Upgrade advice for older laptop.

[Orbit Storm]

Given that I've yet to get bad advice from the folks here at Tom's Hardware, I was hoping to reach out for more as I'm at quite an impasse.

My wife is still clinging to a Toshiba Satellite L505D-GS6000, purchased way back in 2010, but given the age of the system, it's predictably become sluggish and obtuse over the last year. She suggested an upgrade to Windows 10 but I'm uncertain if this would be a wise project to undertake. Why? Few reasons:

• ■Per Toshiba, the L505D-GS6000 doesn't officially support Windows 10.
  ■ The laptop uses a GPU that AMD dropped support for, the Radeon HD 4200, and I'm unclear as to whether or not Win7 legacy drivers will function in Windows 10.
  ■I do not have media recovery discs for Windows 7 as Toshiba never packaged them with the system and I don't intend to pay $40+ for an OS no longer supported by Microsoft.
  ■Selecting "Nothing" when choosing what to keep prior to the upgrade is essentially a must as this system badly needs a fresh start but this also means I'd be unable to revert back to Win7.

Sticking with Windows 7 is a last resort, so at this point, I'm hoping some of the experts could offer some advice on my options here. Perhaps I'm being too paranoid? I considered upgrading to Windows 10, as-is, evaluating system performance and if all seems well, reverting back and then doing a clean upgrade but I haven't a clue if that's even possible (can you re-upgrade after reverting?).

Apologies for the wall of text and thanks in advance to anyone daring enough to lend a hand!

 

[Laptop_Nerd]

Hi,

Actually that laptop would run Windows 10 with no problem since it meets all the requirements. If you're worried about your laptop not having a recovery disc you can just actually order one from Toshiba.

This is the site where you can order a set or recovery disc for your laptop.
https://support.toshiba.com/repair

Here's Windows 10 system requirements:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/windows/windows-10-specifications

 

[USAFRet]

I have an even older Toshiba laptop, L305-S5955. 2009 era. It runs Win 10 with zero issue.
It has been running Win 10 since Day 1 of the tech preview, and is/was my test machine for that.

 

[way2aware]

I don't really think windows 10 is an upgrade from windows 7. If it were my laptop, I would back up whatever pictures, etc I wanted to save to a USB flash drive/ storage card, and then do a fresh install of Windows 7, preferably without any of the bloatware that all OEM manufacturers load their products with (HP being the worst for that). Another thing you could try is ensuring that you don't have a bunch of programs starting up with windows; this'll bog down computers that don't have a lot of RAM installed.
Click 'start', and then click 'run'. Type 'msconfig'. In the popup window click on 'startup' and uncheck every program that is checked, except your antivirus program. Then click 'apply' and then exit with restart. If there were quite a few, you'll notice a lot better performance. Good day to you

 

[Orbit Storm]

I have an even older Toshiba laptop, L305-S5955. 2009 era. It runs Win 10 with zero issue.
It has been running Win 10 since Day 1 of the tech preview, and is/was my test machine for that.

That's certainly reassuring! My only question at this point then would be whether to do a clean install of Windows 10 (with an unused, licensed copy of Win8.1 to fall back on at least) or to do a general upgrade and try to clean up the system post-Win10 upgrade. If I do a clean install of Win10, I'd imagine that would wipe any proprietary Toshiba software so I'm unclear if that poses any risks.

Thanks for the response (and to the other posters as well for offering their input)!

 

[USAFRet]

I have an even older Toshiba laptop, L305-S5955. 2009 era. It runs Win 10 with zero issue.
It has been running Win 10 since Day 1 of the tech preview, and is/was my test machine for that.

That's certainly reassuring! My only question at this point then would be whether to do a clean install of Windows 10 (with an unused, licensed copy of Win8.1 to fall back on at least) or to do a general upgrade and try to clean up the system post-Win10 upgrade. If I do a clean install of Win10, I'd imagine that would wipe any proprietary Toshiba software so I'm unclear if that poses any risks.

Thanks for the response (and to the other posters as well for offering their input)!

Either way.
You can Upgrade that current OS to Win 10, and then come back and do a full wipe and install of Win 10.
That's the way this Tosh laptop is. It needed nothing from Toshiba....everything worked with the default windows drivers.

Or, a clean install of Win 10, using that unused 8.1 license.

 

[Orbit Storm]

Either way.
You can Upgrade that current OS to Win 10, and then come back and do a full wipe and install of Win 10.
That's the way this Tosh laptop is. It needed nothing from Toshiba....everything worked with the default windows drivers.

Or, a clean install of Win 10, using that unused 8.1 license.

Have you tried using any of AMD's drivers? My wife still uses the laptop for World of Warcraft and a handful of other games (notably a few Steam games, Civ5, Sims 4, etc) and despite being a six-year old system, it manages just fine. Our hope is that stability and performance will improve, even if marginally, with a clean install but I doubt any of the games she plays will function with the default OS drivers.

 

[USAFRet]

No, I've not installed any drivers beyond the default Windows drivers. Then again, that is not a games machine.

 

[Orbit Storm]

Has there been any confirmation as to whether or not Win7 legacy drivers for GPUs are compatible with Windows 10? If so, then I haven't anything to worry about aside from the upgrade process potentially going awry.

I couldn't agree more either: this laptop isn't a gaming system but it's proven sturdy enough to handle non-AAA titles like the ones I've listed above and as long as an upgrade to Windows 10 doesn't eliminate that functionality, then an upgrade for a fresh start is a no-brainer. We're in the process of ordering parts for another custom build (just completed mine a few weeks ago) but we'd still like to keep a functional second system in the meantime.

 

[Orbit Storm]

Wanted to offer an update:

Evidently, AMD released a "courtesy driver" for Discrete AMD Radeon Graphics Products, including the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4000 series. Obviously this means the 4200 will be fine with Windows 10 so that is good news.

Unfortunately for me, the Windows 7 installation I have cannot be used for a clean install of Windows 10. Per Microsoft support:

Seems that you can't use the key for a clean install later since its OEM SLP and it's blocked. SLP installations require a master product key issued by each OEM maker.

At the very least, I can upgrade to Win10 and try doing some disk cleanup to get as close as possible to a fresh install of Windows 10. Worst case scenario, it proves to be too much for the machine and we revert to Windows 7 and just have to make do until the new desktop is finished.

Thanks again for the responses!