Every week it seems that Firefox on my old machine works on fewer and fewer sites. Is there such an animal, or do I need to just spring for Windows 10? Googling invariably gets me out of date browsers of various sorts. Is there any danger of my files getting corrupted in the transition?
You probably need to make the switch. I hated it too - I just got a Win 10 machine in Feb after having a Windows 7 machine since 2012.
Vista is definitely hard to support these days in newer browsers. Not even PaleMoon supports anything before Windows 7 SP1.
I don’t have a Vista setup to test it, but K-Meleon is still updating, and says it supports Vista. The top forum post linked below has a link to a version compiled this month, as well as the FFMPEG libraries you may need to install to play video.
I offer this, however, with the recommendation that you find a way to upgrade soon. Depending on the age of your system, it may be better to get a computer with Windows 10 installed on it, rather than buying Windows 10.
I’ve seen prebuilts on eBay in the $200 range that would probably be fine, and should just work. Yes, they’re older computers, but you don’t really need anything faster than one of the following: A Core i7 second generation, Core i5: third generation, Core i3 fourth generation. You can tell the generation as it will have a four digit number, and the first number will be the generation.
This is the processor, not the name of the computer itself. So look for the CPU.
Make a good backup!
Probably everything will work, but you will need to reinstall your applications and copy your files.
If you will be buying a new machine, then you’ll still have all your old files and apps available on your old machine anyway. But a backup is still a good idea.
I forgot to mention that I was going to get a new (high powered gaming) rig (had the funds set aside), but then kept hearing about chip shortages-then I resigned from my job this spring (don’t ask), but now plan to get one for Christmas (if the various shortages are sorted out by then). So not going to get a 4 month interim bare bones machine. I’ll try your rec. BigT and see how it works out.
Ooh. That’s cool. So I guess I can ask for the specs of your Vista machine. I’ve gotten a feel for how well Windows 10 runs on different hardware lately.
I’ll try your browser first, but here they are:
64 bits
Nvidia GeForce GT 740
Intel Core i7 K 875
4 gb RAM
465 gigs HD
The biggest hardware bottleneck for Win 10 is the drive. Get an SSD or NVMe for the OS and applications (data can still live on a spinning disk if needed). Win10 on a spinning disk is slllowwww.
I tried the browser recced upthread (K-Meleon), went to a site (rate your music, which has recently been updating a ton of stuff) which has been giving me “your browser is obsolete” warnings (along with a host of broken functionality) in Firefox–and got the same warning for this browser, and more nonfunctionality.
I have some local guys who have gotten me squared away before, will likely try them to update my machine (having noticed wguy123’s note there thanks).
I was definitely going to say the same thing. I don’t know why, but Windows 10 seems to really need fast storage, ever since the first or second major update.
You don’t need to replace the hard drive: you can just add a small SSD for like $30. And you could then later take that SSD out, get a SATA-to-USB adapter, and use it as an external drive for your new computer.
BTW, it seems that you are not clicking the Reply button below people’s posts, instead clicking the one at the bottom of the thread. If you’ll click the one below our posts, it will notify us that you have replied to us.
And if you want to notify someone who you aren’t directly replying to, you can put a @ symbol in front of their name.
For example, I’m going to type @wguy123 so they’ll get a notification that we’re discussing what he said.
Yes, somewhere around the 1703 or 1709 updates, we noticed a huge hit in performance on HDDs. Long boot and logon times before the system becomes “usable”.
And, your @ worked. Thanks - did not know that trick. @John_DiFool 
I’m gonna poke my nose in here to say that while the SSD is probably the most important upgrade, 4 GB of RAM is a little tight for most purposes. If you can put in another 4 GB, doing so would also make a difference.
If you have to buy 8 GB to do the upgrade because you’re out of slots, it might not be worth it to you.
I would agree if he were planning on continuing to use the computer. But, since he’s planning on getting a new PC in four or five months and the new RAM wouldn’t be usable, I didn’t bother recommending it.
Plus his computer is in the era where it’s actually possible that the motherboard might not actually support 8GB. I had a computer that was only a generation ahead, and it officially only supported up to 4GB.
An SSD will work, and I personally found Windows 10 completely unusable without one. It took over a minute to launch Chrome, and multiple seconds to open a new tab (as that spawned a new process). I actually reverted back to Windows 7 over that.
For the record, I also went through and tried the last version of a few browsers that worked on Vista, and got the same issue on “rate my music.” I even did a check to see what functionality they were complaining about. So if you’re wanting full functionality there, I do think you’ll likely need to upgrade.
I normally wouldn’t recommend this, but, if someone has a Windows 7 license available, that might be the easier path. It has a direct upgrade path from Vista, meaning you’d keep your programs and stuff. And it would just work with no new hardware.
You’d at least be safer than you are on Vista, and you’d be getting a Windows 10 computer soon enough.
Appreciate the assistance (incl. the reply thang)… If I get no new hardware for the antique, then W7 is likely my best bet. Suggestions as to where to find a license? Ebay?