I took the opportunity to “downgrade” to Windows 7. My old HP laptop (which is specifically for a few specialty Windows-only apps) feels double as fast now compared to Windows 10 before. And with the help of LegacyUpdates.net and VxKex-NEXT (provides the very few Windows 10 API calls so you can even run most Win10-only apps on Win7) you get a pretty nice and lean system.
You may create a bootable/live USB with Mint [1] installed on it, and try it out to see if its works perfectly for you - from functional and performance POV.
With Linux, at least you will continue to get security patches. For Win 7 and 10 are out of support now.
Read my text again. This is my only Windows laptop - and it needs to be actual Windows for all the obscure firmware update tools of some devices I have flying around.
Everything else in my household is either Linux or MacOS.
That old laptop’s CPU and TPM are “not supported” by Win11. And also, Win10 already didn’t run that smoothly on it - so, I didn’t even try to hack Win11 onto it.
I took the opportunity to “downgrade” to Windows 7. My old HP laptop (which is specifically for a few specialty Windows-only apps) feels double as fast now compared to Windows 10 before. And with the help of LegacyUpdates.net and VxKex-NEXT (provides the very few Windows 10 API calls so you can even run most Win10-only apps on Win7) you get a pretty nice and lean system.
You may create a bootable/live USB with Mint [1] installed on it, and try it out to see if its works perfectly for you - from functional and performance POV.
With Linux, at least you will continue to get security patches. For Win 7 and 10 are out of support now.
[1]https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/burn.html
Read my text again. This is my only Windows laptop - and it needs to be actual Windows for all the obscure firmware update tools of some devices I have flying around.
Everything else in my household is either Linux or MacOS.
Sorry, I just noticed that now.
I have to have Windows for my university’s test-taking spyware, so I just have a barebones 11 LTSC installed on a secondary drive.
That old laptop’s CPU and TPM are “not supported” by Win11. And also, Win10 already didn’t run that smoothly on it - so, I didn’t even try to hack Win11 onto it.