Thanks to all for the info on this thread, it's going to be very useful!

 

DC

Linux is easy if it works and an utter ****** if it doesn't. If you like a challenge it's well worth having a go a Linux.

 

Very good if you're of a "Do what I ****ing say and nothing else!" frame of mind or have a command line fetish.

 

SSD can make a truly staggering difference to the performance of an old laptop or PC. My ancient laptop with a very cheap 60Gb SSD will boot in about 5-10sec and that's with the configuration slightly jiggered.

Where did you pick up a 60GB SSD from? That size would be quite handy for a few of my spare machines

 

Don't really want to fork out on 128GB SSDs with the value of the hardware I'd be fitting it to! Especially when I don't need that level of local storage anyway.

Picked it up a deal with UKhotdeals quite a while ago when smaller drives were more common. Only cost £25 which I thought was well worth taking a punt on.

It's an OCZ unit and no known for reliability. Plus OCZ have gone bust anyway.

 

Ebuyer still sells 60s

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/411671-kingston-60gb-ssdnow-v300-ssd-sv300s37a-60g

Cheers. That was a good deal, wish I'd spotted that!

 

Hadn't seen them on Ebuyer actually - must have filtered them out by accident.

Silly question but has anyone ever tried a refurbished os from a decommissioned machine...

If it's a license actually physically attached to the same machine - yes.

You can just install an OEM copy of whatever OS the machine is licensed for, or use a manufacturer disk.

If you're looking to mix and match, then no. It doesn't meet the licensing requirements.

Cheers Steve - was thinking of a Win7 OS off a decommissioned machine that would come with install disk and COA to replace XP on my existing (built but modified) machine.  I've seen a few places offering this either locally or via ebay.

Just look for the sticker on the side with the key. It's the key you pay for not the disk.

Edited 10 April, 201412 yr by Aspman

Cheers Steve - was thinking of a Win7 OS off a decommissioned machine that would come with install disk and COA to replace XP on my existing (built but modified) machine.  I've seen a few places offering this either locally or via ebay.

 

It will work just fine, but if it's an OEM license it's not officially transferrable so you may as well just download a pirate copy off the net or wander into a computer shop and take a photo of a product key.

Cheers Steve - was thinking of a Win7 OS off a decommissioned machine that would come with install disk and COA to replace XP on my existing (built but modified) machine.  I've seen a few places offering this either locally or via ebay.

 

If the machine is decommissioned, can't you just swap over to using that hardware and ditch your old XP machine entirely?

Just look for the sticker on the side with the key. It's the key you pay for not the disk.

But try getting a copy of the disc. I had this happen a few years ago. I'd made copies of my genuine xp pro cd, but non would work, so in went my origonal, thinking,i'll get my PC up and running and make fresh copies. Ouch- my xp disc ran up to speed and disentigrated inside my CD player. I had the key, but no disc and I found out there was no way ( legally) I'd get a disc. The CD player was cheap compared to the XP disc.BUT, if you're updating from XP, it might be worth checking if some of your hardware can run on W7. I still keep XP on mine with w7, for that reason, ans as i also have an ancient ( old friend) IBM 600 laptop which is happy ,but not over the moon with w2k ,but won't recognise discs burnt on w7/64 bit.

With W7, there's places ( I won't say where) that have "loaders" for keys. Or as Dr Z said, get OS + loader . With my experience of MS, and possibly others have had this ,is there any wonder that some folks use pirate sites. At least they don't fleece you like the Gates empire.

For an old PC running XP you will probably have to use Win7 32bit.

 

Ré not working except with original CD; I have had this happen, but only with a Dell PC, all the retail CDs and codes have been interchangeable except for a special multi-language XP Pro CD I laid my hands on a few years ago (for the wife); I couldnt find a single code in my collection that it would accept..

 

PS The wife now has her Residents Card, only cost us £1500 (faints). I worked out that the Visa centre in Solihull is clearing £2-3 MILLION a day - so much for the visa price only covering the cost of administering the visa system!!!

GG- I can sympathise. My DIL is a US national,Once upon a time she'd have had an auto UK status on marriage. Now it's cost them (or should I say the two dads) close on £1000 to let them be together in his country. I often wonder what the US of A would have said if son had decided to move over there . 

I was amazed that the same goes for Oz or NZ, a friend of my daughter has had to leave her husband in NZ after they attended a relations wedding before the New Year! They have been married (in UK) for a few years now, but her husband requested that he visit NZ as his mother was dying, The Passport people said "yes, no problem", he went, returned and the police came and took both their passports away within 6 months of him returning to UK as he had violated his conditions by leaving UK! Oh and part of the reason for them going back to NZ on holiday last year was so that he could apply for a new visa - so far UK has not bothered to give him a visa to get back to his wife and job in UK. I don't think a lot of people know that things can work like that when they first "get in tow" with foreign nationals. My daughter has just found out that it works the other way as well, she took part in a professional exchange last year, teaching in Perth WA, is now back home but would like to do another year in Oz, her old school has a job for her lined up, so she applied for a working Visa, got what is called an "invite" but, education department will not confirm the job unless she has a Visa, Visa people can not convert the "invite" to a Visa unless she has a job. So she wants to go back to Oz for a year teaching, school in Oz wants her back, teaching is on the second list of "wanted professions" - but Visa people say no and that is that!

Off topic much?!

If the machine is decommissioned, can't you just swap over to using that hardware and ditch your old XP machine entirely?

Not really as I don't have all of the decommissioned machine and I 'know' the provenance of my existing machine and drives etc.

Cheers guys and apologies for the delayed responses - been busy!

 

Sounds like I can manage for a short while and went through the process of updating all of the machines yesterday (and will do again tomorrow) but slowly coming round to the idea of changing to Win7 for the desktop (if I can get a cheap copy from somewhere) as that will do us to 2020 or so apparently and then if I have problems for the netbooks I may switch to Linux(they were available with Ubuntu but I've heard Puppy or CrunchBang works well?  (all are standing keyboard / mouse and touchpad inputs (no touch screens) so I reckon Win 8 is probably not a good move???

 

Any comments / thoughts / further suggestions?

 

Not sure if you have made a decision on this yet but some years ago I tried Linux and could not get my head round it. I am sure it was Redhat?

 

Anyhow,

I have been reading about it again recently and decided to give Linux Mint 16 Petra a try.

 

It comes with Libre office and Firefox and thunderbird.

I installed Chrome instead of firefox.

I was stunned at how everything just seemed to work straight from the install.

I have not tried everythnig yet but it is a dream to use.

The old celeron laptop I installed it on seems faster than this one with an i5  and 8 gigs ram running win 7.

I am going to try it for another week or so and judging by how it is I will be wiping this one and installing it in this as well.

I may even go fo gold and fit an ssd on this as well.

 

LINK >> http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Very tempted with Linux but, for the desktop at least I'd need to stick with Windows - not only because thatis what the peop[le that use it are used to but also because I will often use it for remote access to work - and that needs Windows...

 

Will rpobably drop afrlavour of Linux on at least one, if not both netbooks though - just looking for the time and opportunity as well as the relevant files etc.

For stand alone users there are lots of flavours of linux to try.

Tiny ones like Puppy are designed to run of a boot cd or memory stick. It runs very fast on even really old processors as the overheads are so small. GUI is not so sophisticated but it is great to use as a recovery system if a winbox goes down. After effectively dual booting you can see and manipulate the win files like normal - load them on to a cd or stick and your crash is not so bad.

I have used Ubuntu a lot and find it good to use, I never had to use the terminal (like using the command prompt) for anything, and never found anything I couldn't do.

Mint is being pushed as an improvement to that, so that may get a twirl.

The two laptops, one ancient and one middle aged, are both running Zorin which again is nice and easy and copes with the relative lack of memory and storage.

All versions of linux I have tried have set themselves up, finding and connecting to the network and printers and all that jazz.

I think one of them threw a bit a paddy re bluetooth, but as I don't use that, and swmbo sorted it all out.

All stuff produced on libre or open office will transfer straight to a windows machine without any hassle, its only ms specific stuff which you can't do or is difficult (that's the same for me).

Some of the fora for linux are populated my idiots. However there are decent ones who give decent advice without just YELLING RFM. This is also improving the whole experience.

+1 for Ubuntu now 14.04 LTS is out. Supported until 2017 IIRC.

Unless you have any requirement to run windows only software.

You can always test drive Ubuntu without installing it.

Grab a chippy of the ISO and burn it to DVD.

Bout of it and when it asks you what you want to do select the option Run off disc.