[Channeal]

Hello Phill,

 

 

Sorry Chris, it was not my intention to put you off only make you aware of the possible pitfalls of dismantling notebook  type computers + offer an explanation as to why I would suggest not initially dismantling the notebook to clean it out, the cleaning method that I suggested may suffice and thus remove the need to partially dismantle the chassis and avoid possible mishaps.

 

No Problem. I am always way too sensitive and also lose confidence far too easily.

I feel frustrated too, because it is something I would love to learn to do. If I replace the OS myself, then I will have to open the laptop anyway - and I will never learn unless I try new things.

 

Although, I do have a possible option of help which has come up unexpectedly. I have been talking elsewhere on GTG about how I have tried to find local computer clubs to help me learn more. The only one I found is in another little town only about 15 mins drive away from me. However, I cannot drive and the club takes place on a Wednesday morning when my husband usually plays golf, so would not be available to drive me even if I managed to persuade him to go with me (he does not really have any interest in technical stuff, so am not sure it would really be his scene! ). I could get there by catching two buses, but that would take me a ridiculous amount of time as the connections do not work out very well!

 

I had almost discounted the idea, but decided anyway to email the club and find out more. The guy who answered (very promptly) told me: "we are possibly unique in that due to our volunteer mentors offering one to one sessions we can help people of most abilities". After reading that, I am seriously considering undertaking the somewhat roundabout bus route option after we come back from our long vacation at the end of September.

 

Could be an excellent way for me to learn more - and possibly get guidance as far as the laptop is concerned.

 

 

 

I did see your edit and the Safe Mode suggestion was to see if you could get into Safe Mode before chkdsk began to run, I see that RKinner is already helping you with this at your other thread.

 

Apologies for thinking that you didn't see my edit! I got confused by the fact that you posted the pics of the USB ports re the keyboard. I assumed that my edit rendered that unnecessary because it was now attempting to get into Safe Mode, only sticking at loading the drivers..... and as you never even mentioned the drivers, I thought you must have missed my edit.

Am still a tad confused (though that is pretty normal for me! )

 

 

Valid point made by terry regarding the end of the free upgrade to 10 from 7 and 8.1, the notebook passed the Windows 7 upgrade test and so should do the same with the 8.1 upgrade advisor, the Windows 10 upgrade app is not compatible with Vista I`m afraid.

 

Still carrying on in my confused state here..... and I have made no progress as far as upgrade assistants etc are concerned! I could not seem to get into the Windows 8 one via the link you gave, so I found another link elsewhere - but that told me that the upgrade assistant could only be run from a computer with Windows 7 on. So, I was thinking that perhaps this means that I would not be able to upgrade to Windows 8 at all. But you seem to be implying that this is not the case.

 

My head is spinning a bit at the moment, having spent too much time thinking about what my options are. Before I think about it any more though, please could yopu have a look at the Windows 7 Upgrade findings for me. Looking at it again, I am not quite sure about a couple of points, e.g. the Ethernet Controller.

 

 Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.txt   30.12KB   227 downloads

 

Many thanks and have a great week.

 

Chris.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Terry

 

Thanks very much for your input.

 

I did undo most of the screws on a previous occasion - and there are certainly a lot of them!

 

Will think about all this more tomorrow.

 

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 31 July 2016 - 01:25 PM.

[Advertisements]

 

If I replace the OS myself, then I will have to open the laptop anyway

just curious but why do you think you need to open the laptop to install a new os on a pc? because you don't unless you want to put it on a new drive anyway.

 

you can either install a new os along side the current os on the same drive, what is called a dual boot, or you can completely over write the old os with the new os, and all you need is a disk or usb stick with the install media of the new os on, so no need to make any hardware changes to a pc at all if you don't want to.

 

[terry1966]

 

If I replace the OS myself, then I will have to open the laptop anyway

just curious but why do you think you need to open the laptop to install a new os on a pc? because you don't unless you want to put it on a new drive anyway.

 

you can either install a new os along side the current os on the same drive, what is called a dual boot, or you can completely over write the old os with the new os, and all you need is a disk or usb stick with the install media of the new os on, so no need to make any hardware changes to a pc at all if you don't want to.

 

[phillpower2]

Hello Chris,

 

If I replace the OS myself, then I will have to open the laptop anyway

 

 

Installing a fresh version of Windows will not require opening up the notebook.

 

Good luck if you do decide to give the computer club a try, you will never know if you do not give it a go.

 

I was thinking that perhaps this means that I would not be able to upgrade to Windows 8 at all. But you seem to be implying that this is not the case.

 

 

Your computer specs are more than what are required to run even Windows 10 which as terry mentioned would be your best option so as to avoid potentially having to pay for a new product key further down the line should you upgrade to 7 or 8.1 now but decide later on that you want Windows 10, Windows 10 would have to be a clean install and not an upgrade meaning that all present data on the HDD would be lost, this is why you would need to download and save the Sony drivers to a USB thumb drive before the fresh install, some reading for you here

 

please could yopu have a look at the Windows 7 Upgrade findings for me. Looking at it again, I am not quite sure about a couple of points, e.g. the Ethernet Controller.

 

 

The report looks ok and what Microsoft is telling you is that they could not locate a Windows 7 driver for the Ethernet Controller, not unusual and many of the drivers used in Windows 7 are from the Vista platform.

 

Many thanks and have a great week.

 

 

You are welcome and ditto 

[terry1966]

 

Windows 10 would have to be a clean install and not an upgrade meaning that all present data on the HDD would be lost,

not necessarily phil, just depends on how you do the clean install, it is possible to do a clean install and also keep all data currently on the hard drive.

 

i also now understand windows 10 can still be upgraded for free but you need to be using assistive technologies (more info in link.).

 

https://www.microsof...indows10upgrade

 

[Channeal]

Hello again and thanks to both of you for your messages.

Oh what a silly, silly girl I am!

Yes, of course I know that I do not need to open up the laptop to install a new OS. I was stupidly getting muddled with installing a new hard drive. I did tell you that thinking about this was doing my head in today, did I not?

The present hard drive is pretty old and I am concerned that I would go to the trouble of installing a new OS only to find that the hard drive then decides to give up the ghost. Is there a way of testing the condition of the drive. In the new topic about my desktop, RKinner told me that one of my drives is beginning to 'get sick'. I cannot recall at the moment where he got the info from, but can you please tell me the best way to check it out?

Would buying a new hard drive be likely to improve the temperature problems, Btw?

Wow, if I can really get Windows 10 then that is definitely what I would like to do. I just could not believe before now that it would be possible to do it! I thought the fact that Windows 7 was initially suggested meant that a more recent OS would not be possible - and I have not been able to get myself free of that belief until tonight. I would love to have Windows 10 though!

With regard to the drivers Phill, am not sure how to get the drivers I need to load onto a thumb drive. Please can one of you help me.

You know, what has really been doing my head in about all this is that when searching for what is available to buy, it gets so confusing! You search for windows 20 DVDs, for example, and up comes lots of download versions!

Please could one of you answer the following points for me?

I need the Home Edition of Window 10, right?

Does 64 bit mean 32 bit is covered as well, or do I have to find a version with both specifically mentioned?

Am I right in thinking that you, Phill, said that OEM versions should be avoided?

What about OEI?

Thanks again,

Chris.

Edited by Channeal, 31 July 2016 - 06:11 PM.

[phillpower2]

Sorry Chris but got to head back to work, will try and find the time to get back to you later with some input, terry may be around meanwhile and offer some support, apologies for the delay 

[Channeal]

No problem at all Phill.

 

I was not even expecting you to be around at all...... so thanks very much for taking the trouble to answer!

 

I have more than enough to occupy me computer-wise on the thread concerning my desktop computer. That is causing me major headaches and is stressing me out much more than thinking about the laptop is!!!!

 

Thanks again,

 

Chris.

[terry1966]

 

I need the Home Edition of Window 10, right?

no any version, home or pro, of windows 10 will do, the home edition is what i'd suggest though.

some more info on different versions here :- http://www.techradar...plained-1299310

 

 

Does 64 bit mean 32 bit is covered as well, or do I have to find a version with both specifically mentioned?

yes 64bit os can run both 32bit and 64bit programs, where as a 32bit os can't run 64bit programs.

the only limiting factor on using a 64bit os is if you have a 64bit cpu in your machine and seeing how cpu's have all been 64bit since about the late 90's i'd think that's not an issue any more and i'd always recommend people install a 64bit os now.

 

 

Am I right in thinking that you, Phill, said that OEM versions should be avoided?

What about OEI?

from my understanding both have licensing issues, and mean once they are installed on a pc, they are tied to that pc and can not be transferred and used on any other pc.

where a retail version can be transferred and installed on any pc you own just as long as that's the only pc it's installed on at the time.

 

 

Would buying a new hard drive be likely to improve the temperature problems, Btw?

no, won't make any difference.

 

 

With regard to the drivers Phill, am not sure how to get the drivers I need to load onto a thumb drive. Please can one of you help me.

i really wouldn't worry about drivers unless you find you have a problem.

to find the correct drivers, first you need to know what hardware is in a machine, i won't go into more detail but there are programs that i'm sure phil prefers to use to get such hardware info. eg. like speccy in your other topic.

 

how to test a hard drive :-

 

think that answers all your queries.

 

Edited by terry1966, 01 August 2016 - 07:02 PM.

[Channeal]

Thanks very much for answering my questions, Terry. Great stuff! :-)

What I really do not understand is why, when I do a search for Windows 10 DVDs, I do not seem to find anything. All that comes up are the downloads, or the OEM/OEI versions. What am I doing wrong?

Chris.

[phillpower2]

Thanks from me as well Terry 

 

You are not doing anything wrong Chris, Windows 10 is more widely available on a USB thumb drive and if you do decide to go straight to Windows 10 it would be less expensive to purchase the licence key from one place and download Windows 10 to your own thumb drive direct from Microsoft using the media creation tool which you can do on the notebook running Vista, just select the create media for use on another computer option and save the download to a thumb drive with a storage capacity of 4GB or more.

 

Windows 10 Home Activation Key for 32 / 64 Bit

 

Get Windows 10

 

Regarding the drivers, Windows 10 gets along quite nicely with most of its own drivers but I have seen people having problems with the DVD drive not working after upgrading from 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10, that is why I suggest you copy the present drivers to a thumb drive, you may only need to install the chipset drivers and nothing else, search the C: drive for a folder called drivers and get back to us please.

[terry1966]

 

What I really do not understand is why, when I do a search for Windows 10 DVDs, I do not seem to find anything. All that comes up are the downloads, or the OEM/OEI versions. What am I doing wrong?

as phil said your doing nothing wrong, really it all boils down to cost and it's much cheaper for them if they just sell you a key and you download the os yourself.

 

here's the link i use where you can download a windows 10 iso to create your own install media, be that dvd or usb stick. :- https://www.microsof...ad/windows10ISO

 

[Channeal]

Hello Gentlemen,

 

Thanks once again to you both for the links and for all your help.

 

Just to make doubly sure I have got this correct, as have got a bit confused along the way here ......

 

Are you saying that I could purchase the key (for £29.90 in Phill's link) and then download the ISO files from the link you both gave, thus enabling me to get Windows 10 for only £29.90? Is that really right? If so, then I will definitely decide to do that!

 

I just know so little about all this stuff..... I annoy myself big time!!!!

 

Chris.

[phillpower2]

Hi Chris,

 

Yes you are correct and you can in fact download Windows 10 before you have the key being as you are downloading the media to a USB thumb drive and selecting the create media for use on another computer option.

 

You are welcome btw 

[Channeal]

Okay Phill, will do that.

Is there any reason why I cannot buy the key now too. Does it have to be activated within a certain time?

Chris.

[phillpower2]

Depending when ordered it could take between 24 and 48hrs for the product key to arrive whereas you can download the Windows 10 media immediately, the reviews at the amazon link do say that the product keys arrive pretty quickly.

 

No time limit on using the key but it is best to have it to hand when you install Windows 10.