Dell dimension 5150 - is it originally 32 bit or 64 bit?

i124Q

Dell dimension 5150 - is it originally 32 bit or 64 bit? I cant check cuz its a friends pc who im upgrading and need to know which type for win7. Thanks

holcus

It's Pentium 4 based hardware so you need to install 32bit OS.
I'd rather go with windows xp for old PC like this one

I don't understand how the fact that it is friends pc is stopping you from checking its architecture...

i124Q

holcus wrote: »

It's Pentium 4 based hardware so you need to install 32bit OS.
I'd rather go with windows xp for old PC like this one

I don't understand how the fact that it is friends pc is stopping you from checking its architecture...

I plan on putting 4gb ram into it. From 512mb that is.
But why not put Win 7 Pro on it?

holcus

Go ahead with Windows 7 32-bit. I just think it will work slower then XP.
From the other hand, Windows 7 will make better use of 4GB memory.

yoyo

holcus wrote: »

Go ahead with Windows 7 32-bit. I just think it will work slower then XP.
From the other hand, Windows 7 will make better use of 4GB memory.

Windows 7 can actually be faster than XP on older hardware, as it handles memory, threading etc better than XP. With 4 gigs RAM go for Windows 7 32Bit. Fwiw a Pentium 4 can run Windows 7 quite well, what may let you down is the video card though, make sure you can get a hold of working drivers!

Nick

i124Q

yoyo wrote: »

Windows 7 can actually be faster than XP on older hardware, as it handles memory, threading etc better than XP. With 4 gigs RAM go for Windows 7 32Bit. Fwiw a Pentium 4 can run Windows 7 quite well, what may let you down is the video card though, make sure you can get a hold of working drivers!

Nick

Nice wan Nick, thanks! I presume I can just get the video card drivers off the dell website?

Any other tips I should take into account before I go ahead with the upgrade?

yoyo

i124Q wrote: »

Nice wan Nick, thanks! I presume I can just get the video card drivers off the dell website?

Any other tips I should take into account before I go ahead with the upgrade?

Hmm, not really that simple (Dell likely don't support windows 7 on the machine) but its usually possible to find drivers (or modified ones) that will work. When you install Windows 7 like this you'll need to get drivers elsewhere (Windows 7 has some of the popular chipset drivers included), but by looking here it looks like a Intel GMA GPU, you can get these drivers on www.intel.com.
A word of advice would be to have a backup copy of the Windows XP setup files/disc just in case the upgrade doesn't work out for whatever reason

Nick

i124Q

yoyo wrote: »

Hmm, not really that simple (Dell likely don't support windows 7 on the machine) but its usually possible to find drivers (or modified ones) that will work. When you install Windows 7 like this you'll need to get drivers elsewhere (Windows 7 has some of the popular chipset drivers included), but by looking here it looks like a Intel GMA GPU, you can get these drivers on www.intel.com.
A word of advice would be to have a backup copy of the Windows XP setup files/disc just in case the upgrade doesn't work out for whatever reason

Nick

Hmm ok, its a friend of my parents pc and i said i'd pimp it(after fixing another issue) cuz its fairly sh** right now. I don't see why it shouldn't work really, once I pop in the 4gb RAM from its current 512mb ram. Then Get my daemon tools to read my Win7 Pro iso. Then put everything back on from my external hd. I Suppose the drivers are the thing that scare me the most.

yoyo

i124Q wrote: »

Hmm ok, its a friend of my parents pc and i said i'd pimp it(after fixing another issue) cuz its fairly sh** right now. I don't see why it shouldn't work really, once I pop in the 4gb RAM from its current 512mb ram. Then Get my daemon tools to read my Win7 Pro iso. Then put everything back on from my external hd. I Suppose the drivers are the thing that scare me the most.

My Dell 9400 laptop has similar specs (Was sold as XP Home/Vista ready) but manages to run Windows 7 fine, with no issues. I had to get drivers manually though iirc due to lack of any Vista ones on the Dell website at the time. You shouldn't have any problems but you need to always have a backup plan jic

Nick

i124Q

One last thing. She uses outlook as her email. Ive never used it/set it up before. Just wondering, after a clean install of windows 7, i will be installing all microsoft office including outlook. How do i save her outlook configuration settings/ set it up again so that she can access her emails straight away? This is her main need of the pc so i have to get it right first time.

yoyo

i124Q wrote: »

One last thing. She uses outlook as her email. Ive never used it/set it up before. Just wondering, after a clean install of windows 7, i will be installing all microsoft office including outlook. How do i save her outlook configuration settings/ set it up again so that she can access her emails straight away? This is her main need of the pc so i have to get it right first time.

Backup her *.pst files (search in Windows, usually in the appdata/microsoft/office/outlook directory from memory), then import them again, the account details shoulds be in outlook.pst iirc, but worth copying the details down jic, you can use Mailpassview to find out her mail password.

Nick

Lu Tze

I would also check the manual as some of those dells are restricted to 2GB of RAM. Also do you have the correct type of RAM?

Only raising these queries as you are going from 512MB to 4GB

bonzodog2

You might consider a trial install of W7 (or whatever you choose) onto a different HDD if you have one, before you overwrite what it has now.

Nothingbetter2d

holcus wrote: »

Go ahead with Windows 7 32-bit. I just think it will work slower then XP.
From the other hand, Windows 7 will make better use of 4GB memory.

win 7 32bit will only make use of 3gb of that ram

the 64bit version is needed for 4gb or higher.... but u need a 64bit cpu for that to work.