I’ve probably missed the boat by a looooong way here but I need some advice. I have an oldish HP PC running Windows Vista that I!d like to put MS Office on for my business. Slight problem, the only Office I can get hold of – Office 365 – only works from Windows 7 SP1.

Is there anywhere I can get an upgrade from Vista to W7? And then to W10. And will my pc even run W10?
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz, 3.5GB memory

Or is it now in danger of becoming an expensive doorstop?

Everything is possible, but how much do you value your time?
You could buy a copy of Windows 7, spend a few hours loading it, then decide you need a bit more memory, and a new graphics card would be good, and maybe a SSD.
Or you go to PC World and buy a new PC.

Can you not buy a licence for office 2007 any more?

How about Open Office or similar?

If it runs Vista it’ll run W10, I’d hazard. Download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to be sure.

Yes your PC will run 7, it’ll even run 10 (I can run 10 on older and my main box is a QX6850 so not much newer than yours).

Pretty sure I saw someone on here was getting a “refurb” copy of 7 for £35.

Depending on your business requirements, and going the path of not spending any more, maybe LibreOffice would serve?

Or there’s this for £209
http://www.ebuyer.com/724875-hp-110-desktop-pc-f6k42ea-abu

I’ve just done this.
Got a license from Softwaregeeks for £20 and upgrade to 7. A couple of issues but on the whole pretty simple.
I’m trying windows 10 upgrade now but I’m getting stuck with a black screen saying can’t display the current resolution.
So maybe just stick with the W7 upgrade

I’ve just done this.
Got a license from Softwaregeeks for £20 and upgrade to 7. A couple of issues but on the whole pretty simple.
I’m trying windows 10 upgrade now but I’m getting stuck with a black screen saying can’t display the current resolution.
So maybe just stick with the W7 upgrade

I can’t imagine it’s going to take less time to buy and setup a new PC than it is to wipe it and start again. Then there’s the issue of that being rather wasteful to say the least!

Buy an OEM copy of W7. Back up your data on two external hard drives, wipe the Vista install completely and then reinstall Windows. I would not connect your data-drives until you have antivirus and all the patches installed.

You could also use W10, it might well be better, but probably more expensive than W7. You can also do an upgrade to 10 using a W7 product key, which might be best of all.

I strongly advise against dodgy copies of Windows, as they probably come with security holes or spyware in.

Well it’s the Windows product key which is the thing anyway – Windows is available to download for free. If you’re not too bothered about the nagging, W7 works without a key – I must try and see if it will allow an upgrade to W10 without a key.

I must try and see if it will allow an upgrade to W10 without a key.

It doesn’t as far as I could tell. I got a win8 key for £40ish and then upgraded that to Windows 10, I also bunged in an SSD, old laptop is fast again now, boots from powered down in 20 seconds.

mmm I was talking about torrenting it or somesuch

Softwaregeeks you say? Sounds like a plan. Cheers 🙂

eeerrr…

Buying a new PC (not from PC World) is in the pipeline, but in the meantime i’m looking for an upgrade to W7, but i don’t think i can get one from Microsoft – that’s the problem. If i can get one from softwaregeeks somewhere else then that’ll do

Genuine W7 that is.

OP If I could find my Office disks and licence number I’d send them to you. Not used them since I ditched Windows years ago (Vista era) You must be able to find someone who’ll gift them to you.

i’m looking for an upgrade to W7, but i don’t think i can get one from Microsoft

I used:

http://www.mrhightech.com/

£40 for win 8. Free to upgrade to win 10. Went fine.

I’ve just ordered more RAM and an SSD (checked the compatibility with the Crucial scanner thingy).

Any tips/experiences/straight forward options/ for transferring the OS over?

TIA and apologies for the (relevant) hijack.

Loads of ways. Linux boot disk / USB key running clonezilla is as good as any.

If you’re starting from fresh why bother cloning?

Thanks Cougar.

@squirrlking. I’m not starting from scratch. it’s an old 2008 vista box rebuilt with Windows 7 then upgraded to Windows 10 ( today).

I know it says w8.1 or w10 don’t support the upgrade path from vista, but does that simply mean if you do a full install of the new flavour, you’ll lose all existing programs on the C: drive?
What about data?
It has two disk drives – one containing the OS and a few program files that can be reinstalled; the second drive I added later and all my data is on that one.
If I was to install 10 onto the C drive, complete install, would that work? Would I keep the data on the second drive?

I’ve don’t know the answer to that, but I am suspicious that all this upgrading will get you a crusty and slow system….

Can you do a clean install?

that’s what I mean. A clean install of 8.1 or 10 without bothering with 7

A clean install will wipe everything on your C: drive. Your data will be safe though as it is on another drive.

FWIW, earlier today I installed the SSD I had bought on Friday (thank you Amazon Prime free trial), and cloned the old HDD onto it. A minor faff, but it all works. I used Macrium Reflect (free) to backup the original HDD and then clone the HDD to SDD.

The effect is astonishing. It’s like a new machine!

Very little on the C:\ drive now so i think it’s worth the risk. 8.1 or 10? (Silly question i think)

10.

Yay, done! Painless too, surprisingly. Clean install
It’s now running W10 Home. Time will tell if it’s any quicker but at least it’s supported now

If anyone wants a license key for a win 7 upgrade I have one going spare.
After the original upgrade I did I decided to do another old vista machine.
However, it was running vista business so wouldn’t upgrade to win 7 home premium. I’ve had to upgarde to win 7 pro.
So the upshot is I have a key for the upgrade to win 7 home if anyone wants it.
Drop me a mail and I’ll pass on the key.