Should i Install Windows 7 ?

Hey guys ,

Im new to this Forum and i need some Help. I have an Older Laptop laying around which i use to store some of my Backups from my PC. It Came with Vista and its Pretty Slow on it even with all the latest Updates installed. So i wanna install 7 on it because it made some of my Vista machines Faster back in the day. Can i do it with these Specs ? Also i can't find any Drivers for my Notebook on the Manufactuers Homepage but i will check out the manufacturer homepages of the hardware and i will search the drivers there.

Here are the Specs :

Model : HP Compaq 6720s
Processor : Intel Celeron M550 (2,0 GHZ Single Core)
Graphics : Intel Media Graphics Accelerator X-3100
Ram : 2Gigs
Audiio : Hi-Definition (HD) Audio Support (dont know if thats right , that was the only Information that Google could spit out)

Btw, im sorry if my English is Bad Sometimes , in German.

 

It's slow because the hardware is slow. I don't think Win 7 by itself will be much different, to be honest.

 

RAM is OK so... why not? I installed on slower HP notebooks.

 

You might want to try Windows XP, which will be faster than 7. But yes, Windows 7 should make it a little bit snappier.

 

video drivers will be not the best performing by the way so if you plan gaming on it then your choice is XP.

 

I agree with XP. I will be using XP for a long time still. Show me a modern Microsoft OS as fast and convenient as XP and I will replace it ASAP!

(P.S.: Currently triple booting XP/7/8.1 and man do the latter two OSes plain suck! And I can't wait NOT to try 10. Something tells me it will suck just as much b/c it's based on the same kernel. But I will upgrade to quadruple boot just to keep the free license for keeps sake...)

 

If it was my computer, first I would try to kill all the unwanted services and programs running in the background and slowing the computer down. There is a minimal amount of services that need to run in order to boot, but many are useless (do you need remote registry or indexing for example). Search for website (preferably in German?) explaining what each service does and depending on your needs you may be surprised. Installing different version of Windows could run you into problems of finding proper drivers, but if you really want new OS, have you ever tried Linux? There are distros specially made for low resource computers with very small footprint and many Win programs have Linux counterparts, for example Libre Office is good replacement for MS office IMO and it has Linux version, Firefox for web browsing etc.
Lately, with each new Windows version getting worse (I read somewhere Win10 doesn't give access to system folders even under Admin account, wtf) I begin to think it's good to have other options.

 

My Desktop Runs Windows 7 and Linux Mint. Im Quite Skilled with Mint. Probaly i try to disable some of the Services You've mentioned and try a Windows 7 , Linux Mint and Windows XP installation and see which of em fits the Best. Ive Read somewhere about Damm Small Linux which was meant to be on Older Machines and boots even From a Diskette. Maybe i will try That Some time . Thanks for all Comments on this Thread. Never got so fast Responses on a German Forum.

 

There is one already called Windows 7...get either Pro or Ultimate and that system will best any XP day or night...with limitation it will not load or install XP programs. Software can't run forever. And saying 7/8.1 sucks won't make WinX any better as that is based on both Win7 and Win8 hybrid so your wishful dreams are placed in the wrong place. XP will not protect your system anymore from security holes and malware will be looking to make your XP a zombie net or botnet so if you want to join that party by all means go for it.

 

Not true...if the hardware doesn't support Windows 7 it's not going to make it faster how one comes to that conclusion is dubious at best. Windows 7 doesn't make a old hardware more snappier if it doesn't have driver support for it. There is a limitation to how old of hardware Windows 7 can support. If you want security holes in XP when support stops then by all means go for it and become a zombie net and botnet but don't make the rest of us part of the zombie pool.

 

If you use the same installation that the computer came with then what you need is a fresh install. XP, Vista or W7 is up to you.

If you don't want to pay for a new OS license then I'd suggest a fresh installation of Vista SP2. Othervise, go for Windows 7.

Video drivers will not be a problem if it has Intel graphics. Drivers can be found on Intels site. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/81508/Mobile-Intel-965-Express-Chipset-Family

 

The OP's system is 100% fully supported in Windows 7. It isn't that old. The platform was released in 2007 and Windows 7 was released in 2009. The latest drivers for it date from 2011. To get to computers that are so old that they don't support Windows 7, you would need to go back a lot further in time. Windows 7 will always run faster than Vista. Windows XP runs faster than Windows 7. I have XP "SP4" running on a computer of mine on an old slow hard drive, and it boots as fast as Windows 7 on an SATA2 SSD.

Windows XP is safe to use. Don't use Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player. You can receive security updates until 2019. Even if you don't set it up to receive updates, the chances of ever having a security issue are extremely slim if you use caution and common sense. It isn't as if as soon as support was discontinued, Microsoft added tons of bugs and issues and told hackers how to take advantage of them. There is also nothing stopping you from using third party software that continues to be updated.

 

XP is going to loose support from MS that is the Fact-doesn't matter how much others want to stay otherwise XP is no longer being sold so MS can't make money from the O/S so why should they keep supporting it. 2019 or sometime for XP either one needs a future plan mindset or else they will be left behind. This is because software company no longer make XP software anymore so that should be a incentive to decide sooner then later to make the move. It's not about MS supporting XP but will your software be able to support future O/S when you no longer get support for it that is what users forget it's not just the O/S going Obsolete but the software you use as well. That is where security holes also comes into play. 3rd party will not update a O/S that has no support from MS regardless 3rd don't have the source code for Windows to make Updates that is IP and I doubt MS will give that to 3rd party.

Also if XP was safe why say not use IE or WMP...that is ironic itself since most users use IE and WMP ....so your conclusion there is also ironic....If you look out there in the computer users now most already switching to Windows 7 because of hardware support and software support and considering the market shares of W7 took off faster then W8 that would tell you people already are comfortable with using W7 over W8 for all the bells and whistle it gives. Reason people can't use IE in XP is that most sites now block XP using IE that are informed that they are less secure with older XP and IE that is another reason one shouldn't use XP any longer as some sites are now restrictive if you use a older O/S and browser access their site for their security concerns. And malware sites are sitting waiting for unsuspecting XP users to go to their site to launch their malware XP will become more and more targeted by Malware compared to more recent O/S because they know the more recent one will have more security updates to block their sites and kill their malware launchers from getting started. But then again is my Opinion for what it is worth.

 

Microsoft supports "Windows Embedded POSReady 2009" until April 9th, 2019: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/lifewinembed It is a version of XP. It is the same underlying operating system, and updates for it work for XP. You can edit a file in the XP registry so that it connects to Microsoft servers and continues to get security updates for another four years.

There are a lot of 32-bit Windows software that keeps being released and updated that work perfectly fine on 32-bit Windows, whether it is XP or 8.1.

Third-party security companies have said that they would continue to provide anti-virus and anti-malware security support for Windows XP.

Nobody is blocking computers using XP. I am using XP on a computer I own, and it has no problem with anything.

I don't know why anyone would want to use Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, even if they were the most recent versions. XP is stuck on much older versions of this software, and they stopped getting updates last year. These are the only security holes in XP. So for better security and not using mind-numbingly awful programs, just use Chrome, Firefox, MPC, VLC, etc. It isn't a big deal and I think most people would rather not use IE or WMP anyway.

The bottom line is that just because Microsoft ended official support of XP a year ago doesn't mean that anything really changed for anybody wanting to use XP. It all of a sudden didn't become dangerous or ill-advised to use. It still works great on older hardware and is just as safe today as it was last year or the year before.

 

Very true. I have been an Opera user since IE7. And MPC rocks. It has the normalize function, which I use with SRS AudioLabs to enhance the sound. WMP doesn't have this normalize function so audio output sounds bland w/o it.

 

I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm just not that sure that the POSReady updates are enough for a regular XP system, given the tiny amount of updates it actually gets, only one update every month on average last time I checked.
I realize that I've had this discussion with you before. http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ws-xp-support-until-2019.760989/#post-9832350

The thing is, the OP probably only have a license for Vista, and a clean install would make a huge difference if he still uses the preinstalled version. Windows 7 is better, but like I've said before, a clean install of Vista SP2 is pretty close. Vista RTM is a whole differnt story, a complete disaster.

 

This is the conundrum-they can install Windows 7 and install the vista drivers and it will work fine but they will need a new Product Key for Windows 7 to use it. But Vista is up to Sp2 and so far from what I read it is working pretty good for those still using Vista Sp2 updates. But if you they do have the Product Key for Windows 7 I would say install it and install your drivers from Vista and those will work fine in Windows 7. Even Vista RTM with Sp2 from my reads work better then when it first came out.

 

So im Decided to go for Linux Mint and im Surprised how fast it is on this Old Machine. Im also Able to Use Virtualbox for my Windows Programs and stuff. I had no idea such an piece of junk could be able to boot up an VM with 500MHZ and 500 MB ram allocated to it. Not the best Performance but i dont care. fot all the XP users out There. Try Windows Embedded POS Ready 2009.

And again Thank you for all the Answers and Recommandations

 

Sounds good for savvy users but one shouldn't recommend it for everyday users unless you want to provide those users following your advice support 24/7 and I doubt you would want to do that.

 

Oh Sorry. I don't wanna do that. :0

 

I'd install 3 GB RAM, which is a significant update. Will help that box run better. Linux is also an option to make the old laptop more snappy. Vista is a RAM hog.