Question Windows 10 on old laptop

[overclocler14]

Hello everone, after couple months of trying I finally decided that I have to write here, maybe I'll find some advice on this. Basically I want to install Windows 10 on an REALLY old laptop - the Toshiba Satellite L20-182 to give it some more life after win 7 gets discontinued, but I cannot do it at all. I know that there is no point in doing this but I just wanna try to see how bad will it run. This system runs windows 7 with areo without problems so I wanted to give Win 10 a shot. The specs are:
CPU: Intel Celeron M 1,6 GHz It should support all necessary instructions (SSE2, Execute Disable-bit etc.) for Windows 10 as far as I know, so I don't think this is the culprit
GPU: ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series (I have the 32-bit WDDM drivers for it and they run great on Windows 7)
RAM: 2 GB (2x1 GB)
HDD: Seagate 80 GB PATA

So the problem is I cannot even run the installer. It loads and loads for about 5 minutes showing windows logo and moment after these rotating circles show up, it crashes with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error message. What's causing it? It doesn't matter how I set up the bios, always the same result. Maybe the dial-up modem? But I don't see an option to disable it, perhaps I just have to remove it from the board? Tried basically everything (even installing on a different machine with an AMD CPU and graphics and then transferring the disk data with Macrium Reflect hoping to run reinstall from recovery ) but it crashes moments before it loads recovery options. I saw 10 running on simillar machines so it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Here's the video showing Windows 10 run on an identical machine as mine (apart from that it's overclocked to 2 GHz but this shouldn't make a difference, just slower. I personally won't do this because the cooling system is just AWFUL, also tried to fix it in one of my threads but with no luck). I tried contacting the author but also with no luck:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcnUzAUZPC8


Looking for some advice to at least get the installer to load (booting from USB doesn't seem to be possible, but it recognizes its own HDD connected via USB-SATA adapter in BIOS but sadly gives disk read error and tells to restart. Also what causes this bluescreen? Looking forward to hear some feedback, thanks.

I'm posting screenshots from CPU-Z and performance index (and yes, this is Polish):
CPU
Motherboard
Cache
Memory
Windows performance index

 

[overclocler14]

Ok, apparently I was wrong. It IS POSSIBLE to boot from USB, but because it treats the stick the same as HDD i didn't see it (USB emulation must be turned on for this to work, otherwise "Operating system not found" error). Unfortunately Windows 10 from USB just gets stuck and nothing happens after 10 minutes (although the activity light un the pendrive is flashing). I gave up. Next I tried Windows 8.1 just to see if it will load. And guess what: IT LOADED ! After quite a while, though, but it did. So that rules out the incompatibility. I then tried Windows 10 To Go and... IT ALSO LOADED. It was painfully long and it rebooted at some point, after that I thought it was wasted time but I managed to get it going. Unfortunately I couldn't get past setup screen, it displays OOBEsomething error and asks to try again, no luck. This confirmes that it CAN run windows 10 but for some reason it doesn't want to install it. Also i think that problems with WTG are caused by the usb emulation (it probably uses USB 1.1 that is too slow).
Now I will run regular installation from USB once again but this time I'll wait until it loads, even If I have to wait the whole day. I'll post an update wheter I was successful or not.

 

[britechguy]

I meant to reply last night, but it got skipped.

Even if you can install Win10 on this machine, you will regret having done so. I don't care what Microsoft designates as "the minimum requirements" for running any Windows because any Windows runs horribly with those in place.

Running Windows 10 on anything less than 8GB of RAM is unacceptably sluggish and I can't imagine what it would be like with only 2GB.

Modern OSes (all of them not specifically designed otherwise) expect generous amounts of RAM in particular.

 

[overclocler14]

As i stated in the beggining I know it will probably run horribly bad.
I disagree about minimum 8 GB because I have one laptop with 3 gigs and dual core pentium CPU, it runs well, probably better than 7 did, also a PC with an AMD A10 cpu and 6 GB RAM and I can play games with ease (turning off unecessary telemetry stuff removes a pretty chunk of used RAM), and it feels really snappy overall. But do you know what's stopping the installation? Did you watch the video I posted? It doesn't look so bad with only 2 GB.

 

[britechguy]

No, I did not watch the video, as doing a completely clean Windows 10 installation is "boilerplate" stuff I've done many times. Generally, if the installer finds a hardware incompatibility that it really doesn't like it will tell you very early on and just abort (and I have an Asus laptop that came with Win7 where this is the case).

What each of us considers "snappy" is subjective. I have an old Gateway machine that's running Win10 Pro on 4GB, which is the max it will support, and it does fine, but it's not what I would call "snappy," just "within my range of tolerance for the odd occasion where I use it."

My older two laptops (one with an A6 and the other A8) were both upgraded to 8GB upon receipt and are still generally "snappy" unless put under enough load. The two current laptops in the household are both using A12-9700P APUs and have 12GB RAM.

I didn't say that your experiment was un-doable, but don't expect much from the end result if you reach it.

 

[overclocler14]

What kind of incompatibility are you talking about specifically? Only difference I see is the lower clock of the CPU. He had to install it somehow and because it's the same model as mine it theoretically should work. And the video is showing the system already up and runnning not the installation (that I wish I could see). Of course i dont' expect much, Just getting the installer to show up would be really nice. Will try some more things later. Thanks anyway

 

[britechguy]

I can't even recall the specific message the installer gave me, but it was not vague. It identified some piece of hardware in the machine that would not work with Windows 10. It would not allow the install to continue at all.

These checks are all done before "the real install process" gets underway. It doesn't go half way through and then say, "Oh, I just found a problem here," when the problem is incompatible hardware.

This is the only machine on which I've personally experienced this. I've installed Windows 10 on a lot of machines that were never officially tested and certified for it, and they all work flawlessly (within the limits of their hardware).

 

[overclocler14]

So how can I explain that Windows on the go seems to work partially? Because the installer crashes instantly and in on the go version it only gets stuck in the configuration process (has problems loading the EULA for example).

If the hardware was a problem shouldn't it crash on every instance? And also what's the difference in kernel between 8.1 and 10? Because I managed to install 8.1 without any problems and it runs. Maybe an upgrade from it will work.

Oh and running the setup from windows it firstly scans if the hardware is compatible and it doesn't give any messages regarding that something is wrong. Seems really strange to me.

 

[britechguy]

My honest answer: I don't know.

And, not as an insult to you, but I don't care enough to dedicate scads of time to this particular issue. It holds no interest for me. Someone else will have to pick up the ball if they have the interest.

 

[overclocler14]

Ok then. Thanks for your help. Maybe someone will find a solution or maybe my enthusiasm will go away and I'll just buy something newer. We'll see. I've understood that my "problems" are really troublesome for some people because they make no sense.

 

[overclocler14]

SOLVED ! It was a matter of getting the oldest ISO i could find and it doesn't crash. Now I just have to install it and update. Why I haven't thought of that earlier?

 

[captaincharisma]

I meant to reply last night, but it got skipped.

Even if you can install Win10 on this machine, you will regret having done so. I don't care what Microsoft designates as "the minimum requirements" for running any Windows because any Windows runs horribly with those in place.

Running Windows 10 on anything less than 8GB of RAM is unacceptably sluggish and I can't imagine what it would be like with only 2GB.

Modern OSes (all of them not specifically designed otherwise) expect generous amounts of RAM in particular.

not just the ram but that fact that its a celeron CPU any modern OS will be crippled on a PC like that

 

[Math Geek]

your other option, is to run the setup.exe from within win 7 itself and not boot to the usb.

you can chose to not save anything and it will basically erase everything as f it was formatting. won't be as clean but will still work.

i have win 10 on an old netbook running one of those crappy atom cpu's and 2 gb ram. it came with win 7 starter which is as stripped down as you can get. win 10 runs just the same as that win 7 did. as you know it is slow and not useful for much more than surfing and watching netflix, but it still works fine for that use. the cpu you have is better than the atom so you may see a small improvement though it will still run like molasses on a cold morning.

overall though, it will run win 10 though updates and such will take literally hours to install. i finally blocked them so i did not have to let it run overnight to update it!!

edit: i would check to be sure there are drivers for it for win 10. you can do without some of them but others are 100% needed. check that before spending the time. my netbook has no igp drivers so it runs on the generic vga one. no problem other than without the drivers things like brightness and other settings are not present. so it runs at full brightness all the time.

 

[overclocler14]

your other option, is to run the setup.exe from within win 7 itself and not boot to the usb.
you can chose to not save anything and it will basically erase everything as f it was formatting. won't be as clean but will still work.

That was one of the first things i tried but after a reboot it would't go any further. I don't really need much performance. It really only needs to run chrome and text editor.
I have the drivers that support areo and directX so they should work. I know that xp drivers definitely won't work but these should.

 

[britechguy]

I would doubt, very much, that you will be able to update to the latest Version of Windows 10 based upon what has already occurred.

Microsoft was quite clear that backward compatibility with "ancient hardware" (my words, not theirs) would not be maintained over time. My bet is that yours has dropped out somewhere along the way, but exactly where I have no idea.

Congrats, though, on achieving your goal. I have archived copies of the Win10 ISOs going back to 1607 and one for the version prior to the Anniversary Update, which I presume would be 1511 but I didn't include the actual version number in the ISO file name.

 

[overclocler14]

Will try updating as long as it's possible, maybe at some moment they changed something that my hardware is not capable of doing and thus it crashes the installer. I still have some hope that it's possible to do. Thanks to all people that tried to help. I can let you know which version of windows "doesnt like" my Toshiba but it will take some time definitely. Suprisingly the second stage of installation (after copying files) took roughly 5 minutes. I thought it will take an eternity, turns out, it didn't.

 

[overclocler14]

So I started updating, version 1809 didn't seem to install (bluescreen after reboot) but after i tried again it showed that only the defender definitions failed, not the big update. After that no further updates show up. I downloaded the update assistant and it started checking my system whether it can run the new version. Result? CPU: OK, it must know its a 1 core Celeron
RAM: OK,
Disk space: OK (even with a 40 GB backup one i'm currently using).
This sounds promising. Also the system got a massive performance boost after i installed the graphics driver (my windows 7 drivers refused to install, as well as many others from the web), eventually i found working WDDM driver on microsoft update catalog website. Installed without problems.

 

[overclocler14]

I decided to take a different approach and try different ISOs to find at which point it crashes the installer and it looks like 1703 is the furthest it can go. 1803 looks like too much. still better than expected. Will try to make it update but I doubt that is possible. Still maybe this thread will be useful to someone that wants to have some fun pushing the hardware to the limits.

 

[britechguy]

Regardless of my personal opinion on the enterprise, you're having fun with it, and that's all that counts.

Your reports back are very much appreciated, and for exactly the reasons you've stated. The only thing you might be depriving someone of is the pleasure of going through the entire process as you are doing.

 

[overclocler14]

So, many days later, I'm giving up for now. No matter what I do, it just doesn't work. 1709 is the last version that turns on. But even in 1709 many drivers start to fail for no reason (even the system devices like PCI bridge, some devices appear twice and the device manager generally looks unhappy) and while I can reinstall some drivers, after reboot the yellow exclamation mark comes on again. Microsoft really made something that screws with older systems (I think on purpose to make people buy new hardware). Also due to the numerous vital devices not working as they are supposed to, the system is quite unstable and there are many completely random BSOD's. I've deducted that in the newer versions so many things are broken that it simply cannot handle it and bluescreens immediately.
Still it was fun pushing this Toshiba to its absolute limits that the engineers in 2005 didn't even think about, but I don't recommend doing this if you have an anger problem, because it will end up badly.

 

[Math Geek]

sucks that it didn't work out. hopefully you enjoyed trying and maybe even learned something in the efforts.

 

[Remeca]

It wouldn't be worth the trouble if it did work. I have Windows 10 on an 11 year old laptop, but it was high end for the time. Specs in my signature. It is usable, but just. That's with Cortana and all the fancy graphics turned off. Finding drivers for some of the components was troublesome as well. Dell didn't even provide any drivers for the Bluetooth, I had to download drivers from a Lenovo laptop that had the same chip and supported 10. Imo, if you want to keep it secure and usable on the internet these days, you'd be best off running a light Linux distro like Mint XFCE or Linux Lite.

 

[overclocler14]

So, quite long time, an update. I didn't manage to install it on the Toshiba BUT.. I got a hold of another old laptop - high end from 2006 it even has a TV tuner inside! Specs almost the same but little bit different. CPU is once again Celeron M @ 1,6 GHz but 420 instead of 380 and the major difference is SSE3 instruction set - I think that was the reason it didn't want to run on toshiba.
The first thing I tried was installing 10 - for fun. And what? 1903 works perfectly. And it's 100 % usable, ony thing that gives me issues is YouTube - just too demanding for a single core CPU. GPU is also better - Radeon X1600. The best thing that the laptop is sooo much quieter than the toshiba that words can't describe. I think I'll stick to this one for the time being, until I buy a thinkpad. It has better screen and performance than toshiba and it's quiet.
Unfortunately it has a dead battery (that I failed to replace cells in) and the disc reader only reads CDs and some DVDs but mostly movies, anything self-burnt is unreadable. I've ordered these two things and I'll install them when they arrive.
If you are curious what the laptop i, it's the ARISTO Prestige 1600. I was a polish brand that I wasn't even aware existed but it wasn't succesful - the notebook part of the company closed some years ago and the parts were destroyed, so they are quite rare as far as I can tell.
Also tried looking for a dual-core processor that I can stick in it for a performance boost but I think every one is incompatible. Do you have any ideas what's the most powerful CPU that I can put in it? Even the slowest dual-core will satisfy. The socket is 479 mPGA which cannot accept 478 processors. I'd be grateful for any suggestions.
So, the conclusion is you CAN run Windows 10 on an old hardware, and it's not as painful as you think - you just have to be lucky to find the right configuration.

PS: I've chosen the dual core for the Aristo - Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 - 2 cores - 2.00 GHz. After BIOS Update - runs like a charm. Now I can watch Youtube even in 1080p, but it has little problems, 720p on the other hand is flawless. The only downside is that the laptop got noisier - that was expected due to higher processor TDP, but it's tolerable.
Also tried putting the Celeron 420 in Toshiba but unfortunately it doesn't work - motherborad probably supports only 3xx.

Anyway I had a lot of fun doing this and I hope anyone that wants to attempt such a "stunt" will find all the info here useful. Also you can post to this tread your problems/adventures in trying to run new software on ancient hardware, maybe I'll be able to help some.