I have a notebook that has an Intel Atom N270 CPU on board with 1.6GHz and 898MB of RAM. It runs on Windows XP Home Edition and is slower than a slug.

Would it perform better if I flattened it and installed Windows 7?

I am not technical, so an answer with easier words would be appreciated.

5

3 Answers

On the specified system, windows XP hands down.

Note that with general use programs that run and install, in a normal-user desktop environment, windows 7 will take approximatively 1GB or RAM. The primary reason for XP to Vista/7 upgrade was actually the DX support, which is not the case here.

9

No it would not, windows 7 minimum requirements are

• 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

So it will run very, very slow. You must buy at least additional RAM. Keep in mind, that these are minimum requirements, so you want be happy. I have never installed Win 7 on such bad configuration, but I have done it on virtual machine and it was too bad.

I know that this is a matter of personal opinion, but if I am stuck with that computer, I wold try with lubuntu, or some other lightweight linux. If you are using computer for web browsing and watching videos, there is no reason why you shouldn't give ubuntu a chance.

3

Windows 7 tends to perform okay on limited hardware like that. I had Windows 7 on those specs and it was okay, but I would try and but some more RAM in if you could. It would be more secure and modern- I would prefer it over XP, but I doubt it would perform better - it would be the same or worse.

That said, by today's standards that laptop is gutless and will chug badly browsing the modern web- the CPU just isn't up to it (and I'm speaking from experience here).

I would put the money towards a new laptop - even if it's a bottom rung model, it will effortlessly outperform the Atom.

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