Installing Win 7 on slow XP machine

[cherivo]

I have an old (3.5 years) XP machine that is maxed out on RAM, with 3.5 GB. But it is still slow. I've done all that needs to be done and it still thrashes a lot. I'm thinking about putting Win 7 on it. What is the general consensus of installing Win 7 on a slow, older machine? Thanks for any advice!

 

[ZeshanA]

I have an old (3.5 years) XP machine that is maxed out on RAM, with 3.5 GB. But it is still slow. I've done all that needs to be done and it still thrashes a lot. I'm thinking about putting Win 7 on it. What is the general consensus of installing Win 7 on a slow, older machine? Thanks for any advice!

Hi Cherivo! Welcome to SevenForums! Please can you fill out your System Specs by going to User CP at the top right, and clicking "System Specs" and filling it out.

1st of all, just because a machine is old, doesn't necessarily mean it's slow. Outdated it might be, but better Graphics Cards, CPUs etc... are released every year or so. And no-one in their right minds would upgrade it every year.

I've done all that needs to be done and it still thrashes a lot.

What do you mean by this?

I'll need your System Specs before I can help anymore. Try checking Windows 7 system requirements - Microsoft Windows

Thanks,
ZeshanA
If I helped, click the scales above my post and click I Approve.

 

[cherivo]

Thank you, Zeshana. I updated my specs, but since I have two machines, there isn't a good way to list specs for both. So, I put specs for both machines on the same page.

My older desktop does meet the Windows 7 system requirements and I have done the Upgrade Advisor. What I mean by doing all that I can to speed it up includes: defrag, upgrade RAM to 3.5 (most useable), registry cleanup through Norton 360, general cleanup of unused software, although I do have 168 GB of free space.

It also has trouble shutting down and I have to shut down and end unresponsive programs several times before it will actually shut down. Memory leak, maybe? I don't know how to fix that. Any other ideas? I was just hoping Win 7 would be my savior and fix all my problems.

 

[dave1812]

Thank you, Zeshana. I updated my specs, but since I have two machines, there isn't a good way to list specs for both. So, I put specs for both machines on the same page.

My older desktop does meet the Windows 7 system requirements and I have done the Upgrade Advisor. What I mean by doing all that I can to speed it up includes: defrag, upgrade RAM to 3.5 (most useable), registry cleanup through Norton 360, general cleanup of unused software, although I do have 168 GB of free space.

It also has trouble shutting down and I have to shut down and end unresponsive programs several times before it will actually shut down. Memory leak, maybe? I don't know how to fix that. Any other ideas? I was just hoping Win 7 would be my savior and fix all my problems.

I've got 7 running fine on a 5+ year old HP Pavilon A643n (AMD 64 Athlon 3200+) with just 1GB (that's all the M/B will support) or RAM. I also have 7 on an Acer netbook, which we all know is no speed demon, and 7 requites itself nicely on both machines. I didn't anticipate any issues because I'd been running the beta and RC1 for ages on the HP w/o problems. I'm glad to see MS make an OS that older machines can handle with aplomb.

I also have 7 on a 2yr old Toshiba lappy which has a zippier processor than the other 2 machines and I don't see much of a difference in obvious performance, even though it stands to reason that the Toshiba should be faster. I know the raw performance of the Toshiba is much better than the HP because I can encode a movie in 1/2 the time it takes on the HP, but that's a function of the processor and RAM, rather than the OS, which in this case, is identical.

 

[RogerR]

It also has trouble shutting down and I have to shut down and end unresponsive programs several times before it will actually shut down. Memory leak, maybe? I don't know how to fix that. Any other ideas? I was just hoping Win 7 would be my savior and fix all my problems.

Many of those symptoms appear after XP has been installed for long enough to acquire a registry cluttered with installations and deletions etc. So a fresh install of any OS will make it responsive again. I've just been through that on an older XP machine. Win7 would probably do fine with the candy (Aero) turned off. It is certainly an easier install in that it seems to find the drivers on its own instead of you having to hand feed it.

 

[harpua]

I put 7 on a 5 year old T42p with 1 GB of ram and it's running great on it. I was quite surprised by how snappy it is on that old machine.

 

[Shinobi73]

It also has trouble shutting down and I have to shut down and end unresponsive programs several times before it will actually shut down. Memory leak, maybe? I don't know how to fix that. Any other ideas? I was just hoping Win 7 would be my savior and fix all my problems.

Many of those symptoms appear after XP has been installed for long enough to acquire a registry cluttered with installations and deletions etc. So a fresh install of any OS will make it responsive again. I've just been through that on an older XP machine. Win7 would probably do fine with the candy (Aero) turned off. It is certainly an easier install in that it seems to find the drivers on its own instead of you having to hand feed it.

I think a good clean install will fix this problem. By the way you describe it it looks like you do have a lot of software that may be corrupted or needs reinstallation already ("cluttered")

A clean installation will get rid of these issues and you get to use a fresh sytem

 

[Buzzintx]

I installed Win 7 from XP (clean install) and it's very fast!

 

[cherivo]

You all have been very helpful! Thank you. Approval scales all around! As soon as I finish this college course, I will upgrade. I have great hopes. I suppose I could just reinstall most of my apps, but I'd have to do that anyway when I upgrade the OS, so I'll do it all then. I bet my registry does have a lot of extraneous stuff in it, although I had RegCure for a while and ran that frequently. Anyway, thanks again.

 

[Dzomlija]

You all have been very helpful! Thank you. Approval scales all around! As soon as I finish this college course, I will upgrade. I have great hopes. I suppose I could just reinstall most of my apps, but I'd have to do that anyway when I upgrade the OS, so I'll do it all then. I bet my registry does have a lot of extraneous stuff in it, although I had RegCure for a while and ran that frequently. Anyway, thanks again.

You generally find that Windows 7 runs on older hardware without any issues. I've got an old AMD Athlon 1.3GHz with only 512MB ram at work, and 7 works on there with no problems.

But as for your mentioning "RegCure", I'll say to you what I say to all the lost souls who come into my workshop with similar questions:

Are you knowledgable enough about the inner workings of the registry, and do you have enough confidence in your computer skills to go into the registry and make the edits yourself? If your answer is "No", then why do you rely on a third-party utility do to that work for you? Are you 100% sure that the "fixes" and "cures" it recommends are indeed safe to perform? The registry is just too important to system stability to casually make changes without knowing what the consequences would be.

The moral of the story: STAY AWAY FROM REGISTRY CLEANERS AND FIXERS! They do more harm than good.

 

[porkr]

I have an old (3.5 years) XP machine that is maxed out on RAM, with 3.5 GB. But it is still slow. I've done all that needs to be done and it still thrashes a lot. I'm thinking about putting Win 7 on it. What is the general consensus of installing Win 7 on a slow, older machine? Thanks for any advice!

I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how well W7 runs even on the older machine.

You say you have 3.5 Gb of ram whihc implies a not too ancient machine.

I upgraded two machines ( 1 is 2 years old IBM 9120CTO & the other is 5 years old 8291-E2U ). Its like I have two new PC's. I am happy ....

 

[pparks1]

The moral of the story: STAY AWAY FROM REGISTRY CLEANERS AND FIXERS! They do more harm than good.

I tend to agree with you on this one. I've come across quite a number of problems myself which develop after running things like ccleaner and the like which are supposed to make things better.

 

[cherivo]

Allright, point well taken on the registry cleaner. I'm guessing the same holds true for the Norton 360 registry cleaner....? What's the best way to clean it out then? Take it to somebody who knows? And if so, I'm not sure I'd trust it to any techie around here.

 

[Dzomlija]

Allright, point well taken on the registry cleaner. I'm guessing the same holds true for the Norton 360 registry cleaner....? What's the best way to clean it out then? Take it to somebody who knows? And if so, I'm not sure I'd trust it to any techie around here.

the best way to maintain your registry is not be be an install junkie. By this I mean don't install something just because "it's cool".

Setup your system the way you need it, with all the important apps and utils. More later. Work calls...

 

[dave1812]

Allright, point well taken on the registry cleaner. I'm guessing the same holds true for the Norton 360 registry cleaner....? What's the best way to clean it out then? Take it to somebody who knows? And if so, I'm not sure I'd trust it to any techie around here.

Either clean it out manually, or just leave it alone. If you aren't comfortable in there, don't venture in as you can certainly mess it up if not careful. I've had bad experience with cleaners so I avoid them. I have no qualms going into the registry to make changes, but that's me. It's smart to back up the registry before working on it--something I sometimes do--it depends on what I'll be doing in there.

 

[Peng]

Hi guys, great forum! I am about to install on an old Compaq Presario 1500 running XP Home SP2 with 2.4ghz P4 and 768mb with 32mb(?) ATI. Any advice for a newbie? I can't wait to see how this goes.

Peng

 

[Tews]

Run the Upgrade Advisor, though I would max out your RAM right off the bat... Good Luck!

 

[dave1812]

The moral of the story: STAY AWAY FROM REGISTRY CLEANERS AND FIXERS! They do more harm than good.

Amen!

 

[Peng]

Run the Upgrade Advisor, though I would max out your RAM right off the bat... Good Luck!

Thanks Tews, the old lappy is now up and running, no issues as of yet aside from not seeing my network at home, which I will address this weekend. It does seem faster. I will update you guys as soon as I get everything re-installed. Happy turkey day everyone!

Peng