I have an older laptop (probably 6-7 years old, Dell Inspiron running Windows 7) and its been running fairly slow lately. I saw a notice that today is the last day to upgrade to Win10 for free. Just looking for some good advice on whether or not I should even consider upgrading.
My first thought is that, with an older machine, I probably have a lot of junk on my hard drive causing the slowness so I need to clean it up (which means I'll miss the "today is the last day" bit...but do I really care?). I also think maybe my processor won't be able to handle the new version, but not sure if that's really a concern or not.
What's the model number of that Dell Inspiron laptop?
What's the "service tag" number and/or "express service code" number on it?
Do you live in the U.S.A. or elsewhere?
I probably have a lot of junk on my hard drive causing the slowness so I need to clean it up
After 6 - 7 years of accumulating junk and issues, a clean reinstall of Windows 7 may be what it needs.
Doing that will give it a fresh start and breathe new life in it.
I saw a notice that today is the last day to upgrade to Win10 for free
The end of July 2016 is the expiration period for obtaining the free Windows 10 upgrade.
I doubt though if Dell tested your laptop for the Windows 10 upgrade and has device drivers for it.
Here is the support site that's assigned only to your Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.
It shipped in March 2010 in the U.S.A. and came with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
As you can see, it has not been tested for the Windows 10 upgrade.
It came with 4 GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
It supports 8 GB, so you might consider maxing it out.
Adding more RAM should improve overall speed and "snappiness".
Thanks, Frank. I see the rest of your comments now. I think I'm not as concerned about upgrading to Win10 as I am about doing what you suggested with cleaning it up and refreshing Win7. After reading your comments, I think I'm not really looking for the latest and greatest, but more of making this thing run better.
make the recovery DVD set using the dell recovery manager
It varies from 2 to 6 DVDs needed - but will tell you when you start the process
then you can use the internal partition to do a clean install
and if that fails - you have the DVDs as a backup
Also down load the drivers from the Dell site Frank linked to
If you're not able to create a recovery disc kit in your laptop, and if Dell customer service is not able to provide you with one, you should be able to purchase one here.
Navigate through the menu as you see in the thumbnail image, then follow the instructions.
If you have any questions, you can call first.
I have 10 running on a 1545, apart from BlueTooth (which you may not have on yours) I had no problems with drivers for 10 although different wireless cards have been used in this model so yours might be different than mine.
You do have the option of upgrading to 10 from your present 7 then doing a clean install of 10.
I've upgraded the Wireless card, Cpu and Ram in mine, if you're interested in trying any of that let me know.
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