Windows 7 upgrade options for cheapest $$?

INCyclone

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Jan 17, 2012
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I have a 5 year old HP laptop in good condition that is mostly used for my business. It has Windows 7 and I was looking for the cheapest option to upgrade the operating system. Any ideas for the cheapest route for this?

Thanks!
 

BoxsterCy

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Sep 14, 2009
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I have a 5 year old HP laptop in good condition that is mostly used for my business. It has Windows 7 and I was looking for the cheapest option to upgrade the operating system. Any ideas for the cheapest route for this?

Thanks!

IMHO, you are really at the end of the expected life of a good biz computer and past the life if it was a cheap model. Do you really want to put time and money into a five year old computer with a hard drive that maybe ready to poop it's bits? I'd look for a new business computer with a solid state drive. Everything will be faster, likely even your wifi. You can get a new Dell, Lenovo or HP mid-range biz computer for $500-something that will last you 4-5 years. $100/year. Say $200/year if you go higher end. How much is your time and files worth if your old computer goes tits up on you?

Full Disclosure: I've have amazing luck with home computers, never had a catastrophic failure. Did have to reinstall Windows 7 once (sort of a pain) and mess around clearing ram connections when old desktop won't boot but nothing that lost me stuff beyond my personal after work times. Not the same luck at all at work with several laptops totally augering in.

My ancient Toshiba 15", aka The Brick, is going to retire next week. I am not look for a biz computer so my shopping and wants list will be different.
 

cyphoon

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Sep 8, 2011
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Good question! Will outlook and excel/word/powerpoint run on Linux mint?

They will not run directly on Linux. For office, you could use Libre Office or OpenOffice. Both can read and write office files. Another option is to switch to google docs and sheets.

Outlook is probably going to be a bigger snag, especially if you connect it to a corporate exchange server. My solution is to use the outlook web interface. This works for me because I am a fairly light user of outlook. I don't create a lot of elaborate meetings and spend minimal time reading email.

H
 
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MuskieCy

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Nov 4, 2006
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My 10 year old Samsung updated to Win10 a couple of years ago. It took a while but works just fine. Upgraded the RAM to 16 Gigs beforehand. Use it every day.

Our tax practice PC's were upped to 32 Gigs RAM ans SSD's before upgrading this past fall. Easy squeezey, lemon peezey.
 

bos

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Apr 10, 2006
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I like Mint, typically my go to. Been toying with Pop!_OS. I find it’s more user friendly and looks a bit better. Seems a smidge speedier as well. Worth a look.
 

cyphoon

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Sep 8, 2011
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Good to know. I'm dual booted on my 4 year old hp right now with Ubuntu and Windows. Ubuntu gets used much more often. Next time I'll try Mint.

I also use and like PCLinuxOS, but that community is significantly smaller.

I am at a point where I spend the vast majority of my time in Linux. I only boot to windows to run Turbo Tax or to do some .net coding work.

H
 

MeowingCows

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Jun 1, 2015
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Our tax program would take 45 seconds to load at 16GB. Now it takes about 5.
I guarantee you that was because of the SSD, if done at the same time.

Adding more RAM generally won't increase speed. You'd have to be maxing it out for it to do so meaningfully.
 
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