4 ms·

I bought a very cheap one with 32 gigs a few years ago. I love it. It's fast , light and runs windows 10. It's good for email and browser stuff. My problem now

I bought a very cheap one with 32 gigs a few years ago. I love it. It's fast , light and runs windows 10. It's good for email and browser stuff. My problem now is that i can't update the OS. It doesn't have enough memory. It still functions but i run the risk of not getting the security updates. It gave me about 3 years of great use. I would definitely buy another one.

_bxg1 7y ago
32GB definitely seems cramped for Windows. 64GB would probably be safe going forward for at least OS updates
- Koshkin 7y ago
  It does not cease to amaze me how bloated Windows is (compared to any Linux out there, anyway), and how it gets more bloated with each update.
  - equalunique 7y ago
    A year or two ago, I freed up like 100GB of space from my Windows OS drive by deleting these files: https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-amounts-of-cab-xxxx-files/746968 https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-... It was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.
  - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
    Storage-wise, most of the "bloat" in modern Windows is pretty defensible. The extra space needed for a service pack / feature update is mostly to enable aborting or rolling back the upgrade. A good chunk of a small storage device is reserved for hibernating the system (hiberfil.sys), which might not be great for desktops but is table stakes for battery-powered systems. A lot of seemingly redundant data is from WinSxS (Side-by-Side), which is Microsoft's answer to "DLL hell" and -- loosely speaking -- a precursor to things like Snappy, Flatpak, and AppImage. The same fundamental concerns will most likely cause the average Linux installation to be similarly "bloated" in another 10 years or so as more backward compatibility needs accumulate.
  - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
    The bloat in Windows is an interesting issue. I put together Windows OS images and a freshly-installed, before-updates Windows 10 image might be around 2 gigs (maybe a bit more or less, I’m going from memory here). Granted, a Linux distro may hit that size with a lot more preinstalled software, but I haven’t paid much attention. Windows starts bloating when you apply updates. It keeps a lot around to facilitate rolling back updates if needed; this gets cleaned up over time but it can be an issue on a small disk. There’s ways to get the size back down (while sacrificing the ability to roll back updates that you’ve applied), but you don’t regain all the space. I get the feeling the Windows Update mechanism is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Microsoft are improving it; I think it’s just a really big engineering task that they’re having to slowly work through. I vaguely remember something about the way Windows handles overwriting open files in-place which makes this worse, but I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head.
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      > I get the feeling the Windows Update mechanism is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. I get the feeling that Windows itself is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Of course this facilitates its impressive degree of backwards-compatibility (one of its most desirable features), but still.
      - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
        Every time I try to play a game that I paid for on iOS that no longer works because Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility, I'm reminded of how thankful I am for Microsoft's efforts here. I really think the amount they've improved Windows under-the-hood over time is impressive, especially taking into account the constraints they've had to work within. On a related (though somewhat tangential) note I must say that I think MS tying WinRT (which as I understand it is the clean rewrite of the Windows API) to the Microsoft Store initially was a massive mistake. I still don't have a clear, confident impression of where I can or should use WinRT, even after all these years.
wilt 7y ago
Chuck a linux distro on it before you chuck it out. You should get more years out of it and if you don't like it you planned on getting a new one anyway :).
vel0city 7y ago
You should be able to upgrade it to the latest version of Windows 10 with a fresh install which should get you security updates for a while. You'll probably end up losing your previous data though, but having the install media on an external drive might let you upgrade without having to completely format. Sadly I imagine you'll run into the same issue after the next massive Windows update. As others suggested, running Linux would probably alleviate these issues.
- Guest0918231 7y ago
  Yep, just do a clean install. I needed to do the same for my partner on one of her 32gb systems. It's since been running and updating fine for the past year or two.
equalunique 7y ago
A year or two ago, I freed up like 100GB of space from my Windows OS drive by deleting these files: https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-amounts-of-cab-xxxx-files/746968 https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-... It was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.
cardiffspaceman 7y ago
I "bricked" my 32GB laptop a few years ago by allowing Windows 10 to use an SD card as extra space for an upgrade. Then I read that that iteration of Windows Update had a bug when there was something in the SD card slot during an upgrade. So now it is running Debian. But in theory that bug might be fixed and you could put an arbitrary auxiliary SD card in and upgrade successfully. I distinguish by the way between an update that could happen with little fanfare vs the upgrade that would be named after a year, season and user role (e.g. 2017 Fall Creators update). The latter take more resources.
- bmsleight_ 7y ago
  Looking for a good commute debian laptop. Which model was it ?
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    2015 HP Stream 11. I would steer people away from it generally but if you have more time than money it could work out. HP has this on its website but notably Best Buy, where I originally got mine as an open-box deal, no longer seems to have anything at the price or equal specs. My current laptop is an HP 15-ish with a core i7 and a real SSD. Not sure how I got in an HP rut.
avl999 7y ago
I have an HP Stream that I bought about 1.5 yrs ago with 32 Gigs of storage. I am surprised you managed to run windows on a machine like that for so long. Mine came with Windows preinstalled and even just opening a webbrowser and idling would pin the CPU to close to 100%. I blew over Windows with Ubuntu and LXDE as my desktop environment and now the machine is great for what it is, I haven't ever gotten close to using up the available space with Linux on it.

_bxg1 7y ago

32GB definitely seems cramped for Windows. 64GB would probably be safe going forward for at least OS updates

Koshkin 7y ago
It does not cease to amaze me how bloated Windows is (compared to any Linux out there, anyway), and how it gets more bloated with each update.
- equalunique 7y ago
  A year or two ago, I freed up like 100GB of space from my Windows OS drive by deleting these files: https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-amounts-of-cab-xxxx-files/746968 https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-... It was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.
- 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
  Storage-wise, most of the "bloat" in modern Windows is pretty defensible. The extra space needed for a service pack / feature update is mostly to enable aborting or rolling back the upgrade. A good chunk of a small storage device is reserved for hibernating the system (hiberfil.sys), which might not be great for desktops but is table stakes for battery-powered systems. A lot of seemingly redundant data is from WinSxS (Side-by-Side), which is Microsoft's answer to "DLL hell" and -- loosely speaking -- a precursor to things like Snappy, Flatpak, and AppImage. The same fundamental concerns will most likely cause the average Linux installation to be similarly "bloated" in another 10 years or so as more backward compatibility needs accumulate.
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  The bloat in Windows is an interesting issue. I put together Windows OS images and a freshly-installed, before-updates Windows 10 image might be around 2 gigs (maybe a bit more or less, I’m going from memory here). Granted, a Linux distro may hit that size with a lot more preinstalled software, but I haven’t paid much attention. Windows starts bloating when you apply updates. It keeps a lot around to facilitate rolling back updates if needed; this gets cleaned up over time but it can be an issue on a small disk. There’s ways to get the size back down (while sacrificing the ability to roll back updates that you’ve applied), but you don’t regain all the space. I get the feeling the Windows Update mechanism is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Microsoft are improving it; I think it’s just a really big engineering task that they’re having to slowly work through. I vaguely remember something about the way Windows handles overwriting open files in-place which makes this worse, but I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    > I get the feeling the Windows Update mechanism is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. I get the feeling that Windows itself is a large legacy mess that is stuck having to account for corner-cases that have built up over time. Of course this facilitates its impressive degree of backwards-compatibility (one of its most desirable features), but still.
    - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
      Every time I try to play a game that I paid for on iOS that no longer works because Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility, I'm reminded of how thankful I am for Microsoft's efforts here. I really think the amount they've improved Windows under-the-hood over time is impressive, especially taking into account the constraints they've had to work within. On a related (though somewhat tangential) note I must say that I think MS tying WinRT (which as I understand it is the clean rewrite of the Windows API) to the Microsoft Store initially was a massive mistake. I still don't have a clear, confident impression of where I can or should use WinRT, even after all these years.

wilt 7y ago

Chuck a linux distro on it before you chuck it out. You should get more years out of it and if you don't like it you planned on getting a new one anyway :).

vel0city 7y ago

You should be able to upgrade it to the latest version of Windows 10 with a fresh install which should get you security updates for a while. You'll probably end up losing your previous data though, but having the install media on an external drive might let you upgrade without having to completely format. Sadly I imagine you'll run into the same issue after the next massive Windows update. As others suggested, running Linux would probably alleviate these issues.

Guest0918231 7y ago
Yep, just do a clean install. I needed to do the same for my partner on one of her 32gb systems. It's since been running and updating fine for the past year or two.

equalunique 7y ago

A year or two ago, I freed up like 100GB of space from my Windows OS drive by deleting these files: https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-amounts-of-cab-xxxx-files/746968 https://serverfault.com/questions/746849/windows-temp-large-... It was a corporate laptop, so maybe the problem exacerbated itself to that level due to frequent patches the employer was pushing.

cardiffspaceman 7y ago

I "bricked" my 32GB laptop a few years ago by allowing Windows 10 to use an SD card as extra space for an upgrade. Then I read that that iteration of Windows Update had a bug when there was something in the SD card slot during an upgrade. So now it is running Debian. But in theory that bug might be fixed and you could put an arbitrary auxiliary SD card in and upgrade successfully. I distinguish by the way between an update that could happen with little fanfare vs the upgrade that would be named after a year, season and user role (e.g. 2017 Fall Creators update). The latter take more resources.

bmsleight_ 7y ago
Looking for a good commute debian laptop. Which model was it ?
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  2015 HP Stream 11. I would steer people away from it generally but if you have more time than money it could work out. HP has this on its website but notably Best Buy, where I originally got mine as an open-box deal, no longer seems to have anything at the price or equal specs. My current laptop is an HP 15-ish with a core i7 and a real SSD. Not sure how I got in an HP rut.

avl999 7y ago

I have an HP Stream that I bought about 1.5 yrs ago with 32 Gigs of storage. I am surprised you managed to run windows on a machine like that for so long. Mine came with Windows preinstalled and even just opening a webbrowser and idling would pin the CPU to close to 100%. I blew over Windows with Ubuntu and LXDE as my desktop environment and now the machine is great for what it is, I haven't ever gotten close to using up the available space with Linux on it.