Mailbag question: I have an older Dell desktop that came with Windows XP. I’ve upgraded to Windows 7 and am thinking about going to Windows 10. I think the PC has a fair amount of junk (viruses, malware, cookies, etc.) on it, and I would like to start from scratch. Can I reinstall XP, upgrade to Windows 7, then go to Windows 10? I think I have plenty of disc space to save everything of interest before undertaking the refresh. ~ Rich Jarboe, Arvada
Tech+ Short answer, yes. Microsoft’s is available to older machines with either ǰ. But do you have that? Microsoft has a site where you can check your version of its operating system at .
I reached out to Karin Muskopf of Microsoft, who shared this response: “Once an XP machine is upgraded to Windows 7, itap no longer considered an XP machine. So assuming that the old hardware is compatible with requirements for Win10, then they should be able to upgrade to 10.”As Muskopf mentions, Windows 10 has minimum hardware requirements. It needs a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of hard drive storage for 32-bit machines (and 2 GB for 64-bit ones), 16 GB to 32 GB graphics card and DirectX 9 or later. Check the Windows 10 minimums here: .
And of course, the free Windows 10 offer doesn’t apply to XP machines. If you want to go directly from XP to 10, you’ll need to pay for Windows 10, which .
I’m sure the computer is still good once you get rid of all the scary junk. If you stick with Windows 7, don’t forget that Microsoft offers extended support for Windows 7 . XP’s ran out two years ago.
As mentioned in there are alternatives, including wiping the PC and , sticking with Windows 7 or donating the machine that will figure out how to reuse or recycle it.
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