Question for the computer experts

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

I've had this before and to get round it go to the driver page of your printer down load the drivers for windows 8 and windows 7 and even nt

When it asked for the drivers manual point it to the file and let it install through that rather then let windows do it on its own you might find you have to try all drivers before it finds one that works


I've even had it I've had to install 2 drivers before it worked

Does not always work but worth a try

Most hassle I've had with a pc is getting an SCSI card from 1991 and software designed for windows 95 to play nicely on a 2012 pc board running windows 7 32. Took me two weeks. Various drivers and SCSI cards and asapi layers but I got there. Decided not to bother trying on wk does 10 64 as everything I needed on that pc ran fine on 7 but it should be possible with custom drivers I found

 

[sako243]

Kind of.

You're right that most OS's use spare RAM for caching but Windows has done a decent job of reporting actual memory consumption for a while. This is from Windows 11 but the same applies (IIRC) to Windows 10:

View attachment 379609

Here the reported memory usage is just less than 50% at 7.6GB out of 16GB but the committed usage (including cache) is 11GB.

Running Windows 7 in 4GB is borderline and later versions (especially 64bit) really do need 8GB or more.

Not denying anything but what do you mean by the comment "Kind of" - was that referring to any unused RAM was wasted RAM or something else?

 

[Stupoty]

I'd see if memory helps, will be ddr3 with that generation processor

I wouldn't invest more though, it's likely end of life for usefulness as a general purpose pc

Intel® Core™ i3-4160 Processor (3M Cache, 3.60 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ i3-4160 Processor (3M Cache, 3.60 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

www.intel.co.uk

Is true , the cpu is about half as pokey as the £200 laptop in the office. that only has 4gb and does ok on windows 10.

Could put vista or win 7 back on maybe ?


Stu

 

[skotl]

Not denying anything but what do you mean by the comment "Kind of" - was that referring to any unused RAM was wasted RAM or something else?

Sorry - nope I was referring to how Windows (more recently) reports actual RAM usage now rather than the mix of cache and application memory usage that it used to report (which was more confusing).

 

[Domdom]

OK, windows 10 needs an SSD to work well. 4gb of memory is not a massive issue unless you run stuff like Photoshop.

In all honesty though, look at the end of support for Win 10. Enterprise version is May 2025, other versions are earlier. If your PC doesn’t have TPM version 2 then you can’t get the free upgrade to Windows 11.

Whilst you will probably never have called Microsoft for support, the ending of it will mean no more security updates.

 

[ukracer]

OK, windows 10 needs an SSD to work well. 4gb of memory is not a massive issue unless you run stuff like Photoshop.

In all honesty though, look at the end of support for Win 10. Enterprise version is May 2025, other versions are earlier. If your PC doesn’t have TPM version 2 then you can’t get the free upgrade to Windows 11.

Whilst you will probably never have called Microsoft for support, the ending of it will mean no more security updates.

What's TPM?

 

[Kayos]

OK, windows 10 needs an SSD to work well. 4gb of memory is not a massive issue unless you run stuff like Photoshop.

In all honesty though, look at the end of support for Win 10. Enterprise version is May 2025, other versions are earlier. If your PC doesn’t have TPM version 2 then you can’t get the free upgrade to Windows 11.

Whilst you will probably never have called Microsoft for support, the ending of it will mean no more security updates.

I have installed windows 11 on a 2015 Surface Pro, officially unsupported, in reality Microsoft went out if their way to block it. It ran ok but later versions of 11 have made me switch back to 10 on most devices

 

[Domdom]

What's TPM?

Trusted Platform Module. It’s a chip which provides the support for security aspects such as drive encryption, certificates and other artefacts related to security and privacy.

 

[skotl]

It's actually really easy to persuade Windows 11 Setup to ignore the lack of TPM - this article explains how to do it: https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-upgrade-to-windows-11-without-tpm-20-and-why-you-shouldnt

That said, most processors from around 2013 onwards support TPM natively however it is turned off in many (particularly non-business focused) models. Reboot your PC and go into the BIOS (often F2, F10 or DEL while it's restarting) and look for something called "TPM", "fTPM" or "PTT" and enable it if it is turned off.

 

[Farside]

I had exactly the same with my Epson 2440 scanner. I have to keep an old laptop running XP if I want to scan something, the scanner doesn't even have drivers for Win7 which I run on my d/top.

Vuescan will run nearly anything old.
Regarding printers - the only one I can't get Win10 to work with is an ancient Okidata 4w, but it will run happily from Linux, so it's only an occasional problem.
Even my old HP Laserjet 5P will run happily via a network connection to a printer bus, called JetDirect 500. Microsoft knew that they had to keep commercial users of reliable old kit on side, so went to a bit of trouble to incorporate suitable drivers for ancient commercial kit.

 

[Wedg1e]

I've run out of upgrade potential on my 2013(ish) Lenovo z580 laptop. It started as a 3rd-gen i3 with 4Gb RAM and a spinny 320Gb HDD running Win8.
Now it's a 3rd-gen i7 with 500Gb SSD and 16Gb RAM on Win 10 - but I've already had the diagnostics telling me I can't put Win11 on it.
With 15.6" screen, 4 USBs, VGA, HDMI, DVD, cardreader and wifi, it does all I need - but for how much longer?

 

[addjunkie]

I've run out of upgrade potential on my 2013(ish) Lenovo z580 laptop. It started as a 3rd-gen i3 with 4Gb RAM and a spinny 320Gb HDD running Win8.
Now it's a 3rd-gen i7 with 500Gb SSD and 16Gb RAM on Win 10 - but I've already had the diagnostics telling me I can't put Win11 on it.
With 15.6" screen, 4 USBs, VGA, HDMI, DVD, cardreader and wifi, it does all I need - but for how much longer?

Im at that point, with mine, shame its a nice machine, works fine, dies what I want, except some of the stuff I need to log into wont let me.
Im going to have to spend money, which I really dont like doing, not that Im tight….but its better in my account, than someone elses!

 

[angellonewolf]

I've run out of upgrade potential on my 2013(ish) Lenovo z580 laptop. It started as a 3rd-gen i3 with 4Gb RAM and a spinny 320Gb HDD running Win8.
Now it's a 3rd-gen i7 with 500Gb SSD and 16Gb RAM on Win 10 - but I've already had the diagnostics telling me I can't put Win11 on it.
With 15.6" screen, 4 USBs, VGA, HDMI, DVD, cardreader and wifi, it does all I need - but for how much longer?

im sure there is a way of getting windows 11 on a pc as long as its only the tpm stoping you someone on here said you can by pass it

 

[tigdlo]

Im at that point, with mine, shame its a nice machine, works fine, dies what I want, except some of the stuff I need to log into wont let me.
Im going to have to spend money, which I really dont like doing, not that Im tight….but its better in my account, than someone elses!

You've got another 2 and a half years of Win 10 support, I wouldn't be in any rush to move over to Win 11.

 

[skotl]

im sure there is a way of getting windows 11 on a pc as long as its only the tpm stoping you someone on here said you can by pass it

Post 29, up there ^^^

 

[Wedg1e]

You've got another 2 and a half years of Win 10 support, I wouldn't be in any rush to move over to Win 11.

There is that, and beyond that point the machine will still work, it's just a case of avoiding exposure to sundry bad lads with nothing to do but mess with computers... and most of them will move onto working out how to get around the latest operating system etc.
One fix is to have a spare hard drive and periodically clone the laptop to it, so worst case scenario you can erase an 'infected' one and clone that from the backup. Then you only lose stuff as far back as the last clone (and Windows will retain all its updates etc.).
So potentially 5 years or more, by which time Santa Claus might have left some of us new toys for xmas anyway

 

[ukracer]

There is that, and beyond that point the machine will still work, it's just a case of avoiding exposure to sundry bad lads with nothing to do but mess with computers... and most of them will move onto working out how to get around the latest operating system etc.
One fix is to have a spare hard drive and periodically clone the laptop to it, so worst case scenario you can erase an 'infected' one and clone that from the backup. Then you only lose stuff as far back as the last clone (and Windows will retain all its updates etc.).
So potentially 5 years or more, by which time Santa Claus might have left some of us new toys for xmas anyway

I was looking around at Hard drive prices as a guy had a 4 TB brand new boxed one for sale priced at 40 quid.
£86 quid on amazon when he purchased it. £76 still.
I Had a quick scout for current prices and they seemed all over the shop with things like 11 TB external drives for 50 quid. Certainly had a lot of external large capacity drives for little money.
If that is the case you could buy 4 and back up weekly.

Edit 16TB is now 99 and not sure what the catch is but it's an SSD..lol

 

[ukracer]

They have increased in price but still cheap for a 16TD SSD

 

[Farside]

16TB SSD for £100 seems as hooky as a very hooky thing on a hooky day in Hooktown.

 

[m_c]

For backup purposes, magnets (HDD) are more reliable.
SSD isn't as reliable for long term storage.

You can get SSDs aimed at long term use and storage, but you have to pay quite a bit more for them, and even then if you don't need the random read/write performance, HDD are cheaper and more reliable.