Having installed W10 over W7 (licencing issues) on some old HW that was leaving the house with a charitable waybill, much to my surprise I realized the whole setup would run faster than before. Not a vox populi opinion, but W10 works for me well above the previous editions. Few personal observations towards what's been shared already
- some old HW (standalone graphic card) may not be supported by W10, that's a bummer.
- not long ago Intel needed to modify the microcode of their processors for de-bugging with a marked slow-down of some instructions
- on old boxes the power source usually becomes the first real trouble
- recent Firefox browser editions are respectable tools
- pricey "total" so-called AV-solutions will not give you the chosen ride for money (80 quid, geez?!) but quite likely choke up the machine instead, scaremongering has become a widespread sales tactics
For the kits that are well matured and W7, I apply
- SSD 500 GB
- RAM extension to 8 GB (12 better), from eBay is fine
- clean install of W10, firefox and Office 365 home (5 users with 5 installs each + 1 GB cloud storage + Skype-to-landline credit = about 40.00/y)
- use the MS account, activate Onedrive to backup the Desktop folder as well as consume the Documents folder.
Home use sorted out.