UPGRADING TO WINDOWS 10

Irishgoatman

I currently use Vista but as Firefox will no longer be supporting Vista from later this year I will need to upgrade.

So the question is : Can I upgrade to 10 ?.
Every thing that I've seen so far suggests that the platform needs to be windows 8 as the minimum.

My machine is about 8 years old but had a new CPU and fan around 3 years ago. It works fine but is slow at times so perhaps a new computer would be the better option?.

I'm open to any and all suggestion and advice.
Many thanks (in advance).

DopeTech

If really depends on the hardware spec. It most likely will but you may find it hard getting drivers to work for certain things. Then again you may have no issues.

Have you got a spare hard drive anywhere that you could temporarily swap out and attempt a clean install of Windows 10?

TerrorFirmer

What are the specs of the machine - CPU and RAM? Some older machines of that vintage can have issues with some drivers not working. My parents have a Dell from 2008 and there are no audio drivers for Win10, for example (they just use a €2 USB sound card and it's fine).

Irishgoatman

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

What are the specs of the machine - CPU and RAM? Some older machines of that vintage can have issues with some drivers not working. My parents have a Dell from 2008 and there are no audio drivers for Win10, for example (they just use a €2 USB sound card and it's fine).

CPU -G2020 @ 2.90 GHz, RAM - 4GB, OS - 32 bit.

No I don't have a spare HD.

TerrorFirmer

Win10 will work fine on that. Those spec's aren't slow at all, the G2020 is still a good processor. If the PC is slow is may be a slow hard drive or else just the current install is bloated with all kinds of stuff.

You will be fine to install Win10 on that machine. Drivers won't be an issue for that chipset. Maybe get a 120GB SSD for €50-60 to replace the HDD, the machine will absolutely fly then.

Irishgoatman

Thanks for this, it's nice knowing my pc isn't as bad as I suspected but now I'm confused!.

I was really talking about upgrading vista to 10 in order to keep as many of the little progs, that I've downloaded over the years, as possible, so changing from a HD to a SSD would not be possible as I don't have a vista disc, pc came fully loaded with no back up disc.
Also my C drive shows 167gb used out of 576 and the D (recovery partition) show 6.8 used out of 19.9. so a 120gb SSD would be too small if you are saying do away with vista and start from scratch with 10.
My external hdd that I plug in just to back up on is 500gb. Mostly wasted/underused.

Am I missing/missing understanding something by any chance? If so please put it down to my age (no joke actually).

Joeface

Irishgoatman wrote: »

I was really talking about upgrading vista to 10 in order to keep as many of the little progs, that I've downloaded over the years

I don't think you can do the Win10 upgrade , as far as I remember , it was Windows 7 and windows 8 that you could migrate UP to 10 but not vista.

I think you would be doing a Clean install on an SSD . Check on www.ninite.com and see how many of the programs are there you can auto install from there with out any of the bundled sh*te ware . Might help

120GB is fine for the OS and will help massively with boot times , Just use your current Drive as a secondary Data Drive ,store everything there

Irishgoatman

Joeface wrote: »

I don't think you can do the Win10 upgrade , as far as I remember , it was Windows 7 and windows 8 that you could migrate UP to 10 but not vista.

Are you referring to free , purchased or both?.

Fysh

Irishgoatman wrote: »

Are you referring to free , purchased or both?.

Both - the Windows 10 installation media does not support a direct upgrade from Vista to 10. So you would have to first upgrade to something else e.g. 7, and then upgrade from there to 10.

To be honest, in-place upgrades can end up misbehaving or becoming unstable quite often anyway. So while it's more work to begin with, doing a clean install of Windows 10 (ideally on a new SSD as suggested above, which would let you keep your existing disk to be used as a secondary storage device) will get you better, more reliable performance.

The tedious issue will be migrating your profile, because I've just now discovered that Microsoft removed the Easy Transfer tool from Windows 10. There are instructions for copying the files from Vista or 7, but I haven't tried them so I can't say whether they are reliable...

RobiePAX

Install Windows 7. It has higher chance of having all functional drivers.

If you want a legitimate Windows then you will have to find and purchase the key. Upgrades are not free. You will first have to purchase a license.

TerrorFirmer

RobiePAX wrote: »

Install Windows 7. It has higher chance of having all functional drivers.

If you want a legitimate Windows then you will have to find and purchase the key. Upgrades are not free. You will first have to purchase a license.

1 - On the 1155 socket all drivers will be available in Win10.

2 - You don't need a license to install Win10. In fact if you outright chose not to ever pay for it it works forever with just a tiny watermark in the corner of the screen.

Irishgoatman

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone for their contributions to this thread.

Secondly, I've now got a headache!

Due to the above I've decided to take the easy way out and buy another computer, that way I can keep this machine running and slowly transfer all the data and progs that I need to keep or, if my Daughter and Grandchildren will allow it, just keep both.

Again, many thanks, it was all very informative.