs 32 and 16 bit apps (important for
older 16 bit installer code - it's not usually the
application which is 16 bit, just the crusty installer).

A 64 bit OS runs 64 bit and 32 bit apps, but then
any older software using a 16 bit installer won't install.
[]
I've been reading this for sufficiently long and sufficiently often
that I'm willing to accept that it's true (does the same apply back
into history, assuming there is such a thing as 8 bit software?).
However, I've yet to see a good explanation of _why_ it is so - why,
for example, you can't run 16 bit software on a 64 bit OS. (Or why
the OS creator[s] decided to do things that way, if that's a better
question to ask.)

Windows has a WOW subsystem (Windows On Windows) that
takes care of the lower-bitness code launching. I've read
that in theory, they could extend operation to 16 bits
(so 64-32-16 on a 64 bit OS), but the complexity
of doing so would potentially mean introducing more
bugs. And heaven knows, we wouldn't want that.
[]
But couldn't the 32-16 bit WOW run under the 64-32 bit one, as a 32-bit
piece of software? (Or is that what you meant?) Who cares if it's
inefficient; the new machine would probably be more than twice as
powerful as the one it replaces, so no degradation - probably an
improvement - should be seen.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.

Big Al wrote:

s|b wrote on 10/21/2015 4:16 PM:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:01:41 +0200, FredW wrote:

it is s l oooooo w...

Use more RAM

I'd say install a SSD if possible. More RAM doesn't necessarily
mean more speed.

An old XP pc probably was IDE HD, you'd have lots of issues
finding a IDE SSD.

Good point. It's a laptop so I'd have to check. I don't think a SSD
is the way to go, figuring price vs usage. The extra RAM is about all
I'm willing to spend on it.


--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

mike wrote:

I wouldn't put ANY money into that laptop.

Maybe the best advice yet! Thanks.




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On 10/21/2015 02:35 PM, XS11E wrote:
mike wrote:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I agee completely, it ain't broke but....

it is s l oooooo w...

I know slow ain't broke but can slow be fixed?

I can and will change from 1G ram to 2G ram, that's really cheap and
might help some.





Whether you go with Win7 or not...absolutely bump your ram up to 2 gigs


Run msconfig and take un-needed apps out of start up

and in the control panel set for "best performance"

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

But couldn't the 32-16 bit WOW run under the 64-32 bit one, as a 32-bit
piece of software? (Or is that what you meant?) Who cares if it's
inefficient; the new machine would probably be more than twice as
powerful as the one it replaces, so no degradation - probably an
improvement - should be seen.

I get the impression this was a "business call"
rather than something technical.

Paul

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:10:26 -0700, XS11E
wrote:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , XS11E
writes:
"s|b" wrote:

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:01:41 +0200, FredW wrote:

it is s l oooooo w...

Use more RAM

I'd say install a SSD if possible. More RAM doesn't necessarily
mean more speed.

Probably not possible, like most laptops it's not easy to upgrade
any of the hardware.

Most laptops have an accessible HD; many (most?) SSDs are the form
factor of a laptop HD. (You've got the problem of transferring the
OS, but that'd apply whatever the PC and is in most cases easily
surmountable.)

There's a question of compatibility, what will an older MB and BIOS
allow? Remember, this is a very old machine, it's probably worth a try

I can't remember. What do you call "very old".

but I'm leery of the cost and I'd have to consider the time involved.

Right now, it's doing nothing, no work, no software is installed.

And it's still slow! G All I've done since installing the OS is
Windows Updates.

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 17:23:42 -0700, XS11E
wrote:

Big Al wrote:

s|b wrote on 10/21/2015 4:16 PM:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:01:41 +0200, FredW wrote:

it is s l oooooo w...

Use more RAM

I'd say install a SSD if possible. More RAM doesn't necessarily
mean more speed.

An old XP pc probably was IDE HD, you'd have lots of issues
finding a IDE SSD.

Good point. It's a laptop so I'd have to check. I don't think a SSD
is the way to go, figuring price vs usage.

If it's not IDE, whatever came next, can't you use it in t he laptop
and take it with you when you change laptops? Just save the
mechanical drive.

The extra RAM is about all
I'm willing to spend on it.

Micky wrote:

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:10:26 -0700, XS11E
wrote:

There's a question of compatibility, what will an older MB and
BIOS allow? Remember, this is a very old machine, it's probably
worth a try

I can't remember. What do you call "very old".

Depends on the device, a cell phone that's one week old is probably 3
generations obsolete, personally I'm a 1935 model and consider myself
fairly recent! G

The laptop is from before Vista's release in 2007, so at least 8 years
old but that particular series was released in 1993 so it could be 20
years old? I can't find when I bought it but it's been many years ago.


--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

On Thu, 22 Oct 2015 12:39:03 -0700, XS11E
wrote:

Micky wrote:

On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:10:26 -0700, XS11E
wrote:

There's a question of compatibility, what will an older MB and
BIOS allow? Remember, this is a very old machine, it's probably
worth a try

I can't remember. What do you call "very old".

Depends on the device, a cell phone that's one week old is probably 3
generations obsolete, personally I'm a 1935 model and consider myself
fairly recent! G

The laptop is from before Vista's release in 2007, so at least 8 years
old but that particular series was released in 1993 so it could be 20
years old? I can't find when I bought it but it's been many years ago.

I'll grant you, even I think 20 years is old. I think the computer
that just broke on me was 15 years old, and it was working fine up to
the moment it broke. Also I think it woudl work fine again if I put
the backup HDD in it. But I'm not certain so I'm not going to do
that until I have another fully functional system.

Micky wrote:

I'll grant you, even I think 20 years is old.

I believe I'll abandon the project, I can get by nicely with my smart
phone for email, doing anything with the laptop that involves money
would be ridiculous with New Egg selling things like this for $270:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5YV3ER1503

I'll just keep the old Compaq with WinXP and spend my money on booze
and wild wimmin! G

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XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

On Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:18:43 -0700, XS11E wrote:

Micky wrote:

I'll grant you, even I think 20 years is old.

I believe I'll abandon the project, I can get by nicely with my smart
phone for email, doing anything with the laptop that involves money
would be ridiculous with New Egg selling things like this for $270:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5YV3ER1503

I'll just keep the old Compaq with WinXP and spend my money on booze
and wild wimmin! G

That beats the heck out of just wasting it! ;-)

--

Char Jackson