Which is best for older laptop: Classic Shell with win7 or Win10?

I have a Dell Studio 15 (1555) that I purchased in 2009. OS is Windows 7 Professional. Is it better to add Classic Shell to Win7 or to upgrade to Win 10 and add Classic Shell?

Details:
236GB used, 214GB free space
Intel P8700 2.53 GHz Processor
64 bit OS
4GB memory

The question is highly subjective with no easy answers. It depends entirely on how you define "better".

I would say go with Window 8.1 with Classic Shell or Windows 7 with Classic Shell.

I use Classic Shell on Win 7.
It replaces functionality that was removed in post-2000 versions of Windows.

FWIW, I also say go with Win 7 and Classic Shell. With older machines, compatibility with Win 10 may be or become an issue and yours like mine is probably past its support date. 7 is good for the probable lifetime of your machine. Win 10 boots faster but I don't want the ads or problems with mixed system networking (been there, done that). My Win 7 acts like XP (no damn libraries and a quick launch bar). If you are looking for a faster boot, a SSD with 7 is faster than 10 without. At 69, I see no REAL advantage to 10 and I don't need the aggravation of its growing pains ..... life is too short. New increasingly often does not mean better.

DUFFER said:

FWIW, I also say go with Win 7 and Classic Shell. With older machines, compatibility with Win 10 may be or become an issue and yours like mine is probably past its support date. 7 is good for the probable lifetime of your machine. Win 10 boots faster but I don't want the ads or problems with mixed system networking (been there, done that). My Win 7 acts like XP (no damn libraries and a quick launch bar). If you are looking for a faster boot, a SSD with 7 is faster than 10 without.

As you suggest, I plan to stay with Win 7 and add Classic Shell. I also am looking into replacing my 500 GB HHD with a 500GB SSD. Amazon has a Sandisk Ultra II 480GB SATA III for $124 I am considering.

DUFFER said:

At 69, I see no REAL advantage to 10 and I don't need the aggravation of its growing pains ..... life is too short. New increasingly often does not mean better.

At 80, I agree.

strollin said:

I'm not sure why anyone would use Classic Shell with Win 7. IMO, Classic Shell is only somewhat useful on a Win 8.x machine. Win 7 and Win 10 already have their own Start menus so Classic Shell isn't worthwhile on either of those.

Classic Shell was started with the purpose of bringing the cascading style menu for All Programs and old style keyboard accelerators (e.g. C to open pinned Calculator) to Windows 7. Other Explorer fixes like the missing Up button and fixing navigation pane issues were also made for Windows 7. It's just a happy coincidence that Windows 8 benefits from Classic Shell because Microsoft self-destructed with that OS.

I would go in this order:

1. WinXP SP3 32bit
2. Win7 Pro SP1 64bit + Classic Shell
3. Linux