Old Computers, Old Windows, Modern Needs.

[RVB]

A couple of quick questions.....

Is Windows 7 still worth using? (I haven't used it for several years)

Is it likely that an old Dell with Core2 duo E7500 processor and 8GB of RAM ('upgraded' to windows 10) will be satisfactory for everyday office/internet tasks (not gaming)?

Thanks!
R

[bitchstewie]

Windows 7 doesn't get security updates any more.

You may just about get away running Windows 10 if the machine has an SSD but it probably won't be pleasant.

[RVB]

bhstewie said:

Windows 7 doesn't get security updates any more.

You may just about get away running Windows 10 if the machine has an SSD but it probably won't be pleasant.

Thanks.

How much of a problem is lack of security updates? Can a respectable antivirus keep things under control or is it not worth the hassle of trying to keep the computer secure?

I have an old Dell with Core2 quad Q8300 which works fine with Windows 10 and was wondering how inferior the E7500 would be. Would the E7500 run better on an older Windows version?

[rxe]

Yes, with an SSD and Win 10. Win 10 is really good on old hardware.

I’m using an Athlon processor (2004 vintage) in a Win 10 machine with an SSD and 8 GB. It’s perfectly usable for general purpose stuff, runs Office 2019 fine. Clearly if I open up a vast spreadsheet with millions of formulae, it struggles, but I’ve written 100 page documents on it with no problems.

Edit - also, look up the fastest processor your motherboard can support and buy it on eBay for 20 quid. My machine above is “god mode circa 2004”, Athlon “Windsor” chip that was made in 2006 and cost about a billion quid back then - got it on eBay for almost nothing.

Edited by rxe on Saturday 20th March 10:09

[buggalugs]

You will also find things like Chrome etc either don’t get updates or won’t for much longer. No reason at all to install 7 these days unless you have something very expensive that requires it.

[bitchstewie]

RVB said:

Thanks.

How much of a problem is lack of security updates? Can a respectable antivirus keep things under control or is it not worth the hassle of trying to keep the computer secure?

I have an old Dell with Core2 quad Q8300 which works fine with Windows 10 and was wondering how inferior the E7500 would be. Would the E7500 run better on an older Windows version?

The answer should be don't run anything that doesn't receive updates to keep it secure and antivirus isn't a magic bullet for that plus it slows your already old and slow computer down.

If you use Google Chrome and an ad-blocker and keep it up to date and don't have really dodgy browsing habits or click every dodgy email you get sent and click "install" on every "free" bit of software imaginable clearly that's better than if you're downloading god knows what from god knows where but it's still Windows 7.

I'd look at getting Windows 10.

Must admit I haven't run Windows 10 on anything older than an i3 so I'll leave that for others but I would expect that an SSD will make more of a difference than the CPU will.

[rxe]

Win 7 vs 10 - 10 every time.

Microsoft have actually managed to reverse the usual trend with 10 - it is less resource hungry, boots faster and is more efficient than pretty much every version that came before it. It is simply a better OS than the earlier stuff, and if you turn off all of the crapware that they include with it, I struggle to see the downside. It’s also pretty much free, you can buy a legit licence for a tenner, and even if you install it with no licence it still works fine.

If you are running an unpatched OS, then you are exposed to every vulnerability that has been discovered since support stopped. Some of them don’t need you to browse anything, you’ll be vulnerable after a port scan that identifies you as Win 7.

As long as you have > 4 GB RAM and an SSD, it will work perfectly well. As soon as it runs out of memory, it will slow to a crawl. 8G is more than enough.

[RVB]

rxe said:

Yes, with an SSD and Win 10. Win 10 is really good on old hardware.

I’m using an Athlon processor (2004 vintage) in a Win 10 machine with an SSD and 8 GB. It’s perfectly usable for general purpose stuff, runs Office 2019 fine. Clearly if I open up a vast spreadsheet with millions of formulae, it struggles, but I’ve written 100 page documents on it with no problems.

Thanks.

Upgrading to SSD probably isn't worth the expense and hassle for the old E7500 computer. I hear that a reliable SSD costs £££.
I would only bother to use the E7500 for Windows 10 if it can be used as-is.

Interestingly on the subject of SSD and speed, a few weeks ago my wife and I wondered whether we had a virus (we didn't).
My old Dell with Q8300 took about an hour to fully scan its 465GB HDD (about 40% full) whereas my wife's modern HP with same capacity SSD (and hexa maybe octa core) scanned hers in about ten minutes!

I don't notice much difference between my old quad and the wife's modern computer on the occasions I use her computer for, say, internet or office type duties.

Clarification on mine and the wife's computers mentioned above:
Mine: 11yr old Dell, Intel quad Q8300, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 10.
Wife's: 1yr old Hewlett-Packard, AMD octa Ryzen 7 4700U, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, Windows 10.

Edited by RVB on Saturday 20th March 10:31

[Bill]

Our recently retired desktop is a pentium with 4gb RAM that ran W10 fine but it was marginal if you asked it to do too much.

[xeny]

RVB said:

Is it likely that an old Dell with Core2 duo E7500 processor and 8GB of RAM ('upgraded' to windows 10) will be satisfactory for everyday office/internet tasks (not gaming)?

All things being equal, 10 is faster than 7 on the same hardware. I've got a machine with a bit more CPU and a bit less RAM and it is tolerable for general office work.

If you're the kind of person than wants to open half a dozen browser tabs at once and expects them to load instantly, it will feel sluggish.

[RVB]

Bill said:

Our recently retired desktop is a pentium with 4gb RAM that ran W10 fine but it was marginal if you asked it to do too much.

When I open the task manager on mine or the wife's Windows 10 computers, I usually see ~3GB of RAM being used without any windows/apps open.

I'm currently using 4.5GB of RAM on the computer I'm typing on (Windows 10, old Dell, Q8300, 8GB RAM) to run 5 internet windows, two PDF files and the task manager.

The old E7500 mentioned in my opening post has 8GB RAM which is quite generous for its age and is why I'm wondering if maybe it can cope with Windows 10 and average daily duties.

Edited by RVB on Saturday 20th March 11:31

[snuffy]

What's going on here - something is clearly not right on PH ?

3 hours since the question was asked and no one has yet said "Windows is utter ste, what you want is Linux".

[rxe]

RVB said:

Thanks.

Upgrading to SSD probably isn't worth the expense and hassle for the old E7500 computer. I hear that a reliable SSD costs £££.
I would only bother to use the E7500 for Windows 10 if it can be used as-is.

Interestingly on the subject of SSD and speed, a few weeks ago my wife and I wondered whether we had a virus (we didn't).
My old Dell with Q8300 took about an hour to fully scan its 465GB HDD (about 40% full) whereas my wife's modern HP with same capacity SSD (and hexa maybe octa core) scanned hers in about ten minutes!

I don't notice much difference between my old quad and the wife's modern computer on the occasions I use her computer for, say, internet or office type duties.

Clarification on mine and the wife's computers mentioned above:
Mine: 11yr old Dell, Intel quad Q8300, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 10.
Wife's: 1yr old Hewlett-Packard, AMD octa Ryzen 7 4700U, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, Windows 10.

Edited by RVB on Saturday 20th March 10:31

SSDs are cheap:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/128gb-verbatim-vi5...

19 quid. As long as you have enough memory, you can get away with a conventional drive,

[RVB]

rxe said:

SSDs are cheap:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/128gb-verbatim-vi5...

19 quid. As long as you have enough memory, you can get away with a conventional drive,

Thanks once again.

The E7500 computer I'm thinking about using has 250GB HDD and I think it will only need a quarter of that because it won't be storing photos and videos and won't be my (or the wife's) main computer.

I don't know about other people, but I find videos in particular take up very large amounts of space, pictures use up a moderate amount of space, programs use a moderate amount of space and documents take up only a small amount of space.

[sutoka]

My old work used XP for stock control up until about 3 years ago.

Although this was the same employer that just threw old servers and desktops into a skip without the hard drives removed or even wiped with thousands of customers order details on them.

[anonymoususer]

The old machine will be fine for basic computing
We have a couple of core 2 duos in an office with slightly slower processors and they are fine for doing word docs, spreadsheets, light internet browsing etc.
I suspect they may be similar to your Dell one is a conventional tower type the other is a SFF.

You may even get away with installing Windows 10 over the 7 and not needing a new product key just inserting the Win 7 key