can i get windows vista on a old laptop?

Question

i bought my windows xp laptop nearly a year ago before windows vista was invented can i still upgrade? how much is it?

Answer 1

Hi. Vista takes more powerful resources than XP, so I would run the "Vista Advisor" located on Microsoft's website first. : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx

Answer 2

You can upgrade but your laptop will run slowly and your pc manufacturer may not have all the driver upgrades ready for download; check your manufacturer's site!

Also bear in mind that low end upgrades available are pretty basic and even the high end upgrades available don't come with all the hyped bells and whistles originally designed by Microsoft - in fact some of the best security and multimedia features have been sidelined in favour of eye candy GUI

previous experience of Windows XP suggests that a Service pack or two will follow to iron out the glitches and flaws and once the initial feeding frenzy of a new launch dies down, Vista laptops and desktops will be discounted

you might find this interesting...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/01/vista_waiting_game/

Answer 3

My 3 year old Dell Precision M50 been running Vista no problems as long as you have at least 1gb of memory

Don't believe all the hype that Microsoft recommends.. New Cards, Processors (they get comisson from hardware manufactuers)

infact I have Windows XP Pro running on a Celeron 333 laptop with 96mb ram.

Any Machine from the past 3 years will run Vista..its the Ram thats the important factor

Answer 4

Goto start/control panel/system
Write down or print all the specs,
compare what your system is running to the requirements list for vista. I believe it will not be a problem but do alittle home work on your system, you need at least 1 gig of memory for example, if your computer only has 512megs, you will have a problem with vista, Cost, well if you need to upgrade your memory that is going to be around $200 for a gig of laptop memory, the Vist upgrade should be at least Vista Premium $159 upgrade to get enough things to make it worth upgrading.

so check your system file like I said and see what you have on your laptop, print it if you can and take those specs with you to the computer store, ask a computer technician his advise, over your typical $8 hr retail geek. They dont know anymore than anyone, the system just came out, so you want at least a computer tech to advise you.

Answer 5

yes you can use Windows Vista on your xp laptop. Its gonna cost you about $100 to just upgrade to vista and not have a full usage. But you can have a full install for i think $200. Here is a site of list of what you can do to your computer with windows Vista.

Answer 6

as long as your laptop has 512mb memory(vista home basic) and 1gb(premium/ultimate) graphics card/adapter with 128mb memory and pixel and shader model 2.0 and a processor with a clock speed of 1ghz and above then you should be fine
the main problem with laptops,even ones a few months old with xp installed is they use on-board graphic chips that arent up to the job that vista requires,the best way to get vista on a laptop is to buy a pre-installed laptop with vista on it,at least then you will know that all the vista functions will work on it such as the vista aero-glass
as for a upgrade,the memory wouldnt be a problem,laptop memory is easy to upgrade and your processor sure to be over a ghz so thats ok,but a graphics card upgrade is out the question,as the graphic cards in laptops are normally attached to the boards,some manufacturers use to use a system called mxm technology were the graphics adapter was a slide in card attached to the laptops mainboard,and in theory you could upgrade the garphics,but you would have to make sure you had a compatible board and then you would have to find a mxm graphics board which i have never found on the net,i think you have to buy them directly from the laptop suppliers,here is some info on mxm technology...http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html
i hope this helps you
good luck

Answer 7

no longer fairly particular approximately this, yet i think of that abode windows Vista desires a sixty 4 bit processor to run. if it is so then your historical laptop is 32bit so won't run. whether you need to run it with the processor interior, theres no the place close to sufficient RAM, i will guess that the laptop runs particularly sluggish with an working equipment like abode windows XP. Your basically gonna get considerable lag and waste funds on vista... it would be greater effective to purchase an entire new laptop with vista pre-put in than to enhance your contemporary one sufficient.

Answer 8

If it is like really old, like maybe two years or more, you'll have to upgrade your graphics card and probably even your processor. Gosh vista is just a rip off of Mac OS X in windows format! Bill gates cant get any new ideas for himself! If you dont want to upgrade all of that Id say get Mac OS X, they have dual core processors and can run certain windows applications on them. They are also MUCH easier to use, their interface is awesome and have a better organizer, but if you want to get a mac, wait for leopard to come out in the spring! That is gonna kill Gates

Answer 9

Before you buy VISTA Google the following -

microsoft vista problems and issues

Answer 10

If you have enough RAM then yes you can do it..Windows Vista is around from 179. to 130.. depends which addition your going to buy..Well thats the prices here in Canada anyways.