Re-install Adventures - a Teeny Rant

MisterEd said:

I agree that Windows update doesn't always have the latest AMD and Nvidia drivers.

If you have a laptop with either an AMD or Nvidia GPU or an AMD chipset you have a dilemma. If you ask AMD or NVIDIA about drivers they say to stick to drivers from the OEMs website. They say the OEMs may modify their drivers it is best to stick with their drivers. The problem is that most OEMs stop providing driver updates after a year or two after the laptops release. I confirmed that position by asking support representatives myself. Laptop owners have to decide whether to play it safe or try driver updates from the AMD and Nvidia websites.

I have decided that both AMD and Nvidia may just be doing this for legal reasons so they will deny any fault if a laptop owner ignores their advice and downloads drivers anyways from the. I have decided that I will update drivers from AMD and Nvidia for my laptop. If there is a problem I will accept the consequences. I figure that is what backups are for.

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Lenovo is the same way too. They don't want you to update their OEM drivers via WU. It's also becoming more frustrated these days too since WU is in your face and some drivers which are "pushed" via WU have failed during the installation process. Ironically, on Lenovo's website they don't officially support W11 even though I received (and updated) Windows 11 notification update is available via WU.

As I posted in another thread, it's close to that time when I need to reformat my drive and reinstall Windows. This time, I'll stick with Windows 10. Supposedly, Windows 12 is expected to be released next year, in 2024.

Even after Windows 10 EOL at 2025, there will be some support from third parties at least for one more year. Windows 12 is not ready yet, probably it will be out a little before Windows 10 EOL or shortly after. For the time being use Windows 10 or 11 without any worries.

I still prefer Windows 7 of all the Windows version. But my W7 PC is limited with it's GPU/display and RAM, especially since it's given it's almost 13 years old next month.

Maximize RAM and replace the mechanical hard disk with an SSD, if you haven't already. This will make it much faster. My Vista era test laptop (see second system specs) was initially with 2GB RAM and mechanical hard disk. Once I put 4GB RAM and SSD is much much faster and runs Windows 11 very well.

spapakons said:

Maximize RAM and replace the mechanical hard disk with an SSD, if you haven't already. This will make it much faster. My Vista era test laptop (see second system specs) was initially with 2GB RAM and mechanical hard disk. Once I put 4GB RAM and SSD is much much faster and runs Windows 11 very well.

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It's a 10+ year old PC. I was always content with 6GB of RAM. Chrome sucks up a lot of RAM even with W11 especially with my "necessary extensions"

The W7 CPU is too slow (in my opinion) to run W10 and it bogs down with Windows 8. I've tested this many times and I revisited upgrading about a dozen times over the years and the cost of the RAM, GPU et al (if I can find them) are outrageous. They're all used anyway. I'm one of those who easily notices performance issues and I'm noticing the same with W11 now after upgrading from W10 and each time there's a Windows or browser update.

At the time, I didn't realize it, but I was an early adopter. I have only two viable options now. Either stay with W7 and run legacy applications or run an older version of Linux.

I'll stay with W7 rather than to switch to the real "dark side" OS of Linux and use my existing case and HDDs in a new PC, whenever that will be. I'm too old of a dog to learn something new and my patience/tolerance levels are much, much, lower now than they ever were.

Install Windows 11 and disable startup applications and some services to make it faster. Also disable transparency and fades to make it faster. Disable all animations and visual effects to gain a little more speed. Needless to say that you must make sure all drivers (Vista or 7 64-bit) are properly installed to maximise performance. Double check you have a proper Intel WDDM graphics driver, not Microsoft Basic Display Adapter (MBDA). The latter had zero hardware acceleration and makes the computer ten times slower! If you cannot find appropriate Intel drivers, check if there is a Microsoft one in Windows Update.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did all that when I installed Windows 10 on the Windows 7 PC for the first time. I spent a lot of time tweaking it to see if I could improve its performance. I reverted back to W7. Even now Chrome and the latest Firefox are very slow with W7.

Unfortunately the newer applications you install the slower the system becomes, but you cannot use the old versions for ever.

I own 2 Lenovos. The first one with a NVIDIA GPU. The other with a AMD GPU. I update the controllers via GeForce and Adrenalin software. Never had issues