Installing Windows 7 on an old laptop?

xxdeebeexx

Hi, DS1 was planning to build a PC and bought windows 7 64 bit for that purpose. However, he has now changed his mind and has decided to try to revamp his laptop.

His laptop is an Acer Aspire 7730ZG and originally came with Windows Vista and a windows 7 32 bit upgrade.

If he install the windows 7 64 bit on the laptop would it improve performance and run the games he wants to play?

We were also thinking about installing some more RAM. Where is the best place to get this from please?

tia

dx

cookie365

Going from 32 bit Windows 7 to 64 bit probably won't make a whole heap of difference. Plus you'll need to have 64 bit drivers for all the hardware. Personally I wouldn't bother.

If you're hyper conservative about having memory that's guaranteed compatible go here:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/upgrade/Acer-memory/Aspire+Notebooks/Aspire+7730-upgrades.html

But almost certainly it uses bog standard DDR2 laptop memory (not desktop) so any PC parts supplier will have stock.

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

If he install the windows 7 64 bit on the laptop would it improve performance and run the games he wants to play?

Having installed the 64bit version of Windows 8, I wish I had stuck with the 32bit version. It took up less space on the HD and did seem a little faster.... but the difference is marginal.

Its only really worth it if you have at least 4Gb of Ram; as the 32 bit version of Windows does not recognise anything over about 3.5Gb

If the games are optimised for 64 bit windows versions, and you have at least 4Gb of Ram then it is worth considering.

Cycrow

how much ram does the computer have ?

if you have a low amount of ram, going from 32bit to 64bit can actually reduce the performance, as it uses more Ram

poppellerant

Going fron Windows Vista to Window 7 will definitely make the laptop smoother to use and a result possibly faster. But, unless you have 4GB of RAM installed (or plan to install), I would stick to 32-bit Windows.

32-bit (x86) Windows uses less diskspace than 64-bit (x64) Windows. You may even find that the driver support is better for the x86 version of Windows, but these days it's very rare not to be able to find x64 versions of drivers.