Win10 install - how low can you go? Attempt 1 - Samsung netbook, Atom processor

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@Topper have you tried a clean install rather than an o/s upgrade?
That is going to be a bit difficult, it will have to wait until we get out of lockdown, my wife often wants to use it and sure as eggs are eggs if I start a clean install she will be on my case until I have finished it, so it will have to wait until she can go non essential shopping, don't forget here we have only had six weeks of relative normality since February and have been in special measures here since 15th July......
 

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After upgrading the ram on the missus's laptop from 6GB to 8GB, I tried putting the spare 2GB stick into this Atom processor netbook. It still takes a couple of ice ages to boot, but it definitely makes a slight improvement in the experience. It takes ages to launch the browser and change pages, and the experience is still horrible - no doubt due to the pi** poor processor in it..

I tried sticking the 4GB stick in it - it wont boot which was interesting. This ends the win10 attempt on this particular netbook, the performance is just too hopeless to carry on with it. I think I will end up putting a Linux distro onto it - its never going to be used for anything more than a bit of general surfing.
 
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Sleepingwiththefish

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When you try Linux, try one with a (very) lightweight Desktop Environment.

Personally, I've installed Debian with LXDE DE in very slow computers, for example, Pentium 4 ~2GHz + 1GB RAM, obviously it will feel much slower than we are used to nowadays, but it is still usable.

I actually also use LXDE in 'fast' computers, I think MATE/GNOME/and alike, are focused too much on appearance.
 

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After upgrading the ram on the missus's laptop from 6GB to 8GB, I tried putting the spare 2GB stick into this Atom processor netbook. It still takes a couple if ice ages to boot, but it definitely makes a slight improvement in the experience. It takes ages to launch the browser and change pages, and the experience is still horrible - no doubt due to the pi** poor processor in it..

I tried sticking the 4GB stick in it - it wont boot which was interesting. This ends the win10 attempt on this particular netbook, the performance is just too hopeless to carry on with it. I think I will end up putting a Linux distro onto it - its never going to be used for anything more than a bit of general surfing.
Those very early Atom-based netbooks could only handle 2GB RAM, and thus a 4GB stick will never work.
 

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Those very early Atom-based netbooks could only handle 2GB RAM, and thus a 4GB stick will never work.
Just had another thought: if the netbook can handle Win 7, then you could try a fast USB stick in one of the USB ports and then set up "Readyboost" which was effectively RAMboost (as discussed previously!) for Win 7.
 
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"Readyboost" will give little to no advantage on most cases, and, for a very slow CPU it will just create more work for it, resulting in CPU overload, also, even USB3 is just so so much slower than RAM.

If you're unable to increase RAM, find an OS that use less RAM, not to mention the obvious again, I just say, as I write this, my OS is using less than 1GB of RAM (and 300MB of those are for Firefox browser) EDIT: with browser closed ~500MB RAM usage, because Firefox is set to also cache content to RAM.
 
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After many hours trawling website and youtube videos trying to find out why I have been unable to implement "Readyboost" on my old laptops (although I currently am unable to find the article) I read that because I have upgraded them to SSDs the O/S automatically uses the cache on the SSD which is much faster than any improvement that could be provided by "Readyboost" and from what I have read this seems to also be the rule for eMMC drives.
 
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After many hours trawling website and youtube videos trying to find out why I have been unable to implement "Readyboost" on my old laptops (although I currently am unable to find the article) I read that because I have upgraded them to SSDs the O/S automatically uses the cache on the SSD which is much faster than any improvement that could be provided by "Readyboost" and from what I have read this seems to be the rule for eMMC drives.
That would seem to confirm why my wife's 2007-vintage Dell 1525 with W10 Home 32 bit could use an 8GB USB3 drive for RAMBoost, but could not do so after I fitted an SSD because I got an error message that the USB drive wasn't fast enough - OTOH, the laptop ran SO much faster after fitting the SSD that lack of RAMBoost wasn't a significant loss.:D
 

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Somewhere recently @Analoguesat posted a link to a website where I could upload Minitool Partition Wizard V11 Free which allows to clone disks (which V12 Free doesn't) but that post seems to have disappeared, so please could it be reinstated so that I can upload as promised?
 

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WeTransfer I think it was - unfortunately the links are deleted after a week so it wont be valid now..
 

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Minitool Partition Wizard V11 download link - valid until 15th Dec!
 

Topper

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Have an account myself now and have already used it. although it seems fine, there are warning messages from Bit Defender about their server security certificates being for another site and am in communication with their tech team
 

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