Recommend a OS for my old laptop

[Artemis]

Coincidentally, I'm "downgrading" a new Win 7 PC to dualboot XP...yada, yada, yada.

Yeah, and it did not go well.
Long story short, I was unable to install XP on a new i3 PC.
Tried an untouched OEM .iso and four nLited variations with various slipstreamed drivers (no other mods to the OS itself).
In all cases the install blue screened after loading files and initialing the installer.

Not sure why and the point became moot when the customer bit the bullet and upgraded his ProTools, so I'm not too keen on working it further.

I have tried in the past retrograding newer hardware back to XP (mostly while Vista was making everything go backwards), and from my own personal experience with several different chipsets, the results aren't usually that great. By that great I mean buses or system devices simply not being recognised and weird happenings from the system locking up completely when trying to go into sleep mode to neat things like the soundcard/audio devices being totally unrecognised.
Sneakily enough later 'lite' versions of Windows XP like the netbook versions for Dell, HP etc had additional drivers which cover alot more newer chipsets/devices, so it is not that the devices are incompatible, just the Microsoft is trying to force you to upgrade your OS when you purchase new hardware. A kind of planned obsolescence similar to the automotive industry.

[clocker]

like the soundcard/audio devices being totally unrecognised.
Sneakily enough later 'lite' versions of Windows XP like the netbook versions for Dell, HP etc had additional drivers which cover alot more newer chipsets/devices..

Very clever.
I have access to a few netbook .isos and it never occurred to me to try them.
Ah well, I actually was dubious from the get-go and the effort was mostly to convince the customer I wasn't leaving him stranded as he slowly reached the conclusion that his ten year old software wasn't going to cut it.
Once he fully understood the inanity of crippling his new hardware with XP, all my interest in the project evaporated.

[BitMan55]

Xp 32 bit

[zonta]

linux mint debian with xfce

[Frankthetank1]

never heard of that but right now i am running windows 7 thin PC and blacktack 5. both are working great and am learning how to use Linux.

[anon]

never heard of that but right now i am running windows 7 thin PC and blacktack 5.

I was thinking of using Thin PC for my last reinstall, but settled for Windows 7 SP1 Lite v3 by ivankehayov. The image fits in a CD and hasn't given me a single problem so far. The only downside is that you have to download all updates afterwards and that can take a while.

[Sandiekid]

Where would I get this custom win 7 sounds interesting for old computer.

A friend of mine made a custom Windows 7 with the mostly useless stuff removed. If you want to check it out, send me a PM. It comes in x86 and x64 flavors, so that's not a problem.

It's what I'm using in my laptop as we speak. It works fine and fast, and the specs are way lower than what's on the first post.

[Artemis]

Where would I get this custom win 7 sounds interesting for old computer.

A friend of mine made a custom Windows 7 with the mostly useless stuff removed. If you want to check it out, send me a PM. It comes in x86 and x64 flavors, so that's not a problem.

It's what I'm using in my laptop as we speak. It works fine and fast, and the specs are way lower than what's on the first post.

It depends how old the computer is, some hardware is not supported, so if you give some more information about the computer itself it would help?

[anon]

Where would I get this custom win 7 sounds interesting for old computer.

Shoot me a PM once you're able to, and I'll give you the links.

In the meantime, you can try ivankehayov's Windows 7, available on Demonoid. v4 was available now.

[Sandiekid]

Asus motherboard m2v gt7300 graphics card 2gb memory am2. CPU

Not sure how to send you pm anon but friended you cheers