Windows 10: Windows 10 on OLD COMPUTERS

Goood tip! I had only been installing the 64 bit Pro version, as all the systems in question had been running Win 7 64 bit Pro. After I D/L the 32 bit version, I was able to successfully get a D531 laptop to run Win 10 32 bit, with 2 gig memory, 80 gig HDD, and an AMD Sempron 3600+ CPU. Since it had been running 64 bit on an AMD chip I had not even given a thought to trying the x86 32 bit version.

Not so lucky with the XPS system. I had already upgraded the video card to a 2gig NVIDIA GT 640 adapter. It has an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840, with 2 Cores, running at 3.6GHz. I guess speed isn't everything! From the Intel compatibility tests, it does not support LAHF/SAHF and PrefetchW functions. It fails with both the 64 and 32 bit versions of the 1511 release. Maybe a future as an Unbuntu server? I do love the big old clunky beast.

 

I've found that Windows 10 setup seems to get confused by unsupported hardware and fails to assign IRQ and resource values correctly - leading to failed, or worse, partially corrupted setups.

If it is possible to disable as much as possible in BIOS, or by physically removing hardware, so that only basic subsystems are present, you may get through the setup to a minimal working system.

Only then try to add in the offending hardware piece by piece, and if necessary, load drivers in compatibility mode.

Obviously, memory and hard disk, display adapter, monitor and keyboard/mouse are a bare minimum.

Anything else - network adapters, wifi, bluetooth, Optical drives, USB storage and hubs are dispensable at first.

Chipset drivers are the key to power management and I/O function efficiency, and should preferably be sourced before setup is performed, installed first after setup has completed, and then add the other devices, one by one.

 

My current score of Win 10 upgrade successes (all Dells, all Win 10 1511 build) -
Win 10 64 bit OS - Optiplex 980, 2 Optiplex 745's, Optiplex 760, Latitude D820
Win 10 32 bit OS - Latitude D531

Win 7 64 bit - Dimension XPS Gen 5 - lone failure to upgrade.

All the 64 bit upgrades were just a matter of churning thru the upgrade process with BIOS upgrades, driver updates, etc. The 32 bit upgrade went well as soon as I switched over after trying the 64 bit upgrade several times. Of all these systems, I lost no user data or files from an error during the upgrades. At this point, I got to hand it to MS, they really improved the process.

 

What processor on the latitude D820 if you don't mind my asking. I'd like to go 64 bit but fear my T2300 won't support it.

 

My T2390 will run X64 https://www.tenforums.com/installatio...tml#post587721

 

Hmmm...I guess there's no harm in giving it a try, thanks!

 

Thank you! Got to install 7 first, lol.

 

Would this help? Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First

 

Unfortunately no, because I'm starting off with XP. The D820 refused both my 7 USB drive, and also my 7 all-in-one DVD. The error with the USB drive actually said the problem was that the hardware was unsuitable for 64 bit. Oh well. To make things worse, when I popped my XP SSD back in the 820, it is not recognized, "no drive present". *Sad Must be a connection thing because I put it in an unused D630 and it booted right off, I'm using it now, lol. The 630 has a T7500, maybe I'll just put 64 bit 10 on it for fun, and pick up a used E6500 or E6510 for my primary laptop to replace the 820. Nothing wrong with the 820 and I like it, but I guess I'm finally ready to make the leap to 10 on my every day machine.

 

I have a Latitude D810 running Win7 Pro and it can't be Upgraded to Win10 because of the X600 video adapter. It's a 32-bit CPU and Max RAM of 2GB. I'll keep it because a lot of the newest Notebooks are now leaving off the VGA projector/monitor port, are going with HDMI, and I have occasion now and then to verify a monitor performance in a client's environment.

I check whether a computer can run 64-bit OS by downloading a Linux LiveDVD .iso which lets me create a bootable disc then I boot to it, if the hardware is only 32-bit it will fail to boot.

 

It's much easier and quicker to download a tiny utility like coreinfo to check if a processor is capable of running 64-bit windows. Other utilities like CPU-Z will give some of this information and many other useful features.

Run from the commandline, Coreinfo produces output in the form shown in the code box below. You can send the output to a text file on your desktop with the command coreinfo >%USERPROFILE%\desktop\coreinfo.txt and open it with notepad.

An entry marked with a * shows that the instruction is present and - if the instruction is absent. I have coloured red the essential features for Windows 10 on 32 bit systems, and blue for 64-bit ones.

Code: AMD E-300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphicsx86 Family 20 Model 2 Stepping 0, AuthenticAMD Microcode signature: 05000119 HTT * Multicore HYPERVISOR - Hypervisor is present VMX - Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization SVM * Supports AMD hardware-assisted virtualization X64 * Supports 64-bit mode SMX - Supports Intel trusted execution SKINIT * Supports AMD SKINIT NX * Supports no-execute page protection SMEP - Supports Supervisor Mode Execution Prevention SMAP - Supports Supervisor Mode Access Prevention PAGE1GB * Supports 1 GB large pages PAE * Supports > 32-bit physical addresses PAT * Supports Page Attribute Table PSE * Supports 4 MB pages PSE36 * Supports > 32-bit address 4 MB pages PGE * Supports global bit in page tables SS - Supports bus snooping for cache operations VME * Supports Virtual-8086 mode RDWRFSGSBASE - Supports direct GS/FS base access FPU * Implements i387 floating point instructions MMX * Supports MMX instruction set MMXEXT * Implements AMD MMX extensions 3DNOW - Supports 3DNow! instructions 3DNOWEXT - Supports 3DNow! extension instructions SSE * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions SSE2 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 SSE3 * Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 SSSE3 * Supports Supplemental SIMD Extensions 3 SSE4a * Supports Streaming SIMDR Extensions 4a SSE4.1 - Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1 SSE4.2 - Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2 AES - Supports AES extensions AVX - Supports AVX intruction extensions FMA - Supports FMA extensions using YMM state MSR * Implements RDMSR/WRMSR instructions MTRR * Supports Memory Type Range Registers XSAVE - Supports XSAVE/XRSTOR instructions OSXSAVE - Supports XSETBV/XGETBV instructions RDRAND - Supports RDRAND instruction RDSEED - Supports RDSEED instruction CMOV * Supports CMOVcc instruction CLFSH * Supports CLFLUSH instruction CX8 * Supports compare and exchange 8-byte instructions CX16 * Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction BMI1 - Supports bit manipulation extensions 1 BMI2 - Supports bit manipulation extensions 2 ADX - Supports ADCX/ADOX instructions DCA - Supports prefetch from memory-mapped device F16C - Supports half-precision instruction FXSR * Supports FXSAVE/FXSTOR instructions FFXSR * Supports optimized FXSAVE/FSRSTOR instruction MONITOR * Supports MONITOR and MWAIT instructions MOVBE - Supports MOVBE instruction ERMSB - Supports Enhanced REP MOVSB/STOSB PCLMULDQ - Supports PCLMULDQ instruction POPCNT * Supports POPCNT instruction LZCNT * Supports LZCNT instruction SEP * Supports fast system call instructions LAHF-SAHF * Supports LAHF/SAHF instructions in 64-bit mode HLE - Supports Hardware Lock Elision instructions RTM - Supports Restricted Transactional Memory instructions DE * Supports I/O breakpoints including CR4.DE DTES64 - Can write history of 64-bit branch addresses DS - Implements memory-resident debug buffer DS-CPL - Supports Debug Store feature with CPL PCID - Supports PCIDs and settable CR4.PCIDE INVPCID - Supports INVPCID instruction PDCM - Supports Performance Capabilities MSR RDTSCP * Supports RDTSCP instruction TSC * Supports RDTSC instruction TSC-DEADLINE - Local APIC supports one-shot deadline timer TSC-INVARIANT * TSC runs at constant rate xTPR - Supports disabling task priority messages EIST - Supports Enhanced Intel Speedstep ACPI - Implements MSR for power management TM - Implements thermal monitor circuitry TM2 - Implements Thermal Monitor 2 control APIC * Implements software-accessible local APIC x2APIC - Supports x2APIC CNXT-ID - L1 data cache mode adaptive or BIOS MCE * Supports Machine Check, INT18 and CR4.MCE MCA * Implements Machine Check Architecture PBE - Supports use of FERR#/PBE# pin PSN - Implements 96-bit processor serial number PREFETCHW * Supports PREFETCHW instruction Maximum implemented CPUID leaves: 00000006 (Basic), 8000001B (Extended). Logical to Physical Processor Map: *- Physical Processor 0 -* Physical Processor 1 Logical Processor to Socket Map: ** Socket 0 Logical Processor to NUMA Node Map: ** NUMA Node 0 No NUMA nodes. Logical Processor to Cache Map: *- Data Cache 0, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64 *- Instruction Cache 0, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 2, LineSize 64 *- Unified Cache 0, Level 2, 512 KB, Assoc 16, LineSize 64 -* Data Cache 1, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 8, LineSize 64 -* Instruction Cache 1, Level 1, 32 KB, Assoc 2, LineSize 64 -* Unified Cache 1, Level 2, 512 KB, Assoc 16, LineSize 64 Logical Processor to Group Map: ** Group 0[/quote]

 

Very true, IF the computer has a bootable OS that can run the program/s. Many times my work involves determining what a computer can do when trying to get it workable again, makes bootable CD or DVD discs important.

 

If the intention is to run Windows on an unknown candidate machine, I would aim for the lowest common denominator - using a 32-bit Windows compatible system, like a Windows7 x86 setup disk or setup on a bootable USB to get to a WinPE command prompt, then run something like Coreinfo to check if the processor is capable of supporting later Windows versions.

If that DVD/USB doesn't boot and run, then there's little point in trying a 64-bit setup disk, but you might try a highly tolerant Linux like Slacko Puppy 32-bit, and investigate the system hardware from that.

If you go straight in with a 64-bit linux disk, and it doesn't run, then you really will not be sure if just the processor is incapable or if there are other problems with the system, so you will have to drop back to an x86 setup disk, which you could have done in the first place.
Just my 5c.

 

I've d/l'd a Win 7 32 bit ISO, just have to burn it. Nice to have on hand at any rate. *Smile

 

The deed is done. Win 10 32 bit running fine on my D820. *Smile I had to download a Vista driver for the nVidia graphics.

Next on the agenda: a D630. Should be a piece of cake with it's 64 bit capable processor.