Windowsxp Professional Upgrade.

[Bramleyboy]

Can I upgrade my old laptop from Windows XP Professional to Windows 10?
Any input appreciated. Thanks, Bramley

[Buenchico]

The only way to go directly from XP to W10 is to completely wipe the drive, pay for W10 (because there's no free upgrade available from XP) and then install it. A cheaper alternative might be to search eBay (etc) for the software to upgrade XP to W7 and then accept the free upgrade to W10 available to W7 users. However there's no guarantee that it would work on a laptop designed for use with XP as there could be hardware on the laptop for which no W10 drivers are available. (Further, a laptop designed for use with XP is unlikely to have good enough specs to run W10 efficiently, if at all).

If I had a laptop running XP, and wanted to continue using it, I'd upgrade it to W7 but go no further. (My computers all run on W7 and they're most definitely staying that way! They're not well-enough specified to run W10 efficiently and some of my peripherals, such as a negative scanner, almost certainly wouldn't work any more. Further, it would cost me hundreds of pounds to get versions of QuarkXpress, Adobe Photoshop, etc, which would run under W10, as the versions I'm currently using probably wouldn't work).

[Bramleyboy]

Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. I only use the laptop when I go to Spain to watch the 6 Nations rugby on Filmon! Many thanks, Bramley

[TTG]

You can get a legal licence key for Windows 7 Home Premium from ebay. Mine cost £9. You would have to borrow someones Windows 7 Home Premium installation disk to install though. The key was a deactivated oem licence so only an oem disk can be used.

[Bramleyboy]

Buenchico, I have looked on eBay and there are different versions of W7, ie Professional and Premium. Which one should I go for? Thank you also TTG. Bramley

[Buenchico]

The differences are shown here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions