Guys, I currently have a 8 year old Dell Dimension 5000 desk top PC, specifications are Windows XP service pack 3, Pentium 4 processor, 3gb memory (upgraded from 1gb) and 160GB HDD. Not sure about other hardward graphics card etc.

While it has been an excellent computer and still is to be fair, I would like to update the OS to Windows 7, as things aren't as quick as they could be. Looking on the Microsoft website, although my PC has an adequate spec to do this, when I download the trial version it will not load correctly???

The question is if it will work, do I get an upgrade software or complete a clean reboot and install Windows 7 from scratch?

Guys, I currently have a 8 year old Dell Dimension 5000 desk top PC, specifications are Windows XP service pack 3, Pentium 4 processor, 3gb memory (upgraded from 1gb) and 160GB HDD. Not sure about other hardward graphics card etc.

While it has been an excellent computer and still is to be fair, I would like to update the OS to Windows 7, as things aren't as quick as they could be. Looking on the Microsoft website, although my PC has an adequate spec to do this, when I download the trial version it will not load correctly???

The question is if it will work, do I get an upgrade software or complete a clean reboot and install Windows 7 from scratch?

It is often less troublesome to install a new complete version of Windows 7. Also if you have problems in the future you will have a nice new MS disc to play with. Upgrades can be more troublesome. You can buy an OEM verson of Windows 7 Home Premium for around £72-78 if you shop around (Ebuyer.com is very good on price).

I am wondering though what problems the installation is throwing up? Does you Dell machine have a backup Windows disc or a genuine Windows XP disc? Or...does it just have an XP recovery partition on the hard drive?

If you want speed and flexibility, take a look at Linux Ubuntu 10.04LTS as it would run fine on your machine and comes packed with just about everything anyone could possibly want. Dell loaded it as standard on many of their machines just a short time ago. The learning curve isn't that great either. If you like playing the latest MS games however, then Linux may not be the best choice as it takes a while for the latest games to trickle onto Linux, although there is still a good choice of just about every type of game. Come back with some more info if you can.

google motherboard drivers too as without these youll run into problems

Save your money and buy a new machine this one is NEVER going to be quick , if its a P4 processor that means its single core and a 160hd in a machine of that age will either be an old ide disk or one of the early sata drives neither will be as fast as a modern disk , XP demands less resources to run than Win 7 so if your machine is not fast enough on XP it will definately run 7 even slower .

Guys, I currently have a 8 year old Dell Dimension 5000 desk top PC, specifications are Windows XP service pack 3, Pentium 4 processor, 3gb memory (upgraded from 1gb) and 160GB HDD. Not sure about other hardward graphics card etc.

While it has been an excellent computer and still is to be fair, I would like to update the OS to Windows 7, as things aren't as quick as they could be. Looking on the Microsoft website, although my PC has an adequate spec to do this, when I download the trial version it will not load correctly???

The question is if it will work, do I get an upgrade software or complete a clean reboot and install Windows 7 from scratch?

You wont be able to upgrade from XP to Windows7, you will have to perform a clean install.

I did this a few months ago on my sons P4 3ghz/3gb/250gb Dell Dimension9000 pc, I created a 2nd partition and created a dual boot so I could make sure Windows7 was ok, it didn't last long before I removed Win7 and dual booted WinXP with Ubuntu.

Personally, I would stick with XP until you are ready to replace the PC

Matthew

You may see a small speed improvement in disk access times, especially if you fit a faster SATA drive or an SSD; but overall it will be marginally slower than a fresh XP install due to the higher demands on the system.

I think based on the comments I may just do a clean install of XP as I have the disc. I was only after speeding up the computer for my boys to use, we already have a laptop running W7.

I think based on the comments I may just do a clean install of XP as I have the disc. I was only after speeding up the computer for my boys to use, we already have a laptop running W7.

<<Just remembered there are other parts to the forum>>

Backup, wipe and rebuild are definately the way to go. Make sure you have a copy of the network card drivers beforehand though, then all the others are downloadable.

Try and use a plain Win-XP disc too. Most of the OEM ones came with 'extra' stuff on, which you never needed and had an overhead in the first place. If you haven't got one, give me a pm. Better to start from just XP and go from there. You'll be suprised how fast XP should still be on that setup.

Cheers