Can I wipe my lapop?

MRTULES

So my laptop is nearing its end but in an attempt to keep it going for longer I was thinking of copying everything onto an external hard drive and wiping it of everything. Then sticking on windows 7 64bit? Is this a crazy idea? will it help? thanks in advance

stevek93

what make/model do you have?

MRTULES

Inspiron 1525

yoyo

You would probably need to use the 32Bit Windows 7 if you have access to it, Dell only have 32Bit drivers on their driver page here. It would be a gamble otherwise.
If it has Vista you will notice a improvement with Windows 7 more than likely, even if it has XP youll probably notice a diffrence. So if you have access to it I would reccomend the update. Btw Vista drivers work fine on Windows 7, so use those ones on the linked Dell drivers page

Nick

MRTULES

Thanks. It has vista 32bit home premium. It has an intel Core2 duo T8100 & 4gb ram if that helps.

U_Fig

MRTULES wrote: »

Thanks. It has vista 32bit home premium. It has an intel Core2 duo T8100 & 4gb ram if that helps.

yes you're processor supports 64 bit however all of your're hardware might not run as well.. tho i would suggest updating to windows 7 it runs so much better than windows vista. try 64 bit you can download a copy and if it doesn't work then go for 32bit if it does activate it. you'll have 30 days to try it out you can get iso's for version's here

http://techpp.com/2009/11/11/download-windows-7-iso-official-direct-download-links/

stevek93

stick with 32 ive 64 and cant tell the difference, if anything x64 is slower on lower end models.

HTB

stevek93 wrote: »

stick with 32 ive 64 and cant tell the difference, if anything x64 is slower on lower end models.

I would agree with that.

ShooterSF

Remember you will have to reinstall most of the software you use as you cant simply copy that into program files. Backing up to an external hard drive is more useful when it comes to your data.

Capt'n Midnight

Max ram for that laptop is listed at 4GB so you won't benefit that much from 64 bit OS, it'll see a little more memory but it's files are bigger so meh.

having said that , if you can't get 64 bit drivers for your hardware / printers etc. then a no brainer

the_syco

MRTULES wrote: »

Thanks. It has vista 32bit home premium. It has an intel Core2 duo T8100 & 4gb ram if that helps.

You'll see a nice improvement going from Vista to Windows7.

stevek93 wrote: »

stick with 32 ive 64 and cant tell the difference, if anything x64 is slower on lower end models.

The 64bit min RAM is more than the 32bit version, and is only beneficial for computers that have the 64bit CPU. Low end laptops usually only have the 32bit chip so would see no improvement.

MRTULES

Sorry to revive this thread but I have a few questions. Ideally what I would like to do is wipe my whole laptop clean. I would like to copy everything off it on to an external hard drive and save it as "laptop 2011" as I am sure there are files that I might want at a later date. It is so full of crap that I really dont want to go through it all atm and would like to freeze it where it is, wipe it clean and install a fresh windows on it. I can not find any of the old windows CD's I got with this laptop so will have to buy a new one. If I buy windows 7, can I use it on a pc too or is there licence problems with doing that?
I will leave the questions at that for the mo, Thanks in advance.

ShooterSF

Pretty sure it's one license per machine. I think if you are in any kind of school or have kids in school you can buy off a site called softwareforstudents.ie and it's pretty cheap last I checked.

MRTULES

Thanks for that Shooter. I am planning on building a PC in the new year so if I buy windows 7 for the laptop I might no be able to buy it again off that site for the PC?

sdanseo

You'll need one license per machine allright. If you're building a system all you need is an OEM disk and licence which is only around €90 for Home Premium x86. It's the exact same as the retail version, just cheaper and designed to be loaded onto a self-build but in essence the idea is that people upgrading their OS pay a higher price for the same licence. Unfair maybe, but theoretically you'll need an upgrade version of W7 for the laptop.

You may, if it's a vista machine, be entitled to a free upgrade to 7 though. Have a look at any documents that came with it - some manufacturers were promising free gratis upgrades for PCs sold after W7 was announced but before it was released.