Usability Report: How Old Is Too Old For A PC?

As you know, a computer can be used for several years before it gets so antiquated that it cannot be used for modern computing any longer.

This article covers what’s needed to stay current for day-to-day use with an older box.

Firstly, USB is the key to everything. And I mean everything. Your keyboard, mouse, printer, network card, optical drive, external hard drive and just about everything else made hardware-wise can connect to a single USB 2.0 port with hub attached. That is how important USB is. The U truly does mean Universal. And it has to be 2.0 spec, not 1.1 which is just too darned slow.

Concerning operating systems, the absolute bare minimum requirement is Windows 2000. This is because it has good USB support compared to NT 4.0, is far more stable compared to Windows 98 and will run all modern software such as the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

The minimum requirements to run Windows 2000 are a Pentium 133MHz processor with 64MB RAM and a 2GB hard drive. However a box with these specifications is much too slow. The bare minimum I’d recommend would be a Pentium III 500MHz with 256MB RAM and at least a 40GB hard drive.

Windows XP, although requiring a more powerful computer to run, can be made to run like Windows 2000 does. It essentially involves turning off services you don’t need, starting with the Themes service.

Given the fact that XP will be supported until 2014, this gives you another 5 years before that OS will become completely antiquated.

Windows 2000 has an extended support period until July 2010 – which isn’t that far away.

Notes about operating systems that are or about to become antiquated

The biggest problem running an operating system that is no longer sold is that support for it vanishes from the internet, and rather quickly at that. If you plan on using an old OS, you need to start saving documentation and driver files now.

For example, if you run an older Dell PC, all the driver files for it are available by going to support.dell.com, typing in your service tag number and getting what you need. Those files will not always be there. You need to download them now and burn them to disc and/or write to a USB stick, because once Dell decides to remove them, they’re gone forever.

For web sites that explain how-tos and other things specific to your computer, save this stuff. The easiest way is to use PDF Creator and save PDF files of web pages for easy retrieval later.

For all those good apps you have, you need to save backup copies as well. Granted, sometimes web sites like www.oldversion.com may have a copy, but you shouldn’t count on that. Get the files and archive them now; don’t rely on the internet.

If you’re fortunate enough, there may be a web site dedicated to an old OS, like www.95isalive.com, a site specifically concentrating on Windows 95. But as said above, when you find a site like this, archive the pages you need with the pertinent instruction information.

The reason you archive all this stuff is so you can use your computer longer.

Example situation: Your hard drive dies, so you buy another drive. You reinstall 2000 or XP. But you don’t have the driver needed to make the network card work. So you go to another computer, go to the web site that was supposed to have it only to find it’s no longer available for download. At this point you’re screwed. The computer is unusable unless you convert to Linux (which you probably didn’t want to do).

If you have all the apps and drives you need backed up, it’s not a problem. That’s why you archive in the first place.