A friend brings me a laptop to sort out...

Retro6 · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:34

So here it goes... A friend phones me up asking if I would sort out his laptop so I said, sure bring it over. He asks me to put Windows 11 on it.

When he gives it to me I notice its an old laptop and I knew right away that this laptop isn't going to be running Windows 11. He told me he bought it cheap for 65 quid. Anyway I fire it up and check the specs in the BIOS, it has 512MB RAM and an intel Pentium 4 processor at 1.8GHz. He got ripped off for sure. I don't even think this thing would take Windows 10 maybe with an SSD at a push but even then online experience will be laggy and horrible. It has an 80GB HDD.

I tell him his got several options, first one is to return the craptop from who he bought it from, get his money back or second option I could try make it useful in some way, with either Windows XP or Windows 7 at best or a light simple Linux OS but regardless of what operating system it has its too old for use on the internet. Given the low RAM I would say Windows XP would be the best option. He still insists he wants Windows 11 :cry:

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:37

Stay out of it. Tell them it’s too slow for windows 10 and 11 and say Microsoft don’t support the old operating systems any more.

You going to regret been support.

Thekwango · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:40

As above. If you ‘sort’ this for him he will forever and a day be torturing you about its slowness. He’ll almost certainly end up blaming you for it being crap and slabber about you to others. This is usually how these things go.

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:41

Thekwango said:
As above. If you ‘sort’ this for him he will forever and a day be torturing you about its slowness. He’ll almost certainly end up blaming you for it being crap and slabber about you to others. This is usually how these things go.

100% this is how it goes.

adidan · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:52

I have to ask, if he's brought it to you to magically sort it out why on earth did he not think of asking you before he bought it?

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:55

The amount of people I’ve had to say that the device doesn’t support windows 11 is nuts. No way would I be installing 11 on incompatible hardware that I wasn’t directly paid for for fixing.

That’s a big rabbit hole.

Kelt · 19 Dec 2023 at 19:58

adidan said:
I have to ask, if he's brought it to you to magically sort it out why on earth did he not think of asking you before he bought it?

Going back a bit, but my brother paid over the odds for a PC from a dodgy local dealer, full of outdated bits, utter jank purchase, and he never asked my opinion beforehand.

Guess who had the job of maintaining that piece of junk...

adidan · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:01

Kelt said:
Going back a bit, but my brother paid over the odds for a PC from a dodgy local dealer, full of overdated bits, utter jank purchase, and he never asked my opinion beforehand.

Guess who had the job of maintaining that piece of junk...

Yeah, always the go to person to sort out a problem that wouldn't have occurred if they'd just gone to the 'go to person' in the first place.

I know that story.

Retro6 · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:09

Yep I'll just have to tell him he got ripped off and there isn't anything I can do with it.

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:09

Kelt said:
Going back a bit, but my brother paid over the odds for a PC from a dodgy local dealer, full of outdated bits, utter jank purchase, and he never asked my opinion beforehand.

Guess who had the job of maintaining that piece of junk...

I would have said no unsupported.

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:09

Retro6 said:
Yep I'll just have to tell him he got ripped off and there isn't anything I can do with it.

Don’t say he got ripped off just say it’s unsupported and you can’t get it on.

Thekwango · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:41

GaryTheSnail said:
Don’t say he got ripped off just say it’s unsupported and you can’t get it on.

Indeed. If the op tells his mate he got ripped off that will resort on said mate going back to wherever he bought it and name dropping the op into a potential argument he has nowt to do with him.

I once set a printer up for a ‘mate’ - literally just plugged it in and sorted drivers. His laptop died a few months later (can’t remember exact details)…..but guess who got the blame :rolleyes:

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:42

Thekwango said:
Indeed. If the op tells his mate he got ripped off that will resort on said mate going back to wherever he bought it and name dropping the op into a potential argument he has nowt to do with him.

I once set a printer up for a ‘mate’ - literally just plugged it in and sorted drivers. His laptop died a few months later (can’t remember exact details)…..but guess who got the blame

It’s the reason I stopped doing tech repairs. Can’t stand it now.

“ It was working before you touched it “

^^ after months of the repair been fine. And nowt to do with hardware. The fact they downloaded software which trashed the os.

Jerks.

The_Arbiter · 19 Dec 2023 at 20:58

I'd just be blunt about it. A true mate would understand and respect that. You run the risk of being branded too lazy to help a mate out if you don't show him his mistake.

labbby · 19 Dec 2023 at 21:07

Let him in on the ocuk forum letter box treatment, then he can pay the seller a visit.

Ollie83 · 20 Dec 2023 at 04:12

That really sucks for him

Removed User 345456 · 20 Dec 2023 at 07:22

GaryTheSnail said:
No way would I be installing 11 on anything.

Fixed that for you bro

Deleted member 77746 · 20 Dec 2023 at 07:23

keef247 said:
Fixed that for you bro

Go back in your shell. 11 is good when you just leave it alone. People need to try to get used to it where possible. It’s not going away anytime soon and by default coming installed on laptops.

Removed User 345456 · 20 Dec 2023 at 07:26

GaryTheSnail said:
Go back in your shell. 11 is good when you just leave it alone. People need to try to get used to it where possible. It’s not going away anytime soon and by default coming installed on laptops.

Yeah when you leave it alone to the point you never install it let alone download it.
It is going away soon lol 12 is coming out. I'll stick to 10 on a machine that's only turn off purely for gaming, and use macOS on everything else thanks to Unix/BSD bliss

The ONLY time I'll upgrade is when a new DirectX comes out that is required for sexy graphics.

Deleted member 77746 · 20 Dec 2023 at 07:29

keef247 said:
Yeah when you leave it alone to the point you never install it let alone download it.
It is going away soon lol 12 is coming out. I'll stick to 10 on a machine that's only turn off purely for gaming, and use macOS on everything else thanks to Unix/BSD bliss

But if you let it sit there it just works. I had issues on it the first few days of trying it when it first got released but sure there was bugs n that. About 6-12 months into using it everything it become much more stable for me. I now use it (and have to use it, forced client devices) because of b2b support.