Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7?
I have an 8 year old Dell XPS computer with XP on it. Now that I am seeing the end of the road for XP, I have been thinking about my options. This computer, when it was purchased, was a very high end ...
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I have an Acer Aspire One netbook that is probably about the same, performance wise, as your 8 year old desktop (a little slower perhaps). It was running Win XP without issue but I wanted to move to a newer OS. I considered Win 7 (I've run Win 7 on it before) but decided to give Win 8 a try. Win 8 runs great on the little netbook and it boots/shuts down faster than it ever did with XP.
I know you said you tried Win 8 and didn't like it but it really is a pretty decent OS. You don't need to use the Start screen or the Metro/Modern apps that come with it. I am able to run all the software I run on my Win 7 machines on my Win 8 machines without issue. I run everything from the desktop and the desktop works and acts just like the desktop in Win 7 with the exception of not having the Start button and it's associated menu. There are 3rd party apps that many recommend to bring back the start button but I've never used them. I rarely used the Start button in XP or 7 so I personally don;t miss it in 8.
I don't understand those that say Win 8 only runs well on a touch screen device, I've tried it on both and found it works substantially better with mouse/keyboard then it could ever hope to with a touch screen. IMO, touch screen for a non-mobile device is really cumbersome and makes things more difficult. Touch screen is really only useful on small screen devices such as phones and tablets.
One poster suggested that your old system may fail soon with a hard disk crash. Disk drives are extremely inexpensive nowadays so I would recommend that you buy a new drive and install whatever OS you decide on that. One advantage to buying a new drive is that if you ever wanted to go back to XP, you could simply swap out the new drive with the old and you would be back to running XP.
I would actually go one step further and recommend an SSD as the new drive. You will be amazed at how the ssd will breathe new life into your older system.
I know you said you tried Win 8 and didn't like it but it really is a pretty decent OS. You don't need to use the Start screen or the Metro/Modern apps that come with it. I am able to run all the software I run on my Win 7 machines on my Win 8 machines without issue. I run everything from the desktop and the desktop works and acts just like the desktop in Win 7 with the exception of not having the Start button and it's associated menu. There are 3rd party apps that many recommend to bring back the start button but I've never used them. I rarely used the Start button in XP or 7 so I personally don;t miss it in 8.
I don't understand those that say Win 8 only runs well on a touch screen device, I've tried it on both and found it works substantially better with mouse/keyboard then it could ever hope to with a touch screen. IMO, touch screen for a non-mobile device is really cumbersome and makes things more difficult. Touch screen is really only useful on small screen devices such as phones and tablets.
One poster suggested that your old system may fail soon with a hard disk crash. Disk drives are extremely inexpensive nowadays so I would recommend that you buy a new drive and install whatever OS you decide on that. One advantage to buying a new drive is that if you ever wanted to go back to XP, you could simply swap out the new drive with the old and you would be back to running XP.
I would actually go one step further and recommend an SSD as the new drive. You will be amazed at how the ssd will breathe new life into your older system.
