hi i am currently a vista user but am looking to move to another OS due to support ending from MS and developers (chrome etc) so my question is 3 part,
1. can i feasible stay on vista if so for how long ?
2. if best to change from vista do i move to seven for desktop experience even though support for that will end soon
3. if none of the above what is most suitable OS for my small ff pc win 8.1 or win 10? (acer revo 3600 Intel Atom N230 - 1.6 GHz Processor 4gb ram nvidia ion graphics currently installed a 320gb mech drive but have ssd spare.)
thanks for reading
I don't see any reason with current PC hardware, to upgrade only the OS.
Taking a look at min. system requirements, Vista min. requirements for CPU, and memory are less than 7, 8 and 10. More recent OS's such as 8 & 10 IMO are able to take advantage of more modern PC architectures. If your PC was originally designed for and under XP and Vista. I don't see any reason to upgrade only the OS.
If your PC was originally was bundled with Windows 7 I can see possibly upgrading only the OS to 8 or 10.
If you have a copy of 8 or 10 you could possibly perform a test run, installing 8 or 10 to determine differences in how the PC behaves and responds
The PC I'm running Vista on is approx. 10 years old purchase new back in 07. Before upgrading to Windows 8 or 10 I would first upgrade to a newer PC architecture. Which would mean for me a third PC. Currently I maintain two pcs and two laptops.
Minimum Windows Operating System Requirements
note: "minimum system requirements" doesn't mean the OS is going to run well when installed on a PC with minimum or close to minimum system requirements. It also doesn't address issues with various PC architectures, used with memory, cpu, hard drive, video, etc.
Windows XP (is another choice to switch to)
- Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
- At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
- At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk.
Windows Vista
800-megahertz (MHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 800-MHz 64-bit (x64) processor.
512 megabytes (MB) of system memory. ...
DirectX 9-class graphics card.
32 MB of graphics memory.
20-gigabyte (GB) hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space.
Windows 7
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor*
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver.
Windows 8.1
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.
Windows 10
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Free hard disk space: 16 GB.
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.