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What
software works on a used laptop computer?
A
laptop without software is just a paperweight with a shiny
screen. New laptops, even entry level models priced around
$500 with rebates, can run pretty much any software sold for
desktop PC's.
The difference is primarily one of
performance, where a relatively inexpensive desktop PC will
outperform the most expensive, brand-new notebook. The
challenge in deciding whether or not a used laptop will meet
your needs is 99% a challenge of what software it can run
and 1% a question of what connectivity it supports.
Second
hand laptops will pretty much always have a full suite of
software pre-installed. It's highly unlikely that the
previous owner would uninstall an application to be able to
legally run it on a new laptop, simply because that
application will be outdated. When you buy a used laptop it
should come with some version of Windows installed, some
version of Internet Explorer (perhaps Netscape or Mozilla as
well), and some productivity software, like Microsoft
Office, Lotus Office, WordPerfect Suite, Open Office, etc.
Otherwise, the laptop couldn't have been very useful for the
previous owner. If you can get by using the existing
software (and I strongly recommend that you try), then
you're all set.
The
problem comes when you need to install new software to do
whatever work or play it is you need to do. For starters, I
would never upgrade the operating system software on a
laptop. Whatever version of Windows it came with, Windows
95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP, you should settle on that being what
you have to work with. There's no guarantee that the drivers
required for the proprietary laptop hardware will be
available if you try upgrading Windows, and it's likely
you'll have to upgrade the hardware as well to run the new
version successfully. If you need to upgrade both the memory
(and older notebooks maxed out at relatively low quantities)
and the hard drive (same problem), you may as well look into
buying a new model instead. You can get by running Windows
95 (very slowly) with 16MB of RAM, but 32MB is better, and
you want a minimum of 32 MB to run Windows 98 or ME, but 64
MB is ideal. I'd worry about running Windows 2000 on less
than 64 MB, and whatever they say about XP on the box, I
wouldn't try installing it with less than 128MB of RAM on
board.
There's running Windows and there's running Windows and
being happy. I worked on a notebook with Windows 98 and
Office 97 for almost five years and never had a problem with
64 MB of RAM, but I know people who feel deprived if they
can't keep ten windows open at the same time (without
waiting for disk swapping). It's a question of what you get
used to. The first thing to do when you receive a
second-hand notebook is to clean it up.
Identify which programs you'll actually be using, then use
the "Add or Remove Software" icon in Control Panel to
uninstall applications you don't need. In this case, I'm
removing Adobe Acrobat 5.0 because I've already upgraded to
Acrobat 7.0 over the Internet. Getting rid of 5.0 saves
15.68 MB of space on the hard drive.
Finally, run ScanDisk and Defrag to check for errors and
optimize the hard drive. With the older versions of Windows
you're likely to find on a use laptop, these programs are
found under Programs>Accessories>System Tools
There
are really only two choices for installing new software
these days, using the notebook's CD or DVD drive (not that
you'll get a DVD in a hand-me-down) or over the Internet.
I've installed plenty of software over a 56K modem
collection, but it takes hours. If you have a slow
connection, select FTP for the download and "Save to Disk",
which should allow the process to resume where it left off
if your phone connection is lost. I actually got by without
a CD drive or a broadband connection for years on my old
laptop, though fortunately, most of the software I needed
I'd installed before the CD failed. Another option, if you
have a USB port on the laptop, is to download software on a
PC with a fast Internet connection and then transfer the
install program to your old laptop with a jump drive.
Many
owners of used notebooks choose to install Mozilla Firefox,
the free alternative to Internet Explorer, which they claim
works faster on slower laptops with slow connections. I
can't really tell the difference myself, it seems to me that
Firefox just downloads the text before the graphics, but I
haven't run any time trials:-) The most important factor for
Internet connectivity is obviously the speed of the connect,
but with second hand laptops, configuring a DSL or cable
connection can be a hassle, especially if the installation
program requires Windows XP, or a newer operating system
than you have installed. You'll also need either a 10BaseT
network connector (common on older notebooks) or a USB 1.1
port to connect to the DSL or cable modem/router. Many old
notebooks don't have a 10BaseT port (RJ-45, looks like a
telephone jack but takes an 8 wire plug instead of 4), and
few have 100BaseT, but the your broadband connection
wouldn't benefit from the latter in any case. If you don't
have a network port or a new enough USB port, you'll be
stuck working with the PCMCIA or PC Card that sticks in the
laptops external expansion slot, and the things tend to be
both expensive and fragile. If you're going to add an
expansion card, may as well make it wireless, get a wireless
router, and the configuration will be easier. Used notebooks
rarely come with built-in wireless capability, this really
only became a universal feature in new notebooks in 2005.
Don't
expect to play action games on a second hand laptop unless
the games are more than five years old and you don't mind
playing them slowly. Even the newest laptops do a mediocre
job with games, video is a real issue, notebooks just aren't
equipped with powerful video accelerators that due much of
the processing for 3-D graphics, and the latest new video
cards ship with more onboard memory than most new laptops!
E-mail, the killer application of the Internet, will work
fine on any old notebook, and you can easily find an old
shareware version of Eudora that will run under even the
oldest operating system, though your ISP may not like it. In
the final analysis, working with a used laptop is more about
making do than making out, if you don't push it to hard, you
may get years of service out of a computer that you
hopefully got for free!
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