One for the computer guru's among us...;

I have been given an older PC, which is running Windows 8 as it's OS, but it is very slow and prone to crash. Upon investigation, I have found that Windows 8 requires a minimum of 2gb RAM to operate, however this machine only has the capability to take a maximum of 2gb. I suspect this is the primary cause of it's problems.

What I am wondering, is can I install XP over Windows 8 (ie a clean install of XP) as XP is far less hungry for resources and should be more stable. If so, how is it done? I have an XP Home CD and original product key from my old deceased laptop, and this machine runs DDR400 RAM so I cannot go any larger with that either.

Thanks for any input you may have.

To do a clean install of XP you will need to format your HDD. Put the disk in and then restart your computer. Make sure that you boot from the disk, you should see a small bit of text come up asking if you want to boot from the disk. If this does not happen and you boot into Windows 8 then you will need to restart your PC and go into your BIOS settings and change your boot order so that your VD drive is listed higher than your HDD

Once you have booted from the CD just follow the prompts and make sure you delete the partition when prompted and then sell full format over quick format.

First you should enter bios and switch to CD boot priority to first. Then it will boot from CD otherwise you may be prompted after POST to press any key to boot from CD.

XP has a 64bit version for larger memory addressing, but most are 32 bit. If there's no data you want on it currently, then just insert the XP disc and choose the delete the existing HDD partition with Windows8 on it and follow the prompts and create a new partition, format and install.

XP is no longer supported so you'll also want to check if you can get Service Packs 2 and 3. I would also recommend checking the existing device support and grabbing all the "other" drivers you need such as network interface etc.

XP 32bit will address up to 3Gb of Ram so no problems there, before you blow it all away, check on the net to make sure there are XP compatible drivers for the machine, if not, may pay to look at Windows 7 instead which should run happily with 2Gb of Ram.

Thanks for the tips guys. I think most of hardware should be ok regarding drivers as the previous owner told me it was originally running xp, he only upgraded to 8 based on someone else's advice.

8 is horrible... better off with XP anyway, if you can't run 7.

format and run up Win 7. avoid xp if you can.

Nothing wrong with running XP on an older system. Could run into driver issues with newer peripherals, but that's about it. I wouldn't be running 7 on 2gb of ram. 3 maybe, 4 sure, 8 absolutely. Not 2.

Hence the choice of xp, as this motherboard only has two slots so it's limited to 2gb ram.

+1 with XP for your system specs.

Win8 is more for touch screen devices with current day specs, that no one really cares about, as Win7 is perfect, as was XP.

Cheers

Running XP Pro since 2004 on this laptop with few issues.

Also Office 2003 is the best version.

win 7 + an ssd = best cheap upgrade

2gb will be fine

Assuming that there's nothing wrong with the hardware itself, 2GB RAM is plenty for Windows 7. Chances are that the bottleneck on older gear will be the disk drives anyway.

Although I think Windows XP is perfectly fine for most things, MS will stop releasing patches for it early next year which will leave you wide open for unpatched exploits. On that basis, I'd recommend Windows 7, unless you've got old software that won't run on it (some older games, for example ).

Of course, there are alternatives to Windows, depending on what you want to do with the PC in the first place. I've got XP, W7, Linux and others running on various gear at home.

Phil.

Windows xp is probably the most compatible with the age of the computer you have

in saying that windows 7 is very stable so if you can put 7 on it you will be better off as everything is changing and XP is falling behind

Ok, so it sounds like 7 might be a good option. Was thinking of using this pc to set vrc pro race simulator.