Hi all
Any techy PC/Laptop types able to give some advice please?
I have a 12yr old Dell laptop that isn't used any more. I'd like to do a fresh install on it and give to my autistic 11yr old lad to use at home, mainly for flash type education games he plays at school, but if it could manage minecraft or roblox, then all the better. It was a half decent spec back in the day, i used it for 3D CAD, but i guess things have moved on and it might struggle with anything nowadays.
Basic spec is
Pentium Dual Core T4200(2.0GHz,800MHz,1MB)
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Hard Drive 320GB SATA (5400rpm)
Graphics : 512 MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570
It's currently running Win7, which i know is now unsupported. Should i go with 8.1 or 10 or 11?
What could this machine realistically run with a newer windows version?
How do i do a fresh install (never done one before, but i guess google will point me in the right direction?)
Cheers
Brighty
If you live anywhere near me (Durham area) I'd be happy to help re-image it.
If you give me the 7 digit Dell service tag I can tell you what OS it will run. Sometimes Win10 drivers just aren't available so you'd need to stick with Windows7 but if you're not doing internet banking on it then that should be fine for your son to use
Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves
https://www.pcguide.com/software/sys...nts/minecraft/
This gives you the minimum laptop spec fine Minecraft you might just be ok. Depends on your version. Windows 10 would be my choice for OS at the moment, not sure you laptop will run 11.
I think some flavour of Linux might be your best bet.
Fedora is easy to install easy to use, and should do all you need. https://getfedora.org/
As said Linux would be great, but if that sounds unfamiliar to you its best avoided. Fairly easy to install, but it takes one obscure driver issue to become a complicated problem.
You're best with Windows 10. Windows 8 was a mistake, and Windows 11 has hardware requirements that can be bypassed but, for the sake of simplicity, I'd just avoid.
My concern is the ability to run games. I think you'll find it challenging, although I wouldn't be surprised if those games were simply unplayable on that hardware.
download and create a bootable USB of win 10 on the microsoft website. All the instructions are there on their website how to do it all.
what makes things awkward is the licence, it costs so much that its a joke.
many people run it unlicenced but i expect microsoft to close that loophole at some point
If the laptop has a W7 COA with the key readable then in theory you could install W10 and then use that key to activate.
Do a Google for windows media creation tool and that should guide you through creating a bootable USB stick from which you can perform a fresh install.
There is no Win10 support for this laptop. I've got years of old Dell recovery media stored at work, hope to be in the office tomorrow to check.
Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves
Thanks all, especially sish who checked my service key, which for some reason is unrecognised. Tried putting the model number in and as he says, win10 not supported, but guess there could be a work around.
The Minecraft/Roblox thing was just a hope, no big deal, as he has an Xbox one for that stuff, the main thing is running educational website flash things like lexia and mathletics, which it does do even with win7, so worst case we leave it with that, it would just be nice if it had win10 like I assume his school PC's have
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