Getting an Old PC rocking again!

Mighty_Mouse

I'm getting an old (5 yrs) Dell from someone and want to completely wipe it and install windows XP on it.

First reason. Its full of bits of dowloads, old games, pop ups, alerts for software (30 days purchase etc). You know the score.

I was wondering whats the best approach to optimise disk space. getting it running smoothly again without freezing. etc

Is this an easy task. ie for clearing all internet history , dowloads (games , messangers etc) do I just wipe the temporary internet folder.

Do I just run in the unistall programs etc. How do I get it like new or is this possible?

daywalker

Are you looking to keep the programs on the pc and upgrade the windows to XP, if so just use add/remove prgrams in control panel to take off old programs. if you dont mind losing all the programs on the pc, just use the format utility within windows sp setup.

VeVeX

Id just format the drive and do a fresh install.

Normaly it will give you alot less probelms down the road compared to loads of uninstalls. Pop-ups and adware are mostly based in the registry a new install will clear them.

Make sure you have all information and drivers on the hardware before hand.

joePC

5 Year old system I would recommend Windows 2K, XP is a memory hog and may slow the system down when trying to run programs etc....

I would also recommend doing a clean install, back up all the users files word, excell, pics etc onto a different drive. Do a clean install then return the files......Do not choose the upgrade option it will only lead to problems in the future.

Thanks joePC

OfflerCrocGod

I recommend a stripped down Linux Distro.....even Win2k will crawl in a machine that old:(, seriously Win98 may be be your only Windows option if you can't stand Linux.

Tenshot

If you're putting Windows XP on, make sure you have at least 256 MB RAM installed; anything less will lead to a lot of swapping and make for terrible performance.

CPU wise, anything from a P500 upwards should be acceptable (though obviously faster is nicer).

Lump

Windows 3.1 is the way forward


John

SirLemonhead

Originally posted by Lump
Windows 3.1 is the way forward


John

No, not all the latest hardware has proper drivers for Windows 3.1 yet
He's better off sticking with Dos for now

Make sure you have 8 megs of ram though, or you'll get slowdowns!

unkel

It all depends on the ram on a machine that age. If you have 256MB, get XP. If you have 128MB, get W2K. If you have less, indeed W98 would be the way to go. All this obviously if you don't want to go linux

Having said that, I have managed to actually INSTALL and run W2K on a 7 year old 32MB system. No price for correctly guessing how fast it was running

unkel

Installing W2003 Server actually checks physical memory during install. If it's less than 128MB, it will not proceed