Light windows version

[SandalsWarrior]

My aunt got this very old laptop (intel celeron and 2GB RAM) and she told me to reinstall it's os(was win xp professional), I was wondering if any of you guys could help me with a light windows version (does not use much RAM or CPU power). Other operating systems like Lubuntu or such are excluded as she does not know how to operate on them. 

 

P.S. The laptop will mainly be used for storing word documents and editing them or browsing the internet or checking the mail. (she is a math teacher so she needs the laptop to be able to edit word documents to write tests).

[SquintyG33Rs]

there isn't a lightweight version of windows that microsoft built... that's why chromebooks had a spot to rise in.

 

but even windows 10 will run on that it just won't be an enjoyable experience... (if you change the HDD for an SSD it will feel like a whole new world)

[SansVarnic]

There is no light weight Windows version for pc/laptops ... WinRT only works on ARM processors.

You could install Win7 but keep in mind it may run a tad slow, that hardware is pretty dated.

I don't recommend installing Win10.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

10 minutes ago, SandalsWarrior said:

My aunt got this very old laptop (intel celeron and 2GB RAM) and she told me to reinstall it's os(was win xp professional), I was wondering if any of you guys could help me with a light windows version (does not use much RAM or CPU power). Other operating systems like Lubuntu or such are excluded as she does not know how to operate on them. 

 

P.S. The laptop will mainly be used for storing word documents and editing them or browsing the internet or checking the mail. (she is a math teacher so she needs the laptop to be able to edit word documents to write tests).

Honestly you might as well just get a new laptop. You'll have a much better experience with even something like a Lenovo IdeaPad 100S or a Dell Inspiron P24T than putting Windows 10 or 7 on something like that. The cost of a new retail Windows license pretty much costs as much as either of those for mentioned laptops.

[Nostalgia_Realm]

Normally I would recommend Windows 7 but it's getting quite old to be honest and will lose support in a few years. Windows 10 should work on that but it itsn't going to be blazing fast or anything. What you could try is disabling background apps. Note: Please don't use the switch on the attached image, it will break some functionality. Instead, do this app by app.

You can also change this to "best performance" to be sure Windows will run smoothly

 

If it still feels sluggish after this, then you can still try a Linux distro ( maybe one that looks like Windows?)

Or get new hardware. Which is probably the easiest option.

[SandalsWarrior]

7 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Honestly you might as well just get a new laptop. You'll have a much better experience with even something like a Lenovo IdeaPad 100S or a Dell Inspiron P24T than putting Windows 10 or 7 on something like that. The cost of a new retail Windows license pretty much costs as much as either of those for mentioned laptops.

Thanks for the suggestion, the thing is that she allready has a laptop but she got this one from the school even thought she said she did not want it so, when she got it, she wanted to at least be usefull for something as you can't sell that laptop or do anything other than keep it.

 

P.S. I plan on torrenting the windows because, as you said, the windows license is more expensive than the laptop itself

[SandalsWarrior]

5 minutes ago, MSWindowsinside said:

Normally I would recommend Windows 7 but it's getting quite old to be honest and will lose support in a few years. Windows 10 should work on that but it itsn't going to be blazing fast or anything. What you could try is disabling background apps. Note: Please don't use the switch on the attached image, it will break some functionality. Instead, do this app by app.

You can also change this to "best performance" to be sure Windows will run smoothly

 

If it still feels sluggish after this, then you can still try a Linux distro ( maybe one that looks like Windows?)

Or get new hardware. Which is probably the easiest option.

I thought about getting 7 and optimizing for performance (I myself have a pretty slow laptop and being passionate about PCs I learned a lot of tricks to optimize windows), but did not think it would be able to handle win 7. Thanks for response.

[SandalsWarrior]

I am getting win 7 home basic in the end and making some performance optimizations. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Windows 10 can run on Atom processors. But the performance of those is still something better than a Pentium 4.

 

I guess we should back up. How old is the computer? If it's 10+ years old, I think it's definitely time for new hardware.

[SandalsWarrior]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Windows 10 can run on Atom processors. But the performance of those is still something better than a Pentium 4.

 

I guess we should back up. How old is the computer? If it's 10+ years old, I think it's definitely time for new hardware.

New hardware is out of the question as she has a pretty good Dell laptop, my uncle as well, the purpose of this old laptop is just to store/backup word documents and edit them.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, SandalsWarrior said:

New hardware is out of the question as she has a pretty good Dell laptop, my uncle as well, the purpose of this old laptop is just to store/backup word documents and edit them.

Then why not keep it on Windows XP and keep it air gapped? Is there any reason it needs to go on the internet if they already have computers to do that?

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Just do a fresh XP install, update it as far as it'll go, do the Embedded/POSready tweak and update it further. 

That gives her more than a year to upgrade to a more modern laptop. 

 

Just so you know, those patches may or may not cover all vulnerabilities that the consumer version of XP may have, but it's a lot better than any of the other Windows versions are going to run on that machine. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

23 minutes ago, SandalsWarrior said:

I am getting win 7 home basic in the end and making some performance optimizations. 

Windows 7 Starter is an OEM exclusive, meaning there is no way of getting a copy to install yourself. You can buy Windows Vista Home Basic, but support for that has been dropped already.