Should I upgrade my old laptop for Windows 8 or not?

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Ryou-kun

Limp Gawd
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I have an old laptop that my aunt gave me, and I can say it is like a dinosaur laptop.
I was wondering if I could replace Windows XP to Windows 8, or I should stay with Windows XP?

I am planning to use it for like web browse, YouTube Videos, movies, mini-games such as Mahjong, Solitaire, Bejewel, Sims and etc.

The specs isn't that good, but I did think about upgrading a little to make a bit better.

Current Spec:
OS: Windows XP
CPU: Intel Pentium (forgot which core)
RAM: 512 MB
GPU: Intel GMA (integrated)
HDD: I think between 30-80GB. (Not sure)

I did think about planning to upgrade the RAM to 1GB.
Maybe throw in a PATA SSD or external SSD to increase the speed.
 
If you have to ask then the answer is no.
Will it even run on that hardware?
 
It might not be able to run on 512mb of RAM.

That laptop will lag when trying to view any 720p youtube videos or movies. As good as Windows 8 is with its memory management, I don't think it can be more lightweight than a stripped down XP.
 
We need to know which cpu and it's clockspeed. Upgrading to 1GB ram or more would be required if the cpu is capable. Intel GMA is supported so no problem there.
 
Doubt it will run. Even with RAM and all being good (it's not), the CPU may not be compatible.

On the Microsoft Answers forum for Windows 8 Release Preview, a Microsoft employee provided reasons into the Company’s decision for requiring NX support in order to run Windows 8 going forward:
We did make changes in the upgrade detection logic since the CP. The changes revolve around the default installer and how it checks for precise CPU features before continuing. Windows 8 requires the NX capabilities of modern CPUs. This is done for security reasons to ensure that malware defense features work reliably. This is important as we want to ensure that people can feel safe using lots of different software including desktop apps and apps from the Windows Store. This means some very old CPUs will not work with Windows 8. In the CP we did not block the installer for the NX feature. Based on CP telemetry we felt adding the block to setup was warranted to respect people’s time. It is better to get it over with quickly, even if it is disappointing. We also used the telemetry to get some handle on how many CPUs would fail the NX requirement so we could be sure enforcing NX presence was responsible in the ecosystem. We learned that less than 1% of CPUs did not have NX capability available and configured correctly and out of those 0.1% did not have the NX capability at all. Based on this we feel that enforcing NX presence is a good thing to do since it results in better malware defenses. Thus we now enforce NX presence in the kernel boot sequence.
It is interesting to look at the case where NX is available but not configured correctly. It is possible on “most CPUs” in this state to override the BIOS setting in software. Because the “opposite of most CPUs” case means a code 5D bluescreen later on, it saves time to get it out up front and ask the user to fix the BIOS setting during setup. However, the “most CPUs” case does mean there is a potential workaround, which I’ll describe in a moment.
We didn’t make any change related to PAE detection, but it is good to note that PAE is a pre-requisite for NX on 32 bit processors due to how NX is implemented in memory manager page tables.
We did change SSE2 instruction set detection based on telemetry from the CP and Windows 7. SSE2 became standard on CPUs a long time ago, but Windows did not rely on those instructions. It turns out though, that an increasing number of 3 party applications and drivers have started using those instructions, and not checking for them before use. We get to see this in our telemetry, as application crashes and in- the- driver case bluescreens. Taking into account that the rate of these differences in 3 party programming is increasing -- and that SSE2 has been present on all CPUs since 2003 and most since 2001-- we decided to check for SSE2 in setup. The result for users at large is their PC is more reliable. We do not check for SSE2 in the kernel boot sequence,;however, if your CPU has NX it also almost certainly has SSE2.
Before I provide the potential workaround, if you can, please properly configure NX in your BIOS.
Here is the potential workaround: Download the ISO and burn it to a DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive. Boot from the media that you created. If your CPU does not support NX you will see a code 5D bluescreen before setup starts. This is rare, but if it happens we won’t be able to help you run Windows 8.
This workaround may succeed because Windows contains two installers: the end user installer (setup.exe at the root of the Windows DVD) and the commercial installer (setup.exe found in the \sources directory of the Windows DVD). The commercial installer runs when the PC is booted from DVD/USB media and does not perform the NX/SSE2 checks and attempts to enable NX/SSE2 on supported systems.
Click to expand...
 
The 32-bit version of Windows 8 requires a minimum of 1gb of RAM, and the 64-bit version requires 2gb of RAM.
 
Unless you can get the RAM, SSD and Win 8 for free I wouldn't bother, best to save the money for something else. As for XP, that has what a year or two til EOL.
 
Lol my dad put my old laptop to Windows 7 when I told him to do XP, but he told me the CD was corrupted so he had no choice to put Windows 7 which kind of use a lot of resources than XP.

Well I won't be using my old laptop. My mom will, she'll mostly watch YouTube videos about cooking or something like that.

I can upgrade my old laptop's RAM and throw in a PATA SSD, right?
My mom won't use a lot of stuff.
 
I took a 2006 vintage Tecra M7 laptop to my small business club last night to do a demo of Windows 8.

I swapped out the old HDD and put a Samsung 830 SSD in it and fired it up in front of them.

They were amazed to see a laptop boot to desktop in around 10 seconds. I then told them that it was only running about a third as fast as it could due to the vintage of laptop.

Caused a lot of interest.
 
Ryou-kun said:
Lol my dad put my old laptop to Windows 7 when I told him to do XP, but he told me the CD was corrupted so he had no choice to put Windows 7 which kind of use a lot of resources than XP.

Well I won't be using my old laptop. My mom will, she'll mostly watch YouTube videos about cooking or something like that.

I can upgrade my old laptop's RAM and throw in a PATA SSD, right?
My mom won't use a lot of stuff.
Click to expand...

PATA SSD?
I don't recall seeing any SSD's in a PATA interface, they seems to be SATA II or III.
 
If you want to play around and check out the new interface, I'd say go for it, it may not run well, but atleast you can see the new craze, if you are trying to update a daily driver, I'd definitely say stay away.
 
Numan said:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows-8/what-is-pae-nx-sse2

I saw this link earlier in the min req page.

Did the beta versions have this req because I shoved Win8 on an older laptop that I don't think could do a couple of those functions
Click to expand...

The developer and consumer previews didn't require NX, PAE, or SSE2, afaik. In fact, I had the CP running on an old PC with a Northwood Pentium 4 (NX didn't appear until the Prescott chips debuted).

Ryou-kun said:
What about external SSD where I'll put a Windows 7 in it?
Click to expand...

Unless that laptop has an ExpressCard slot or an esata port, Windows will refuse to install on an external drive.

You could always go the compact flash card+ide adapter route (i.e. the "poor man's ssd"), though keep in mind that compact flash cards aren't designed to store and run operating systems and have a very limited number of read/write cycles.
 
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