Oh, techy savvy people of MN, once again I call on your assistance!

[nickytinseltimes]

I have been given bil's old laptop. It is totally fucked in need of an overhaul.

SO far, I have defragged and have attempted to get rid of some programmes and update the AGV.

However, the bugger will not respond.

ANy suggestions?

Btw, we have a good laptop for our faqmily poota - this is an extra for dh to use as the main one is really mine, lol!

Can you install new OS - Operating System so start from scratch?

God, that was quick!

How would I do that then?

I have vista on this poota, but it came on it, so I guess I'd buy it in somewhere hideous like pc world?

btw, am going for a bath - will be back shortly.
Many thanks for responding.

Yes, you could get Vista Home Premium (don't bother with Basic) in PC World. Or online at Amazon or similar.

Righty-oh.
Might do that then.
At least with two pootas, I will be able to mumsnet to my heart's content!

yes somewhere hideous like that online they have it for £64 and £79 in store.

An old computer might not be able to run Vista. If it has XP on it now then you can go here
www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx and get a checker to be sure before you spend any money.

If it's too old to have XP on it that makes it even more likely it won't handle Vista.

Other options depend if it came with a restore CD or not. If so that should when run set it back to how it was when purchased and cost nothing.

Some have the files on the computer instead, but can still do the same thing.

I'm not sure off hand how you get to them in the latter case, but someone here will know.

ALrighty. Thanks for the link.
I have managed to defrag now and it is finally letting me delete some of the old crap, so there might be life in the old thing yet.
Keeps freezing/not responding though.
I will keep going though. I am a woman on a mission tongiht!

You could put Linux on it, even if it's ancient. It sounds more techy-scary, but needn't be.

If it's an old computer that was originally XP & has had Vista put on it, it may well not have enough RAM to cope - it needs at least 1GB (despite Microsoft saying 512 Mb is enough) & 2Gb is better. It might actually run better if you could revert to XP, if you could find the discs

I missed your other post where you said you had vista already. RustyBear has a good point though and it might explain why it's so slow.

it might be worth rebooting it, pressing F12 while it is starting up and seeing if there is a "restore to factory settings" options. On Dell's this wipes everything and reinstalls as if new.

if you want to be brave and try something new, then consider ubuntu. I am a convert, took a 4 year old laptop, installed it and use it for surfing, watching bbc iplayer, and uploading files to ipod. Its good for all of that. Its word processor is open office. Total cost of ownership so far is ?27 for a dvd player because I wanted to watch a dvd on it. Its totally free other than that.

Its serioulsy worth considering as an alternative.

Some excellent advice as ever.
Many thanks.

I appear to have got it moving a bit now so have tidied it up a bit.

It is keeping me ammused of an evening. Dh says I am like the kid from Wargames, with this pc running ans the other one too, lol!

Wish I was that adept.