OS To install on an old Dell Inspiron 1520?

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Scott_130

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Hey my mums BF Has an old dell inspiron 1520 with a low end celeron and around a gig of ram and running XP Originally with Vista. It's slowing down and he says he does not use it enough to buy a new one and does not want to. So i've been wondering what to put on it and it has to be windows as he plugs it into his motorbike to see what is wrong and good about it. so no linux sadly.

i'm needing help whether it's an Embedded version or whatever.
 
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captaincharisma

captaincharisma

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Oct 13, 2004
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are you sure its a celeron? the model number brings up a laptop with an AMD sempron CPU. if it ran fine with vista on it then you should be able to get away with windows 7. if it runs too slow with vita then the only option you would have is XP or windows 2000 for such an old laptop like that but then you would be leaving him open to all kinds of security issues

https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-inspiron-1520/specs/
 
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velocityg4

velocityg4

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It's slowing down because it is old and probably loaded with crapware. Run a scan with Malwarebytes, clean it up with CCleaner, remove junk software he does not use. Use CCleaner to disable any unnecessary Startup Items and Scheduled tasks. Open MSCONFIG and disable unnecessary Services (click the checkbox to hide MS services). Install Avira or Avast free edition anti-virus (if they still support XP). Install the Extended Support Release of Firefox for Windows XP and Adblock Plus.

By disabling unnecessary startup items/services. That is any which do not have to run at boot for the software to function properly. Get it as barebones as possible.

As for installing a new OS. Don't bother. If he can spend $100 for a Windows 7 license. He can spend $100 to buy a functional first generation Core i5 laptop off eBay with Windows 7/8/10 already installed and 4GB RAM.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude-E6410-Laptop-i5-2-4GHz-4GB-160GB-Windows-7-Special6-/292087377046?hash=item4401c3ac96:g:32kAAOSwa-dWsiqJ

If he doesn't care enough to replace old hardware. Why should you bother to go through all the trouble to install Windows 7, get everything working right and just have it be slower than before? Cleaning it up, optimizing boot entries and updating the Browser/Anti-Virus is enough.

As he is your moms BF not your father. Unless you care for the guy and want to do the work for free. I hope he is paying you for your time.
 
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Scott_130

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I've seen a OS Called Embedded POSReady 2009 which is the OS That the hack for the updates comes from and it's a lot more slimmed down. LOL I thought originally it meant Peice of... actually means point of sales but it dosen't really matter
 
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captaincharisma

captaincharisma

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if you can find a copy to purchase i guess since its supported for another 2 years but this website does not promote piracy

 
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Scott_130

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Yes i know i don't like pirating... I've put another stick of ram in giving it 2GB And installed an OS Called Windows Thin PC based on windows embedded standard but is theory it's based off of windows 7 with it's themes.
 
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BFG-9000

BFG-9000

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POSReady 2009 is just XP with the multimedia stuff stripped out of it. Reinstalling XP and applying the famous POSReady 2009 registry hack means it will receive the latest security updates except for anything not included in POSReady 2009 like Windows Media Player. Even MSE will have definition updates until April 9, 2019!

The main problem with XP is the last up-to-date web browser for it will be released in September 2017 as Firefox ESR 52.4. Slimbrowser using iE6's Trident Engine was last updated June 6, 2016, Chrome ended support in April 2016 after v49, and Midori using Chrome's former Webkit engine (until v27) was last updated August 30, 2015.
This is important because after Windows 9x had Firefox end support with 2.0.0.20 on December 18, 2008 it pretty much became unusable online.

Windows Thin PC sounds like the Windows 7 version of Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs which was pretty limited (couldn't install MSE or even Acrobat on it!).

If it doesn't work out for you, I'd suggest turning it into a Chromebook-like browser-only machine using Webconverger, or using a very lightweight Linux distro such as Puppy Linux due to the low RAM. Neither requires installation as they boot from the optical drive.


 
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