Compaq Pesario SR1000 ~ set up advice needed

My brother in law has an old PC that used to run Win XP HP , He has recently purchased a nice shiny new i7 Sony Vaio running Win 8 pro. He asked his local tech guy to fix his old PC and he wanted silly money to set up XP on it. So he asked for it back and it was returned with no OS in place.

He has asked me if I can stick Win 7 X86 HP on it.I have checked the specs and it just meets minimum requirements. His specs are :

HP Compaq Pesario SR1000

Processor AMD Athlon XP 3000+ / 2.16 GHz

Memory 1.0 GB (max)

HardDrive 160.0 GB - 7200.0 rpm

Will this run Win 7 HP OK or will it be laggy and not play nice , Would I be better of sticking Win 7 Starter on it ?

I have looked online for the boot options and have worked out I need to press F10 to enter the BIOS but cant find out if this will boot from USB ?

My plan is to make a bootable flash drive to install the OS and then give that to my bro in law for future use if/ when needed.

I'd like to have everything in place before he comes round on Wednesday and just set it up on the spot for him.

I'm hunting down drivers now and will have them all ready , but can anyone see any problems I may have with driver issues , like I said it used to run Win XP HP and this is a rather old tower.

Thanks in advance

Win7 is driver-complete in the installer and after running all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates. Any drivers then missing in Device Manager should be imported from the HP SUpport downloads webpage for the PC model - Vista drivers will work, but Windows Updates will likely update them too.

After that install programs and test each with enough time in between to gauge how they might affect performance.

There are more tips here which will assure you get and keep a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 . In particular I'd delete all partitions during booted install as described. If you'll stick with the tools and methods given you'll keep a perfect install for as long as you do.

You'll know soon enough how Win7 runs on it although with 1gb it can be a bit sluggish. If he likes Win7 it might be worth doubling the RAM since it's cheap. Start with Crucial System Scanner software to find out what type of memory is in your computer then you can shop online to see if better deals are available for those exact RAM specs.

Thanks for the advice as I have never messed about with a tower PC, I have always had a laptop.

Its my understand that his PC has a maximum allocation of 1gig of RAM @ 2 x 512MB (although I have seen other specs saying 4 gig , but that may be a later model for Vista ?) Guess I wont know till I boot it up.

No ideas if I can boot from USB ? I did look on the HP support site but it just show you how to access boot options and not list them. I'm just lazy and don't want to go and buy any DVDs , can't remember the last time I opened my DVD drive on my lappy as I tend to do everything via USB now.

The PC has one partition with no OS on it and I won't have any problems doing a clean install or creating a recovery partition. Was just curious if I would have any issues on the box jumping from XP to 7.

Thanks again for the advice , I really should visit this place more often. I did at one time use this place a lot when solar and wzor was handling the Win7 leaks, but cant remember my user name ( well Kinda know it ) or the e mail addy I used to register Any mods care to help a fella out ? lol

Extract the WIn7 ISO from DVD using ImgBurn or use the ISO provided in Clean Reinstall tutorial for you licensed version, write to flash stick using the tool also provided or UltraISO Software To Create Bootable USB Flash Drive.

Boot the flash stick using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key given on first boot screen, or follow How to Boot A Computer from CD or DVD - YouTube to set flash stick to boot in BIOS, under HD's, Removable, or USB.

Do the Custom Install, at drive screen use Drive Tools to delete partition and create new, format and begin install. Stick with the steps in tutorial to get and keep a perfect install.

To answer my own question no you can't boot from USB on my brother in laws PC.

So I will remove the ei.cfg file from an .ISO with Win7 SP1 integrated to it , burn it and see what plays nice on his box.

Thanks for the links , not really sure why you posted them ? As I said above I can make a bootable flash drive and add an "OEM" type recovery partition so I'm sure I will install the OS just fine , via an "AIO" DVD and click through the menus.

Thanks for your time gregrocker I do appreciate it. Rep added for the "pro tips" :)