Fixing a Sluggish Laptop

[Dannyl]

Hello everyone

I just "inherited" a used laptop from parts of my family and I'm trying to bringing it back to life. It's an old samsung rv711 with windows 7, and there is nothing major wrong with it; except that it is really slow. Start up took a good 20+ minutes and even using it is still sluggish. I discussed this with a friend of mine and he suggested installing a new ssd hard drive and a fresh install of windows, but unfortunately I cannot get either of those at this time.

So I'm looking for other ways to improve. One idea I hit was trying to perform a factory reset. Would this be like reinstalling windows and perhaps fix the sluggish behavior?

[BC_Programmer]

If replacing the Hard drive and/or performing a clean Windows Install are not options that are available to you, a factory reset will be the next best thing.

However the pre-installed software provided with many systems is, IMO, garbage. I have a Toshiba Satellite L300 which is significantly older and less powerful than the system you have been given which I purchased new. The Windows Vista install it came with was completely unusable, and since it was Home Premium and I had an Ultimate License, I performed a clean install. The difference was collossal. Currently I have it running Windows 8.1 without issue and if I had to I could use it for my everyday computing tasks, whereas with the preinstalled software, it was practically unusable even for basic browsing.

[Geek-9pm]

He might consider using Windows 8.1, but it would likely ruin the current installation.
Download trial version of Windows 8.1 enterprise.

[Dannyl]

If replacing the Hard drive and/or performing a clean Windows Install are not options that are available to you, a factory reset will be the next best thing.

However the pre-installed software provided with many systems is, IMO, garbage. I have a Toshiba Satellite L300 which is significantly older and less powerful than the system you have been given which I purchased new. The Windows Vista install it came with was completely unusable, and since it was Home Premium and I had an Ultimate License, I performed a clean install. The difference was collossal. Currently I have it running Windows 8.1 without issue and if I had to I could use it for my everyday computing tasks, whereas with the preinstalled software, it was practically unusable even for basic browsing.

Yeah, that is essentially what my friend said as well, about the woes of the preinstalled software. I might give the factory reset a go and if not, consider investing in a copy of Windows. Maybe leave the ssd drive out and just do a fresh install of windows without all the preinstalled stuff.

I do have one Windows 8 installation cd, which I bought for my current desktop, the first that I built from scratch, but just glancing at the terms of use it says quite explicitly that I can only run one copy of it, on one computer. Any idea if there is a way to extend the license? Like, buy the right to run it on a second computer, like my laptop?

[Dannyl]

He might consider using Windows 8.1, but it would likely ruin the current installation.
Download trial version of Windows 8.1 enterprise.

That is not so much an issue, since nothing on the hard drive is actually mine. I'm perfectly willing to wipe the hard drive but an evaluation version, in the end, needs to be turned into a full version anyway.

[Kando]

I know this is the Windows thread, but did you consider trying a Linux distro? You can run it from the cd or from a flash drive without touching the hard drive. Zorin or Mint might be a perfect fit.

[Geek-9pm]

I Didn't know about Zorin. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG1VQS0vsPQ
Zorin is considered light enough for laptops and older computers.
It looks like Windows 7, but you can readily change it.
A free download is available.
http://zorin-os.com/

[Dannyl]

I know this is the Windows thread, but did you consider trying a Linux distro? You can run it from the cd or from a flash drive without touching the hard drive. Zorin or Mint might be a perfect fit.

I did yes, and while I personally love linux, sadly I could not consider it a viable option, for a couple of reasons. For one, I am using MS Office on my desktop and I need the files I write, and have been writing for years now, to be compatible with the office on the laptop, and sadly there is always some incompatibility between Microsoft and free office files.

Secondly, I actually need and want to use the hard drive for various files, including documents and media, like music and images. A live CD or USB would let me run linux yes, but I actually need to also edit and copy files to and from the laptop, and that means I need the space of a real hard drive.