Help me sort out my old Lap tops / PC

Niv

Hi All. I appreciate any help on my collection of computer related issues.

Background: I like retro gaming, using the actual discs etc not an emulator or anything online, things like settlers, civ, axis and allies etc. I also need some online ability away from my work laptop. But I do have a work laptop that is suitable for the vast majority of online things I need to do (cant log into NS&I with it though due to the security features added by the business).

Breakdown of my devises:

1. Dell Latitude D630 - with XP, used mainly for older games such as settlers 2 / 4 and civ type games, internet turned off

2.Dell Latitude E6440 – with windows 10 and a HDD. Used for a bit of old gaming and internet browsing

3. Desktop built in 2007 for gaming (built for WOW). Upgraded it to windows 10, very slow and mainly used to back up docs and pictures –Asus motherboard P5KC with geforce 760 graphics card.

4. I also have a Latitude 5400 which would need a new ssd to function. Just wasn’t confident with buying one from eBay so shelved it.

 

What I am wondering is :

Is it possible/worth to upgrade the D630 with a SSD and reinstall xp. If so where can I get a copy of XP from?

Is it possible to upgrade the latitude E6440 with a SSD?

Should I give up trying to keep the 2007 machine running? If so, should I look into a linux type operating system? If so, where is a reliable site to download this from?

Mark_d

I'm fairly confident your laptops use 2.5 inch SATA drives.  You can take out the drive an replace it with a 2.5 inch SATA SSD.  Simple.

Not sure where you can get XP from but this might be worth looking at https://reactos.org/

Your 2007 desktop isn't the most power efficient piece of kit for backups.  I generally use cloud solutions for this but a NAS is also a good option.

Linux would would on your 2007 PC but which distribution you chose will depend on the spec of your machine and your preferences for different aspects of the OS.

Niv

Mark_d said:

I'm fairly confident your laptops use 2.5 inch SATA drives.  You can take out the drive an replace it with a 2.5 inch SATA SSD.  Simple.

Not sure where you can get XP from but this might be worth looking at https://reactos.org/

Your 2007 desktop isn't the most power efficient piece of kit for backups.  I generally use cloud solutions for this but a NAS is also a good option.

Linux would would on your 2007 PC but which distribution you chose will depend on the spec of your machine and your preferences for different aspects of the OS.

Thank you for the feedback, very useful. Regarding which distribution of Linux I would choose... I have never used Linux before so would favour something that has a look and feel of windows if possible 

bob2302

Niv said:

Is it possible/worth to upgrade the D630 with a SSD and reinstall xp. If so where can I get a copy of XP from?

You don't have to reinstall, you could just clone the existing installation.

Vitor

 - using the actual discs etc not an emulator or anything online, things like settlers, civ, axis and allies etc - 

Windows games from the 1990s and early 2000s rely on Windows-specific APIs like DirectX or have DRM/copy protection mechanisms (SafeDisc, SecuROM) that simply don’t work on Linux, even under compatibility layers like Wine. 

Even an old machine like the Dell Latitude E6440 would see significant performance improvement from an SSD compared to the original spinning HDD, faster boot times and quicker file access.

However, games will likely be limited by the ancient CPU/GPU so fps won't be stellar.

BFBW

1. Dell Latitude D630 - with XP, used mainly for older games such as settlers 2 / 4 and civ type games, internet turned off

Clone to SSD as suggested. Very easy to change to SSD due to the pull-out cartridge for storage on the left hand side..

2.Dell Latitude E6440 – with windows 10 and a HDD. Used for a bit of old gaming and internet browsing

Very easy to change to SSD due to the pull-out cartridge for storage on the left hand side.. You'll be done and dusted in under five minutes.

3. Desktop built in 2007 for gaming (built for WOW). Upgraded it to windows 10, very slow and mainly used to back up docs and pictures –Asus motherboard P5KC with geforce 760 graphics card.

Clone to SSD to speed up. Can accept 4GB DDR3 or 8GB DDR2

4. I also have a Latitude 5400 which would need a new ssd to function. Just wasn’t confident with buying one from eBay so shelved it.

From 2019?

fwor

Have you considered getting a single reasonably powerful compact PC (e.g. a cheapish i5 based Lenovo ThinkCenter), installing a Linux distribution and then adding the older Windows OS installations as virtual machines under Virtualbox? 

Or there is Playonlinux, which is a frontend for WINE with customisations for specific games. I played some old Blizzard Windows-based games like that for a while and they worked fine, using the original game CDs.

Linux Mint is probably the best distribution to go with if you want something that looks fairly Windows-like.

BFBW

If you need a Windows XP image, you can find it here: https://archive.org/details/dell.-xp-pro-sp-3

GDB2222

I’m a fan of Raspberry Pi Desktop, which is just a variant of Linux. It is not too big a transition for people used to windows. At least that was my experience. It’s available free on their website and it runs pretty well on a Dell Optiplex from around 2005. 

Niv

Thanks for all the feedback. Looks like SSD is an easy quick fix plus some other options, some of which I will need to google as people love their acronyms! Also need to work out how to actually clone the hdd to the ssd, am sure google will help.

@BFBW sounds about right that the 5400 was from approx 2019.

Cheers

prowla

I've used Macrium Reflect to clone WIndows onto new disks - it's quite straighttforward.

You have to have both disks connected at the same time to do the coipy, so you'll need a caddy or enclosure to put your new disk into to connect it via USB.

The process leaves your original HDD unchanged, so you can always revert.

One side-effect of an SSD (apart from it being quicker) is that there are no moving parts, so the PCs will be slightly quieter (unless the fan is on!).

It's worth seeing if you can upgrade the memory in your laptops/PCs whilst you're at it - obsolete memory is quite cheap these days.

Though they're fine for other things, I wouldn't use virtual machines (VMs) for gaming.