nice 2006-era laptop - update to Win 7 or stick with XP?

I have Sony Vaio VGN-AR series, I think from around 2006. I bought it used from my brother-in-law. I think he took Vista off and replaced it with XP at the time of purchase. 17" screen, 1.8 GHz proc, 100 gb hard drive. I upgraded it to 2 gb ram.

It's getting kinda sluggish. It could probably use a cleaning (which I'll do) but I'm wondering if it would be worth it to upgrade the RAM and/or the OS. I know XP won't go past 3 gb...would it be worthwhile to put one 2 gb stick in (making it 3 gb total) or 4 gb and just not use the extra gig? Two 2 gb sticks for this machine will cost about $60 on Crucial if I remember right.

Or should I update to Windows 7? The upgrade advisor says it's possible but I don't know if the tradeoff is worth it, that is, more RAM but a bigger OS which might slow things down.

I am buying a new laptop, but I'd still like to use this one as it works pretty well and the display is great.

ETA: I'd consider Linux, I've used it a long time ago, but it's not compatible with my spouse. However if we have a second laptop, and I could install a very Windows-user-friendly Linux, I might consider that.

 

If Vista was preinstalled on the machine than the COA sticker on the bottom should be a valid license in case you wish to upgrade to Vista from XP.

In order to use more than 3gb of RAM the computer must support x64 architecture. x86 limits the system to use only 3gb-3.5gb.

 

First of all, if your laptop has probably a 945 series chipset, it can't use more than 4 GB RAM, it's a hardware limitation, and a 64-bit OS won't make any difference.
The thing is, in real world it will be 3.5 GB or lower, even with 64-bit.
If your chipset is 965-series you won't have this issue, this chipset came in 2007 tho...

You need a clean install of the OS, before anything else. Which Windows version is up to you, but any of the three versions works well with your computer.
I have a laptop myself from 2006, Windows 7 runs great on it thanks to 3 GB RAM, but I'm pretty sure 2 GB would be pretty good as well, depending on what you use it for.

If you feel like testing, pick a Windows 7 version from my sig and test it, it works for 30 days x 4 (google "slmgr -rearm") without a key.

 

Definitely get 4GB and Win7 (64bit). Win7 is pretty well optimized, and it'll use the 4GB fine.

 

try out PClinuxOS. It definitely will win windows users over.
download the iso and create a bootable cd, then boot and see how you like it.

 

You're right, I identified it as a 945 chipset. So do you think an upgrade to 4 gb would be worth it? Or just 3 gb? This would allow me to just get one 2 gb ram stick...

Thanks for the offer - I think I'll do that and see how it performs on 2 gb.

It has an XP sticker on it! Didn't even think to check that. At any rate, do you think my architecture is x64? Wouldn't the Win7 upgrade adviser tell me that?

Thanks!
Chris

 

Yup, by doing that you'll see if you really need RAM on that old laptop. Don't waste money on old computers.

It won't tell you that the chipset has a hardware limitation for RAM, because it's still capable of running a 64-bit OS.
W7 32 is all you need, clean install is the important thing.
Here's a guide, for 64-bit tho:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/543817-win7-64bit-clean-install-guide-vgn-ar-vgn-fe-others.html

If your CPU is a Core 2 Duo it's 64-bit, and if it's a Core Duo it's a 32-bit.

More about the RAM limitation on my laptop, which has the same chipset:
HP Communities - nx9420 / 4GB RAM, but only 3,5GB shown in Vista 64... - Enterprise Business Community