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Experiment: Installing Windows 10 On a 7-Year-Old Acer Aspire One
jones_supa writes: Windows 10 will launch in less than a week and it is supposed to work flawlessly on devices already powered by Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, as Microsoft struggled to keep system requirements unchanged to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Device drivers all the way back to Windows Vista platform (WDDM 1.0) are supported. Softpedia performed a practical test to see how Windows 10 can run on a 7-year-old Acer Aspire One netbook powered by Intel Atom N450 processor clocked at 1.66 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a 320 GB mechanical hard disk. The result is surprising to say the least, as installation not only went impressively fast, but the operating system itself also works fast.
I have about the same netbook, and I've never used the Windows 7 that came with it, but want to put it back specifically so I can put Windows 10 on it to play with it. I lost the Clonezilla image I made of it years ago and am on the verge of ordering the backup media from the Acer website - I've come up empty on a WIndows 7 Starter ISO. I've loved my little Acer, I've had three bike wrecks with it, one of which my entire body weight went up and down the thing twice as I rolled over my backpack, not a scratch. I double the RAM from 1 to 2 GB the day I bought it and put an SSD in later. The SSD was incredible when it came to increasing the battery life and performance. I've told people it's the laptop Fischer-Price made, and I say it in a bragging manner, I still love my little netbook.
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You forgot to spell Microsoft with a '$' and call it a slashvertisement to get your automagic +5, you silly goose.
That's some boot time!
Still hate the new interface. I will never warm up to the big, ugly colored squares. You know, the ones that they needed to make it work on a tiny phone screen? I will wait to read about useful improvements in the OS before I do anything. Right now I see nothing I want.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
The PC have improved. But with Parallel processing. And most programs are not coded to take advantage of the multiple cores. So the speed of any one of your programs has more or less peaked. However you can run more at the same time.
Until we can come up with easier methods than threads hacks added to most languages, we will still be mostly programming for a single CPU and not parallel processing. It will also help for more colleges to have Parallel processing as part of its undergrad program. Most introduce it in Grad School.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Windows 10 will launch in less than a week"
If it won't launch in less than a day, I would say scrap the whole idea.
Trolling is a art,
My notebook has more CPU power and 2GB of RAM. Windows 10 Preview does about 5 minutes of hard drive thrashing after start up. After this the system works fairly well.
There is no UEFI SecureBoot requirement in Windows 8 or 10. At least I have been able to install to any kinds of machines just fine.
I'm just curious, why are live tiles so horrible? I see this reaction often but I never really get a good explanation why, though I've heard many reasons why they are good. They are like icons, except resizable and enhanced with live information. They are rectangular/square, just like the taskbar icons in Windows 7 that everyone I know loves.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I have it on a Compaq C306US with 1 GB of RAM and a 1.73 GHz Celeron. It seemed impressive at first, but the daily Defender signature update brings the machine to its knees. Seriously, the mouse pointer will not even move, and when I was actually able to bring up Perfmon, CPU and disk were both at 100%. That's unusable. I guess the answer is to install another security package, but that's a serious WTF. In 2015, it would be nice if Microsoft had heard of I/O throttling.
The audio also doesn't work unless you disable it, then re-enable it in device manager. I reported this bug with every previous build to no avail.
I wouldn't complain, but Microsoft claimed that every Vista-capable PC could run Windows 10, and that appears to be false.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yup, agreed - in one case Apple had ditched OSX support for the 2006 Mac Pro but Windows 8.1 ran just fine on it. Hows about that for supporting your own products!
My Late 2009 Mac Mini is running Plex server and home theatre on 10.10.4. First quote I could find about system requirements (from a Mac World article here )
So, which of your three-year old machines is not on that list?
Yes, I feel like I'm in preschool with the big, bulky Legos when I want the cool small ones. And the big bulky Legos have all this crap in them reporting everything to Microsoft. Also, they are less versatile than small legos. All I want are executable programs that do what I want them to do and no more and don't share my personal data.
This reminds me of recent questions, can anyone build a car that can't be hacked? Well, yes, all the cars built 2 decades ago can't be hacked and contain all the features I want in a car (drives from A to B, air conditioning, heater, radio).
- Take me back to 1984. Please.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
They are rectangular/square, just like the taskbar icons in Windows 7 that everyone I know loves.
Take a closer look.
The taskbar icons in Windows 7 have glass effect, nice diagonal gradient and rounded corners. Try hovering the mouse cursor over icons of running applications: there is even a sleek little lamp effect which follows the cursor, and the color of that effect matches the application icon. Also the icon of the active application has brighter background than others.
These kind of small touches are missing in the Windows 10 UI.
No "at least" about it. Windows 8 and 10 support secure boot but don't require it.
Windows 8 specifically requires that secure boot be optional in the BIOS for Windows Logo Certification. The only change for Windows 10 is that this requirement is no longer there leaving it up to the vendor to decide if they want to lock your PC down. However for Windows Logo Certification on Windows 10 there is a requirement that OEMs support SecureBoot and have it enabled out of the box.
Windows does not require it.
Windows will run even if you disable it.
The result is surprising to say the least, as installation not only went impressively fast but Windows 10 also works fast as long as you’re not launching a very demanding app such as Photoshop.
My wife's very same netbook runs GIMP, LibreOffice, Firefox and video player concurrently and well under SuSE 13.1
Oh, and under Win7 it takes ages to boot (you do have an antivirus, right?), so I will take the story with a grain of salt or two.
"I wonder how much Microsoft paid to Dice"
Had the review been unfavorable, who would you claim is the conspirator?
I'm getting really tired of argumentum ad monsantium, the logical fallacy that any position opposing mine has to be shilling for someone.
In my IT business, there is an effect I see all the time. Any change to a familiar interface, even a clear improvement, brings forth a certain cohort of users who insist that their favorite product has been ruined forever.
There is no UEFI SecureBoot requirement in Windows 8 or 10. At least I have been able to install to any kinds of machines just fine.
The requirement has been for the "Designed for Windows [Version]" program, if you want to ship with the sticker, be an OEM partner and get the best pricing it's compulsory but it's not an install requirement. That would be stupid of Microsoft, since most pre-2012 machines wouldn't be able to update. Also for Win8 OEMs are required to give you a way to turn it off, for Win10 they're merely permitted. I'm sure some of them will be encouraged by Microsoft to disable it completely, to see if that'll draw anti-trust lawsuits. So not yet, but I bet it's coming soon....
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Now if only OS X would was allowed to work on my 3 year old system which is more than powerful enough for it based on hacked installs, and if only all the software wasn't updated so it won't work on the last OS. Thanks Apple!
Meanwhile I can install Windows 10 on a 10 year old system and play a 16 year old game just fine. Boo Microsoft for being horrible people that don't give away your amazing product for free and don't have a penguin or a fruit as a logo.
What three-year-old Mac doesn't support the latest version of OS X? OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" officially supports Macs dating as far back as 2007 (or 2008 or 2009, depending on the system), and I believe El Capitan will support the same.
R.Mo
Unfortunately, I agree with you. For technically minded people.
Unfortunately now that the vast majority of PC's are in the hands of people who are only semi-technical and will happily disable the update service, firewall and anti-virus cause their buddy Steve said it made his PC run faster. Steve also recommends plugging the network cable directly into the cable modem as that router thing just causes parity errors.
It's almost like the should sell a "Home" version for the vast majority of people, then have some sort of "Enterprise" or "Professional" version for technical people.
Is it just me that feels that this isn't a win for Windows 10, but actually a degradation of Windows Vista/7 and - to some extent - 8 in terms of performance losses at those points?
I know that XP -> Vista and XP->7 felt like backward steps at times in terms of performance, and were accompanied by a similar ramp-up in terms of realistic minimum specs. It just seems that in 8 (which is as fast as 7, if not faster, as far as I can tell) and 10 are actually coming back to what they should always have been?
Just junk like Superfetch services and Windows Search - I feel if you were to optimise those more efficiently that they'd easily show a performance improvement. I know that disabling them certainly does (fun fact: Disabling Windows Search on Windows 8 stops you installing new keyboard languages!).
Windows 8 has been my last two mass deployments and, with a few third-party-cured interface problems, is just as good to the users as 7 was, but actually boots, resumes, etc. much faster. And the amount of sheer built-in hardware drivers is phenomenal. I no longer need several images to image dozens of types and models of computer, laptop, all-in-one, etc. just one image will do with maybe a tweak if something requires the very latest graphics drivers.
Windows 10 appears to be continuing this trend of a RETURN to performance, rather than performing miracles. Hardware hasn't got much faster since the Windows 7 days - maybe a core or two more, maybe a graphics card upgrade, but the base CPU/RAM/disk are pretty much in the same area.
I mean, it's good either way. But it shouldn't be shocking. Optimised versions of 7 were sold with netbooks for years, and their hardware was severely limited for a long time. It was just a matter of turning junk off.
My min spec of "Dual or-more-core anything with 4Gb RAM" has held for several years in a row now for business systems, and can be satisfied for a virtual pittance. Only very recently have I contemplated enhancing that to 8Gb of RAM and maybe an SSD as a luxury, but the rest is pretty static.
I am sorry to be the baron of bad news, but you seem buttered, so allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies, and are more than just ice king on the cake. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite.
So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality.
I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go.
Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the fax, instead of making a half-harded effort. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.
Why are you whining about something that is 100% optional?
Duh, it's Microsoft
If Windows came with a free cancer-curing app people would be complaining here that you couldn't turn it off.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The desktop exists in all its glory in Windows 10. It will still do everything you mentioned. Tiles are not part of the desktop.
The Start menu, however, has tiles. And they can be resized; you can make them smaller than desktop icons if you want. And they can be removed completely if that's not your thing.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I though on Slashdot we hated Eye Candy?
No, we just hate anything new and/or from Microsoft.
And is that so wrong? I liken it to your favorite grocery store changing up where all the products are located every few months. They may have all the studies in the world that say it's a better flow of people to have Product A and Product C right next to each other, but if nobody is looking there, because that's never where it's been before, it's a poor design.
"But you can change all the options..." if you can find them. Changing the finer points of the visuals such as Icon Spacing and Title Bar font used to be behind Desktop / Properties / Appearance. Now it's Desktop / Personalize / Window Color. That's...less intuitive.
Every new version of Windows since 2000->XP has suffered from the unnecessary moving of options and screens. They've all been focused on the dwindling number of people who have never used a computer at the expense of the other 99%. Maybe the new layout makes more logical sense if you have no muscle memory or expectations. Then as soon as everybody gets used to the new layout, they go and fuck it all up again.
This is not true. There is a performance impact on many Windows 7 machines. But if so, you can just go to Advanced settings and click "Display for Best Performance" and you're done. Windows 10 makes this the default, more or less (although the RTM added a lot of Glass effects which does look nicer than the previous betas).
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
> After Gene Amdahl coined his law on parallel processing he immediately went back to work on developing CPUs with faster clock speeds, because this is a much easier problem than identifying which steps of a process can be run concurrently and which have dependencies. . .
He didn't have to choose - he could have taken a parallel approach.
Wow, you really got worked up over the lamp effect. :D