I was inspired to write this out just now, explaining to someone why I don't want to work on his 11 year old, 512MB RAM, Celeron-having Dimension 4600 with AVG 2013 installed:
Quick, Counter-Intuitive Advice for People Still Using Older Computers
1. Internet Explorer is not now and never has been your friend, but it’s particularly not your friend on computers running Windows XP or Vista, neither of which can be updated to use modern, sorta-secure versions of IE. Yes, the people in your office tell you to use IE, but they’re telling you that because they have a staff of people on hand to deal with security issues and support that software. They also don’t want to be bothered to re-build an internal web site that was probably made to work with an ancient version of IE that doesn’t look right in anything else.
You’re far better off using Google Chrome, which is relatively quick even on slow computers, supports modern web code and updates itself constantly and without prompting.
Even Google Chrome needs a little help, so everyone using it (or Firefox, though it will seem a bit slower on an old PC) should definitely install Adblock Plus from adblockplus.org in their browser of choice. Ads, it turns out, are one of the most common places for Windows computers to be attacked. Not from clicking on them. Just from having them on your screen. Yes really.
2. An old computer with new Anti-virus software on it is pretty much a machine that’s being dedicated to running anti-virus software. Newer antivirus applications are built with the expectation that they’ll be run on reasonably new hardware, but some applications just aren’t worth installing. My “remove on sight” list starts with any consumer version of Symantec/Norton, McAfee, AVG or Trend Micro security product.
Better choices in terms of impact on performance are ESET NOD32 (paid) or Avast Free Antivirus.
As a rule of thumb, I usually suggest that a computer with a Windows Vista license sticker (built in approximately 2007, around 7 years old as of this writing) might be better off without Anti-virus software.
The truth is that viruses simply aren’t THAT common any more, and software that is categorized as “malware” (bad software that doesn’t try to infect other PCs and therefore not technically a virus) or “blended threats” (sophisticated software that might act like a virus, worm OR malware depending on circumstance) is often not stopped by common PC Security Applications. Slower computers are better off using their limited resources to deal with the most common and irritating threats. I suggest using Spybot 1.6.2 and SpywareBlaster immunizations, along with the Windows Firewall and functional ad-blocking software a as the foundation for good security on an old computer.
3. A $200 tablet or fancy smartphone can probably handle more of the web than your computer. It’s very probably faster than your 10-year-old computer in every way. The tablet will probably have a higher-resolution screen and will be able to play back a high resolution Youtube video without choking. If you’re using your computer just to access the web and not to burn CDs or store tens of gigabytes of pictures or music, you’re probably not doing anything with it that you couldn’t be doing with a mobile device. Even printing to a modern wireless printer from a mobile device isn’t that hard to set up.
Microsoft Office, long held as the classic example of software someone might want to use at home or at work, can now be used through any modern web browser on any computing platform except the iPad, using Office365.com. More or less everything these days has been “app-ified” so that it can be made to run in a web browser or accessed through the internet and the days of buying software from a store that installs from a disc are long gone.
4. Windows XP support from Microsoft ends this year. Vista is already considered unsupported. This does not make them unusable, but it does substantially limit the prospects for compatibility with anything newer; it simply won’t be much longer before updated versions of common software like web browsers won’t want to install on those older machines, rendering the computer in question actively unsafe to use on the internet.
Unfortunately, it’s also not worth upgrading the version of Windows on your old computer to a current release. Windows licenses are expensive and they’re almost always tied to individual, specific hardware. No one wants to spend $100 on a software license for a computer that might only live another six or nine months!
5. Your old computer is probably not worth the hassle to upgrade unless the upgrade parts and time to install it are both free. For a computer of pre-2009 vintage, adding RAM to get to at least 1GB (for XP) or 2GB (for Vista) will definitely improve the useful life of the computer, but since it’s actually possible to buy a whole five-year-old desktop computer complete with 2GB RAM and a Windows 7 license off Ebay for $100, it’s definitely not worth spending $50 just to get 1GB extra RAM.
6. One of the best ways to maintain an elder computer is to simply wipe it clean and start from scratch. If you have a copy of a Windows install disc (not a restore disc!) and you’re willing to invest the time, the difference between a clean slate Windows install and one with all the cruft that was delivered with the computer on date of purchase can be pretty shocking. Your old computer is probably loaded with random online services that no longer even function and tons of applications you’ve never used even once, so if you have the disc and the know-how, there’s a very high return on the time investment to put a clean copy of XP or Vista on that older
system. Similarly, some with an adventurous spirit or willingness to experiment might be shocked to know exactly how easily and well Linux will run, even on machines that are no longer fit for Windows.
If you’d like to reinstall Windows, be sure that you have drivers for or are at least aware of what hardware is in your current computer. It might be a good idea to download and copy the relevant software drivers from your computer manufacturer’s web site and you'll want to do this BEFORE you make your fresh start! You’ll also want to make sure that you have access to the install files of important applications. An online service such as Ninite.com will very often take care of the wide array free software we typically want on our 2014-era freshly installed compters.
