...of their precious 10-12 year old XP computer.
I have been getting many old PCs in lately...around 10 years old or so...and that is old for PC components. The main symptom is the old PC is just running slow and they want it "cleaned up." It's at this point that one should be honest with the customer. I just explain to them over the years heat and wear have an affect and that a "clean up" may not make it work any better.
I advise them of my clean-up fee, and then advise them that their ol' PC probably isn't worth the "clean up" fee which probably isn't going to help much if at all....but it's up to them...I'll gladly take their money for the job.
Today I got in such as PC. Used in a business, not that much on the hard drive, but inside was literally years of accumulated dust and dirt coating all the components. The hard drive was showing clear signs of wear, and the processor was no doubt slowing down from heat build up. I recontacted them and susupected as much. However, this is a good opportunity to do two things 1) Build them a new PC or...2) Order them a new PC.
Many folks do not think about actually going on-line and shopping for a decent desktop PC. I do it for them...for a little profit of course. I located a nice new IBM/Lenovo desktop for $299...free shipping...not bad. I am going to order it for them, and when it gets in I'll check it out, take all the crap off of it, put in a decent (free) anti-virus,OpenOffice (or LibreOffice), Web of Trust, etc. I then re-sell it to them for around $379 or so plus tax. I do make them aware that many (if not most) of their old XP programs may not work with Win 7. But now that I have discovered VMWare, they might be able to use some of their older programs within a WinXP virutal environment.
People hate to let go of their ol' XP computers....but sometimes it's the best thing.

its amazing to me how much resistance there is to moving on from xp, but thats mainly down to the fact i didnt really get into computers till vista, and vista was the kind of child only a mother could love, i actually liked it but after using 7 you wouldnt want to go back

True.
I have to hold in my laughter when they say "But...it's ONLY 11 years old!"
In the computer world that's like pre-dinosaur.

Done a bit of googling on 11 year old computers and this is all i could find.

[IMG][/IMG]

Originally Posted by popeye67

Done a bit of googling on 11 year old computers and this is all i could find.

[IMG][/IMG]

How did you find this? I misplaced it a long time ago.

The only reason I keep the old computers is the software. I was in the Sign Business for years and still have an old HP computer hooked up to a Roland Plotter. It has a 'Key' so I have never been able to use the Plotter with another computer. It is slow...very s l o w but there is nothing wrong with it...I also have CorelDraw 5 which I used for years. I KNOW that software. Spent hundreds of hours using it. Hate to let it go. Have PhotoShop 7. Paid a lot of money for it. Won't let it go! Dozens of other software packages that I really 'know' So I can understand some wanting to hang on to the old stuff I'll have to check out VMware. I also understand that if you have Win 7 Pro you can use some of the old software...don't know...

its got xp mode not sure it would work with anything older, lot of gamers still wont change from xp and swear its better than 7, probably one of the reasons xp tends to run so slow on old computers is that they are old and slow computers to begin with, i wouldnt bother with an os older than xp but swapping the drive over to a newer machine or cloning the drive should work, theres a good chance you would need to do a repair install when its up and running and at the very least your going to need to update all your drivers

Originally Posted by Rob

How did you find this? I misplaced it a long time ago.

I had one of those when i was a kid,not long ago

I held onto my old dell dimension e521 desktop running XP for a good while. After I while I wanted to upgrade it a little and ended up puting in a dualcore CPU that cost me $20 off ebay and then pute 2gb more ram for a tottal of 4gb. I think what realy made me holed on a little longer was I dint see any reason to upgrade to 7 and that windows 7 looked so much differint and confuseing. O yea I still come across old 95s and 98s, every single one of those things go to our local votech to let them learn with. When it comes to customers with computers that are that old or dont work and just arnt worth fixing, I suggest for them to donate it to the votech. Every once in a while I drop a computer off.

might take a bit of getting used to with 7 but when you do you will wonder how the hell you managed on xp, it truely is horrendous compared to 7.