Win8 on the Presario - Back to Home
Back in July 2021, I made 2 different pages on the Compaq Presario SR5152NX, a very junky late 2000s PC that I've spent far too much time messing around with. Since I was going to wipe the old install of Windows FLP anyways, I decided I'd try something a bit newer to see how it'd run.
For context, you should probably read these two pages first:
First, an update on the Presario; the floppy drive I installed decided to die back in December 2021, so I had to steal the floppy drive out of the Dimension 8300 to use for the Presario. I eventually transferred that drive back to the Dimension, so the Presario now has no floppy drive. I'll find a new drive for the Compaq some day.
I originally thought about installing Windows 10 on this machine, but since I've already used 10 a ton on other computers, I decided to try Windows 8 for a change. To try & get the best possible results on such an old machine, I looked around for some version of 8 that might use less resources. Eventually, I found Windows MultiPoint Server, which is basically just Win8 but with some server junk & almost no apps. In hindsight, I probably should've just tried regular Win8 instead.
Installation was way easier than expected. Took no more than 20 minutes from start to finish. There's not much to show off, since the start menu is toally barren. Performance is much better than expected, but I'll have to install regular Win8 at some point to compare the two.
Installing graphics drivers is also something I'll have to do, since looking at a screen below 70Hz refresh rate is very painful for my eyes.
Next time, I'll have a longer & more interesting article on a new desktop PC I should be getting soon.