If your children are struggling sharing devices in lockdown schooling and you can't afford new laptops, this may be some help.
This is something I did myself last lockdown, and it worked brilliantly.
As a result two ancient old windows XP laptops that hadn't been used in years and had been gathering dust in a cupboard are now functioning perfectly as Chromebooks for my children, who are using them for lockdown schooling.
The laptops in question became redundant years ago when Windows XP stopped being supported. One had somehow lost its battery too. I started with the crappiest laptop knowing if I somehow turned it into a brick it was no great loss, the thing was a write off to begin with. Before I began the laptop still worked, sort of, slowly, but couldn't be safely connected to the internet after Microsoft support ceased for Windows XP/Windows 7 because of the risk of viruses.
I'm still pretty chuffed that this worked so well. The laptops are amazingly zippy now and safe to connect to the internet. The software seems to be very 'lightweight' so it works well on elderly laptops with not great specifications.
I am not in any way techy. It's important I stress this! But I managed. So I'd say if you are able to follow some fairly straightforward instructions AND are ok with the idea of writing off an ancient laptop if this fails, then you have nothing to lose.
You'll need:
- Crappy old redundant Windows laptop
- A normal useful laptop (you'll use this to begin with to download the free software)
- An 8GB USB stick
It may take one or two hours, depending on the speed of your internet, and how many times you stop for a cuppa wondering whether you're bonkers to attempt it.
Using your decent computer, you are going to download some software onto the USB stick which turns it into an magic installer gizmo.
Then you plug the magic stick into the crappy laptop and it installs some clever software called "Cloudready" which is a Chromium operating system, so it has all the Google web apps, like Gmail, Chromium browser, Calendar, Keep notes etc.
What you end up with is pretty much a Chromebook, albeit possibly one with cracks and scratches and a missing battery, in our case. (It works fine plugged in, obviously, and ensures my son sits properly at the kitchen table where I can keep an eye on him)
Don't forget to back up and save any old photos or files first before you wipe your old laptop, obviously!
The company who make the "Cloudready" software are called Everware, and since I did this in the spring they are now owned by Google, so this is all properly above board.
Here is the link to the instructions, and the minimum spec requirements for your laptop etc.
CloudReady Home Edition Instructions
I really hope this helps someone who, like me, couldn't afford new laptops for the children in lockdown, but possibly has old laptops lying around, or can be gifted someone's unwanted laptop that can then be repurposed.
Good Luck!