Windows 10 on older devices

Newest desktop I have is a Intel Core i7-6950X. Oldest laptop runs a Core I7, 2nd gen. I could either upgrade to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. But does anyone have any idea how long Windows 10 will be supported on this older hardware? There still seems to be no clear answer on this. Like will it get to be 2021, and I won’t be able to put the newest Windows 10 on the stuff I’ve already got? Thanks all!

Conversation 13 comments

  • anoldamigauser

    Premium Member
    06 September, 2020 - 10:42 pm

    <p>I have two Gateway SX-2800 (circa 2008-2009) desktops that came, I think with Windows Vista. They are currently running Windows 10 2004. Curiously, they are the only machines I have at the moment that were offered the upgrade, with the exception of an ASUS T-100 (circa 2013) tablet with an Atom processor and a 32Gb eMMC hard-drive, that got the 32-bit version.</p><p>I think that you should be OK going with Windows 10.</p>

  • JH_Radio

    Premium Member
    06 September, 2020 - 11:31 pm

    <p>Wow that old? I tried to put it on Dell Inspiron E-1705 from 2006, and that was a no go two years ago even with a SATA-Based SSD that I put in there. then again that laptop came with Windows XP and was from 2006. It ran Windows 7 well enough other then taking a while to boot up. I had upgraded the ram to 4GB of DDR2 on that one as well. </p>

  • sherlockholmes

    Premium Member
    06 September, 2020 - 11:45 pm

    <p>I have a HP Elitebook from 2012 running 20H2 Education with no problems. I only have 4 GB of RAM. The only thing thats a little slow is Office 365. But anything else works great. </p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://support.hp.com/ro-en/document/c03406489&quot; target="_blank">https://support.hp.com/ro-en/document/c03406489</a></p&gt;

  • pherbie

    Premium Member
    06 September, 2020 - 11:56 pm

    <p>Win 10 works fine on older machines. From my experience, RAM and HDD seems to have a bigger impact on performance than CPU. And easier to fix. Any i7 will be ok.</p><p>I wouldn't bother with less than 4GbRam. just not worth it. </p><p>And, I have had great success in adding an SSD instead of HDD. in some cases that alone has resulted in a 2x performance improvement. which is massive for usability.</p><p><br></p>

  • navarac

    07 September, 2020 - 5:31 am

    <p>I don't think there is anything to lose by giving it a go to W10. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised. Don't even consider W8.x IMO. </p><p>How long individual versions will be supported on individual hardware is anyone's guess!</p>

  • snow.steve22

    Premium Member
    07 September, 2020 - 7:54 am

    <p>I have great success with a Core 2 Duo desktop machine (Vista era) with an SSD installed (the old hard drive got REALLY temperamental) with 4Gb of memory.</p><p>The only roadblock (and a minor one at that) is that virtualization is not permitted since the Core 2 Duo doesn't have the chops for it. I did have other, lesser machines (mainly from the Windows XP era) that would run OK on the early versions of Windows 10 but were not supported for the whole run of Windows 10 to now.</p>

  • Alastair Cooper

    07 September, 2020 - 8:12 am

    <p>Windows 10 2004 works perfectly for me on an i7 2600K CPU with an Ivy Bridge motherboard so about the same period. Both Sandy Bridge CPUs.</p><p><br></p><p>Remember you can download the ISO for free and install it without a key first to test it (some features are disabled) then enter a key later.</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    07 September, 2020 - 10:05 am

    <p>It’s perfectly fine. It will actually be better than 8.1 on older hardware. Performance was fine on a 2008-era AMD Phenom x4.</p>

  • epguy40

    07 September, 2020 - 6:39 pm

    <p>Hi JH_RADIO</p><p><br></p><p>I'm running Win10 LTSC 2019 x64 on an old Dell Inspiron E1405 laptop from mid-2007 (CPU is Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7600 w/ 4Gb of RAM [3.24Gb of RAM usable to the OS due to mobile intel 945 chipset limitations]) – onboard Mobile Intel 945 Express graphics chipset has a WDDM capable driver</p><p><br></p><p>edit – at least the LTSB/LTSC editions of W10 get about 10 years of support so I don't have to deal with feature upgrades and only get new security updates</p><p><br></p><p>maybe you should also check out these topics on other forums on running Win10 on even OLDER devices:</p><p><br></p><p>from TenForums – Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware</p><p>www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/6909-lets-run-win10-really-really-old-hardware.html</p><p><br></p><p>from MDL forums – Running Win10 by Intel s478 CPU Now And Maybe Older CPU In The Future</p><p>forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/running-win10-by-intel-s478-cpu-now-and-maybe-older-cpu-in-the-future.81451/</p><p><br></p><p>s478 – Socket 478</p><p><br></p>

  • codymesh

    08 September, 2020 - 7:17 am

    <p>Windows 10 is fine on older hardware. The only upgrade I would recommend is moving away from a HDD. A SDD does wonders for Windows 10.</p>

  • alexmarl56

    09 September, 2020 - 6:42 am

    <p>It works fine on old devices. I didn't notice any problems with it. So, don't afraid! </p>

  • jimjasmin

    22 July, 2021 - 12:16 pm

    <p><br></p>

  • jimjasmin

    22 July, 2021 - 12:18 pm

    <p>Can I upgrade my HP model 6133F tower e/w Windows Vista to Windows 10 ?</p>

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