What to do with Vista Laptop

[metrologist]

It fell from the sky a Toshiba Satellite laptop

X2 Turion dual core processor and 2GB ram, 160GB HDD and Vista - missing battery. (I keep forgetting to write down the model)

I plugged in a power supply and it boots straight to desktop. It looks like the owner used it for Asian soap opera videos, there is only realplayer, videos, and not much else. If it shuts down or goes to sleep, it comes back with a login screen.

I guess it's dumb to think about Vista, but I started to create an admin account and was going to delete the existing user account. Then I was unsure what would happen when I reboot - expecting a login screen that would stop everything. So I reverted all as it was, thinking I'd look for a clean install disc or download a recovery package from Toshiba support.

Maybe I will install Mint or something, like puppy linux to give it some use.

[BillB]

If I had that laptop and an idle trebuchet...

[HoracioDos]

Maybe I will install Mint or something, like puppy linux to give it some use.

You already have the answer. Mint Mate would be fine. If you want something snappier you could install debian with some light desktop.

[metrologist]

The appeal of Windows is its familiarity. I am currently using an older XP generation laptop to run LadyHeather and other legacy ham radio type of software, plus Arduino. Anyway, that's why the thought of trying to clean the system as is or install a fresh image.

[james_s]

It depends on what sort of software you want to run on it, it's a computer, not a particularly powerful one but powerful enough to be useful for general purpose stuff. Vista was not as horrible as its reputation suggests. When it came out the average PC didn't have nearly enough RAM or GPU horsepower to run it well and there were some teething issues with drivers. Once hardware caught up it's really not bad, several machines at a friend's shop are still running it because they've continued to be rock solid.

If you'd prefer Linux, any number of distros would be a reasonable choice, as long as you use a modestly lightweight window manager and don't try to run KDE it will likely be fine. I like Mate myself.

[G7PSK]

If it runs Vista it will run ten no trouble, I have an old vista laptop that I put ten onto and it runs better than it ever did with vista, I never really ever ran it with vista as I put seven on as soon as I got it, and upgraded to ten from that.

[ChrisLX200]

I'd put Ubuntu on it, but that's just me. At least the Linux distros are free - Win10 is not.

[Monkeh]

A ridiculously slow, cheaparse, flimsy Toshiba laptop?

Recycle it already.

[metrologist]

I was thinking of buying a new battery and Win10.

Satellite P205D-S7802

Toshiba does not list Win10 drivers for this model.

[Monkeh]

Why even bother buying a battery for a cheap as dirt 10 year old laptop?

[rsjsouza]

A ridiculously slow, cheaparse, flimsy Toshiba laptop?

Recycle it already.

YMMV. In 12 years my wife is on her second 5 year-old Toshiba (she is not particularly careful with her things). The first one still works - it was replaced not because of flimsiness but after a splash of cranberry juice it refused to turn off if the power adapter was plugged and more recently started to develop a screen flicker. 

[james_s]

I still have an old Toshiba laptop with XP on it that I use when I need a real parallel port. It also drives my Halloween display, for some reason my USB DMX interface doesn't work properly on my modern laptop and Vixen is Windows-only. That old machine keeps on trucking, it was my daily driver for years.

[ChrisLX200]

A ridiculously slow, cheaparse, flimsy Toshiba laptop?

Recycle it already.

They often have physical RS232 ports which can be useful, and many instrument control tasks don't require a lot of CPU work anyway. Why tie up a fast computer by doing mundane tasks on it?

[rstofer]

When playing around with electronics projects, there is good reason to power/program them from a disposable computer.  At a minimum, the USB port is likely to get damaged if something goes wrong.  I almost always use a powered USB hub.

I might consider such a computer for Arduino projects where compile times are relatively short.  Maybe even ARM projects, particularly if I'm not using an IDE.

I still have an old XP laptop that I use from time to time and another Dell laptop with Linux.  If the machines are workable, I'm not about to get rid of them.

I think my favorite distro for Linux is Mint MATE because the desktop is a lot like Windows.  I will never use Ubuntu again now that the control buttons are locked to the wrong corner.  It was bad enough when I had the ability to put them back where they belong.

Debian is probably the definitive distribution.  I have it on one of my desktops but it's a pretty powerful computer.

[metrologist]

Why even bother buying a battery for a cheap as dirt 10 year old laptop?

I saw batteries for less than $20 and it would make the laptop portable again, for when I want to move it from the radio shack doing APRS duty to running lady heather in the lab, and then into the utility room to download my solar data, and it would also be good for forum surfing while hanging in the shop. No applications there require a powerful PC, just one that works with modern internet and legacy special interest software.

My other laptops are gen Win95/98 in Umax and Toughbook with a ball mouse, plus a 1GHz P1 WinXP laptop with gig of ram (that was running LH).

[fourtytwo42]

I was thinking of buying Win10.

Surely thats an act of suicidal desperation!

One thing I have learnt from virus attacks, don't run/depend on anything you cannot re-install.

Do you have good XP disks and service packs ?

If so I would make a backup machine for your ham radio stuff AND dual boot it with something like Lubuntu (compact) to allow you to experiment with the Linux environment at the same time.

I am into low power usable computing and something like that should be treated as a gift

[metrologist]

Yes, I am fond of it already. I could never justify its price when new, not even the more cost effective stuff of today is really needed here now.

I liked the small laptops for their frugal power consumption. This one did not seem that efficient, but I'll have to measure its actual use.

If I would invest the time into learning Linux, I could probably be having a lot more fun though. The main reason my RPi 3 sits is because I'm not savvy enough for it.

I think I will toss in a puppy linux disc this evening and see how it plays youtube. It might just become the shop youtube server if I don't move in an older Win7 desktop.

[shteii01]

Max out the ram if you can get it for cheap, used from ebay is fine.

If it takes sata drives, get cheap 128 GB 30-40 usd ssd, ebay is fine.  If I recall correctly Vista had native support for ssd (Xp did not).

The battery is up to you.

[rdl]

It apparently supports SATA so I'd probably pop in a cheap SSD

[Red Squirrel]

If it indeed has sata, put a SSD, and install Linux.  Vista is slow as molasses even with 4GB+ of ram and a quad core, I can't imagine how slow it must be on that machine.

Could wire some 18650 cells directly instead of changing the battery. Need to figure out the proper pin out so you don't convert it into a Samsung phone though.

Could make a decent general purpose laptop for watching movies or whatever.   

[metrologist]

It's all set up and seems to run fine.

So, I'm still curious what happens if I create a new admin account and delete the existing account, then reboot.

[james_s]

You normally can't delete the admin account, you can create as many new accounts as you like though, and they can have admin privileges if you choose.

[senso]

A new HDD if you want, because given the age that one will be slow even compared to a current laptop HDD.

A used Turion 64 X2 TL-68 for 5$ from ebay, a pair of 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM sticks to up it to 4GB of RAM, a nice deep cleaning, clean heatsink, clean fan, repaste, clean all the chassis while its apart.

If you want windows, just download it using media creation tool and install it via an USB pen, the laptop should be able to boot from the USB drive, and try it out, everything should work, no need to install drivers from dubious websites, you dont need to BUY windows, just live with the watermark on the bottom right corner.

Or put some ubuntu in it and give it a try as well.

[rdl]

If it has CoA on it somewhere, why not just reinstall the OS fresh? It's not that difficult to do, though you would want to get any special drivers needed in advance. Personally I wouldn't want to use a pre-owned computer without a reformat and fresh install at a minimum. Who knows what's lurking on there now.

A cheap SSD and a fresh install of the OS and I bet it'll run fine. My Core2Duo with Win 7 is plenty okay on just 2GB of RAM. A new SSD around 120GB can be found for less than $40 USD.

[metrologist]

You normally can't delete the admin account, you can create as many new accounts as you like though, and they can have admin privileges if you choose.

Yeah, I was not expecting to be able to do that, but the system seemed to indicate that the account would be deleted.

I expect that if I just create a new admin account, when it reboots I will have to pick a user and then enter the password. I guess the new admin account, just leave it blank since none was entered (or prompted for) when creating the account.

Toshiba did have a media creation tool, so maybe I'll download it and see what it is. CoA has been ripped off. I have used belerac to get the key before for XP. Never tried it though...

Actually, what Toshiba has is called Toshiba Disc Creator for Windows Vista/XP, and I have no idea what it does. I'll try running that tonight...