Hey everyone. So long story short, I bought a dell laptop off of a guy I found on a local sell / trade group on fb. The laptop is a Dell, pretty old model I'm guessing since theres a sticker that says "Designed for Windows XP". I knew that when I bought it, I wasn't expecting much, mainly just something to browse the internet and maybe listen to some music while doing so. Anyways, problem is, I got it home and turned it on, only to discover that the guy had apparently installed Windows 10 on it. Again - would've been cool with it even though it runs a little slow. However, to make things worse, I then found out that an activation key had never been put in. So I'm stuck with a half ass version of an already slow running OS. Tried calling and messaging the guy, no response ever so I'm guessing he installed an illegal version or something lol. So anyways, my question is, what would be the best thing to do? I would try just installing XP again, but it doesn't even have an optical drive. Again - Not looking for something super nice or fancy. I just need it to be functional, which it barely is right now. Thanks in advance, any advice is appreciated.
well, since you only want a browser and some music ability, just install a linux flavor such as Ubuntu -> Download Ubuntu Desktop | Download | Ubuntu
I second what the last poster said. Anything will run better than windows most likely and the installation then would be less of a nightmare as well! Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
You can go on Microsoft website and download windows 10 for free as an update and you won't need a serial number. Download Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File) You will need to download something like daemon tools to mount the iso and install or do update . Remix OS is another one, easy to install and runs really well on older PC. www.jide.com/remixos-for-pc#downloadNow That should do the trick Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320AZ using Tapatalk
I'd go even lighter and get Puppy Linux if that's all OP wants a computer for. Just go to a friend's, or even the library, and make a USB boot disk. Welcome to puppylinux.org !
The reason you don't need a key for Windows 10 update is because you need one for Windows 7 in order to update to 10.. and he doesn't have a Windows 7 key..or 10..
Hey so first of all, thanks to everyone who replied. I appreciate all the input. Tried to make a bootable USB drive like I was told, I thought it went well, tried to put the Linux .iso on the drive, went and tried to boot it from my F12 menu, but it says that no operating system was found on the drive. Any ideas what I did wrong? Also, am I going to have to boot from the flash drive every time or is there any way I can actually install the OS and overwrite the windows operating system?
Hi MedicatedWarrior235. If you are still needing help there is an easy way to activate your Windows 10 for free. 1. Go to My Digital Life forums at My Digital Life Forums 2. Register an account. 3. Click on MDL Project Applications --> KMS Tools --> Microsoft Toolkit Official KMS Solution for Microsoft Products 4. It's a torrent so you'll need a torrent client. I recommend qBittorrent. qBittorrent Official Website 5. Extract the application, run as admin, use the EZ Activate button. 6. Block the stuff it tells you in your Firewall. This is a very reputable tool. Some people will falsely call it a virus but I assure you it is fine. Over 40k people using this. Just make sure to get the torrent from the my digital life forums as that is the original place it was created from. If you are paranoid about trusting what I'm saying I will also give you the steps to create a bootable Ubuntu USB. 1. Download Rufus. It is the tool that will write the Ubuntu ISO image to your USB. Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way 2. Here's a YouTube video on the instructions 3. Basically you're just going to need to change the settings on Rufus to set your partition scheme to MBR for UEFI or BIOS, file system as FAT32, default allocation size, select the Ubuntu ISO, write to disk and then when you boot from F12 you should be able to select the USB and Ubuntu will boot up and it should be fairly user friendly from there. The reason you werent able to boot the linux drive was most likely because you had selected an incompatible partition scheme for your laptop. GPT is a newer partition scheme and will not work on every laptop/computer. Trying the above and making sure to select MBR partition scheme like instructed above will give you a good shot at success. I'm working on getting certified for work in IT support so If you have any additional questions let me know. Hope you get your stuff workin, cheers!
You can reinstall do if you can find an OEM code, but I would just put Linux on it like the others said. I use unetbootin to make my usb boot drives.