Mum given old laptop, what version of Windows and how to get the most from it?

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

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Hello,
My mum has been given an old laptop by a friend, its her first ever computer so she doesn't need anything too demanding from it and will mostly just start with web browsing, maybe watching a dvd or 2, bit of word processing and other general stuff.

I had a quick look at the spec:

Its an Asus, 1.8GHz Sempron, 60GB hard drive and 384MB Ram. I knew instantly the tiny amount of RAM would make general navigating a bit of a chore so am looking to get the laptop running as quick as possible for her so have a few questions.

It's currently running XP sp3, is this the best option? As the laptop is a good few years old it would seem likely this is the best option but I have heard Windows 7 runs well on low specs but am thinking 384MB is a little too low spec.

Am planning on installing firefox, is this the best bet or is IE less of a system hog as I notice firefox uses a fair amount of memory on my laptop with 4GB RAM.

Any other general tweaks will be helpful, i'm reasonably computer savvy but haven't really kept up to date for years and never had such a poor computer I had to desperately tweak lol

Cheers.
 
XPSP3 is probably your best bet although it will probably still seriously struggle at that, you could nLite up the disc and do a really lean install, might do her more harm than good though.
 
Desperately needs RAM - I'd suggest getting a couple of GB - it should be dirt cheap.

Running it on 300mb is going to be hell and make your mum want to throw it through the window. Might as well make her first computing experience semi-enjoyable.



M.
 
With that amount of RAM, XP. Win7 isn't at all pleasant to use on 512MB, so I reckon it would be almost unusable on 384.

I reckon XP will be OK on 384MB for your mum's purposes. XP can run passably on 256MB. It won't like multitasking too much, but for casual web browsing it should be OK.

Stick with IE8 if you want to keep the memory usage down. Many of its components are loaded with Windows anyway, so it will probably use less memory unless you open up lots of tabs.
 
m4cc45 said:
Running it on 300mb is going to be hell and make your mum want to throw it through the window. Might as well make her first computing experience semi-enjoyable.

M.
Click to expand...
This hits the nail on the head IMO... there's a common perception that a first-time PC user doesn't "need" anything beyond some old pile of junk to get them going. If anything, I'd suggest that the reverse is true - they'd be far better served with something which has enough grunt to keep running smoothly in spite of less-than-expert usage, such as the zillion-and-one "helpful" memory-resident apps which will inevitably end up getting installed. An intrinsically more robust and malware-resistant OS such as Win7 wouldn't hurt in this respect either...

I think old kit is actually more suited to experienced users who know how to compensate for its deficiencies and tweak it for best performance, or who can find some kind of specialised usage which will allow it to run nicely within its limitations.

In other words OP, buy your mum a nice new laptop for Christmas... something basic (but reasonably modern) will do, and there are some cracking deals around if you keep your eyes open. Otherwise, you're setting yourselves up for endless frustration... your mum trying to use the thing, and you constantly having to fix it up when it repeatedly grinds to a virtual standstill. :)
 
I know this is the Windows forum.

But if it's her first computer, and only using it for websites and movies.

Why not put on Linux?
 
Dunno what some of you guys must have been running circa 2002, because I remember upgrading my XP box to 256mb of RAM and thinking it was pretty sweet! Personally I wouldn't waste the time and money sourcing more RAM for it.

XP + MSE + Standard User Account + Chrome (automatic Flash updates) Take a disk image in case she manages to screw it up, it should be pretty small so you could restore it in the time it takes to make a brew and drink it.
 
Not sure what I was running but know I soon upgraded the memory to 512 then 2gig.

Xp isn't the same as it was in 2002 if I recall the minimum spec then was 512, yes it would run with less. With all the updates for the many bugs and security issues it isn't the same beast (I still run it).

As with most things now people don't have to optimise code, images, videos, websites etc.. expecting everyone to have huge hard drives and loads of ram, which most have. All this ads to the overhead of the system and will soon munch through that amount of ram. Linux was suggested because it has far better memory management than Windows ever has so far.
 
I don't think Linux is a great idea. If she's just learning to use a computer, then it will cause less pain in the long run if she learns the interfaces first which she is likely to find elsewhere (friends' houses, public places, etc.) Practically speaking, this will probably be Windows. Starting with Linux just seems like an extra obstacle to me.

I might avoid MSE too. One of the reasons I stopped using it was that the memory-resident part of it alone was eating about 70MB of RAM. I'm now using Avast, which is using 22.
 
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Mattus said:
I don't think Linux is a great idea. If she's just learning to use a computer, then it will cause less pain in the long run if she learns the interfaces first which she is likely to find elsewhere (friends' houses, public places, etc.) Practically speaking, this will probably be Windows. Starting with Linux just seems like an extra obstacle to me.
Click to expand...

I bet the vast amount of stuff she'll be doing will be in a browser which isn't any different from Linux to Windows. I really don't think it'll make much different at all. She turns on the PC, double clicks the Firefox/Chrome icon and away she goes.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

Although I am sure Linux would give better performance I have no experience in it and it won't be very easy for me to show her the basics as I won't know myself!

I will get the laptop back to mine within the next week and will try and see what kind of memory it carries (Any recommended programs?), if its available locally i'll try and up it to 1-2GB depending on the motherboards limitation. Unfortunately, just don't have the funds to buy her a new one!

Will take a look at Chrome in the meantime.

Thanks for all the replies.
 
On an auction site I found 2gb of RAM for less than £20. I'm sure that's £20 well spent, even though she'll probably be fine on 1gb.
 
m4cc45 said:
Desperately needs RAM - I'd suggest getting a couple of GB - it should be dirt cheap.
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I doubt a laptop with 384MB (DDR1 at a guess) is going to be cheap nor able to get to 'a couple of GB' somehow. You are looking at £40-45 if it is able to run 2 x 1GB modules. 512MB would be fine for web use.
 
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