A true what the heck moment helping out a friend

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I was helping a friend with her PC that kept getting a low storage message. She had done what she could, deleted documents, pictures, etc. When I booted it up and looked at the C: drive, there was 58MB free on a 28GB drive, and most of the files were compressed; if uncompressed, the disk would be overflowing. I did disk cleanup first , which cleans up the usual suspects (recycle bin–already empty, certain temp files, dumps), but that got back next to nothing. I looked at the CBStemp and persist logs under the Windows directory and got a bit more, also DMP files from Microsoft Edge (which kept dumping due to low storage errors, making the problem worse). I cleaned out stuff from the download folder after reviewing it with her.

I looked under her user directory, and it was showing over 7GB used–but again, no documents, no pictures, no video, no music, etc.

So what was taking up all the space? For one thing, there was a ton of junk in appdata, especially temp files that the Disk Cleanup app does not touch (TCDxxxx.tmp, etc), but which can be safely cleared, but there was a lot of other stuff that I did not have time to evaluate yet. I decided to proceed cautiously, and got a couple hundred MB back for now, and we will revisit it next week, looking for more.

I did not do much more because the system was constantly on the verge of locking up due to lack of space (it needs free space to manage windows, even stuff like File Explorer itself, and space for open apps), so I figured start small, and once we get a little more free space, we can tackle bigger things as the system starts acting better. Also, I did not want to try anything drastic, as I will be away all weekend and unable to diagnose if any problems comes up. Even having even the little bit of extra free space that I could get her was a benefit for now.

Also, because there is so little free space, Microsoft Update cannot update. Consequently, it is still on the original July 2015 version of Windows 10, version 1507 build 10240. To update to the latest, 20H2, I have read that you need at least 8GB free, unless you use external media, and even with external Media you need a fair amount of free space. Being on such an old version, I do not know if you can just jump forward to the latest.  The CBS logs and a lot of the dumps, error reporting files, etc., were all filled with update-failed-due-to-low-storage errors, which, again, by being logged, dumped, etc., just made the problem worse.

The fact that someone could sell her a machine that literally could not update verges on criminal.
For what it’s worth, it is a Dell Inspiron that she bought at Best Buy years ago.

Moderator Note: Edit to remove HTML. Please use the “Text” tab in the entry box when you copy/paste.

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Brian, attached is a batch file that runs weekly on my Acer (July 2020). The batch file was begun five? years ago on my DELL Inspiron.
E: is a ramDisk drive.
Note the last few lines – I no longer run CCleaner.

Cheers
Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

1 user thanked author for this post.

brian1248

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Thanks, I use similar batch files myself.

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I also have a Dell Inspiron that came with insufficient space to properly update with Windows 10. It’s a super cheap model that cost $180 (new, not refurb or used), and it only came with 32GB of eMMC storage, not upgradeable, along with Windows 10 Home.

I bought the unit with the intention of putting Linux on it, so the Windows 10 dysfunction (which I was aware of before I bought the unit) was not a big deal. I do wonder, though, whether Dell (which is by no means alone in putting Windows 10 on 32GB laptops) knew at the time that Windows would be unable to update on the machine. It’s possible that the model was produced before Windows was as big as it ended up being. It would still require a diligent user who only put the bare minimum on the undersized eMMC drive to leave room, but there’s a difference between “the user put so much stuff on that it could not update” and “it could not update right out of the box.” Not a big difference, as the typical user would reasonably believe that the unit would not exist if there was not at least a reasonable amount of stuff they could put on the unit before it became non-updateable.

That Inspiron is not a useless piece of hardware, though. It’s just not particularly suited to the OS with which it came. It should come with Linux, not Windows 10, or else a larger eMMC storage device.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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What you are saying sounds similar to what she has. When she said she had low storage problems, I thought it would be a simple matter of cleanup of logs, tmp, dumps etc. And some of that is true. I was shocked mostly by the fact that she had deleted documents, pictures etc, and still had so little free. Apart from a couple of things that I cleaned up, I told her I’d look at it again next week, when I am back in town.

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Are you sure it’s 28GB? Drives of that size haven’t been around since the early / mid 1980’s. Modern Windows OS is bigger than that which might explain any lack of usable space.

If the drive is a 280 GB, yes, it is underpowered but that is how Dell and other manufacturers are able to keep a certain price point for retail sale equipment. It’s always better to go with the mid price point machines for an average home user and the higher price point machines for the Power User,  someone WFH or a heavy Gamer. Windows is taking up the majority of the usable space on the current drive. That said, for the short term, there are a lot of Temp and Tmp files in Windows. Some do not really clear when you run disk cleanup. Open File Manager and search for *.tmp and Temp files. Open each one and clear the contents of each folder. That should buy some space for a short while but will still not make up for the small storage size of the Hard Drive. Upgrading to a larger Hard Drive or, better yet, just buy a new PC with at least 1TB Hard Drive, 8 Gb of RAM (at least), plus, go with Intel processors – you’ll be happier in the long run. Copy any documents, music, photos, etc. from the old PC to the new (the files would likely fit on a high capacity flash drive due to the lack of storage space on the old machine, which will expedite the transfer).

 

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[brian1248]

“Are you sure it’s 28GB? Drives of that size haven’t been around since the early / mid 1980’s.”

Yes.  Given that the IBM PC was not even invented until the early 1980s, and the history of the hard drive website says that in 1980

“The first gigabyte hard drive was introduced by IBM and weighed 550lbs with a price of $44,000” and was not for a PC, your claim about PC hard drive sizes in the 1980s is dubious. In fact, I know it to be false, since I worked then with an IBM XT, which was released in 1983, with a 10MB (megabytes, not gigabytes) hard drive.

It wasn’t until the mid-90s that drives of 1GB or more were common on PCs.

I have a feeling you are misreading me, or I am misreading you.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by brian1248.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by brian1248.

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My first PC was a 386-33 in 1990, and it had a 40 MB drive. It was on the small end for that era, but certainly within the normal range. I soon added another one, then moved to a 330 MB ESDI setup, which all the computer geeks were envious of. A third of a gigabyte was  massive in that era!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Please post the make/model. A link to it’s user manual if possible.
— Save her data ASAP.

How to Find Windows 10 Computer Specifications & Systems Requirements
https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/windows-10-specifications#sysreqs
Hard drive space 16 GB for 32-bit OS 32 GB for 64-bit OS
The drive in her device is 28GB. Is her device 32-bit or 64-bit?
How much RAM is on her device?

Refer to my topic to see if these specs are similar to her device.
HP tablet OS partition only 1.69GB free of 27.89GB
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/hp-tablet-os-partition-only-1-69gb-free-of-27-89gb/
— The device original OS is Windows 10 Home
At first I was hoping to upgrade the 29 GB Hynix HBG4a2 (SSD) & 2GB RAM.
— I found out it wasn’t possible because the device isn’t accessible to do any of that.
— There are slots to use SD memory cards to manage data and I’m pretty sure your friends device has those also.

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

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I’m out of state now. I’ll be back to look at it again next week to get more detailed info.

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[Alex5723]

Try the solutions here : https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/not-enough-space-for-windows-10-update.html

Check the ‘Extended C drive’ solution.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Alex5723.

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I’ll check it out, but i have doubts that partitioning changes will help. The C: drive was 28gb, and there was a small recovery partition.

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Why even screw around trying to save the 28GB drive?  And why is discussing the history/ancestry of at 28GB drive germane to this topic?

The easiest solution is to replace the computer with something more modern…say…built within the last 3 years.  Regularly watch the computer prices at Walmart and you’ll see ‘closeout’ prices on ‘older’ models about 3x per year.  That’s when to buy one!  There’s more than sufficient hardware and software solutions available to transfer files and applications.

And as a ‘for what it’s worth’: every successive version of Windows 10 seems to be consuming several more GB than its predecessor.  Most recently, I upgraded my laptop directly from 1909 to 20H2 and it sucked up about 10GB more than 1909…and that was AFTER deleting the Windows.old and a bunch of other left over Windows trash.

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[Ascaris]

bratkinson wrote:

The easiest solution is to replace the computer with something more modern…say…built within the last 3 years.

My Inspiron 11 (3162) with the 32GB drive (same size as the one in question; if you remove the recovery partition and account for the size difference between GB and GiB, 28 becomes 32) was manufactured in 2017. No, it didn’t quite make the 3-year cutoff, but when I bought it new in December 2017, it was no more workable with its factory-installed OS, Windows 10 Home, than it would be now.

I have a PC nearly a decade older (my Asus F8Sn, manufactured in 2008) that came with a much bigger hard drive than the Inspiron.

Ms. Bradley has written about her experience with another 32GB model too, and I believe that was also less than three years ago. I would not be surprised if these 32 GB Windows 10 models continued to be sold today.

The point is, you can’t just assume that these models have tiny “hard drives” (actually eMMC storage) because they are really old. These are (sometimes) PCs that were sold recently with Windows 10 from the factory, and that were not suitable candidates for Windows with storage that small. To make things worse, these low-end models generally have no ability to be upgraded, either in RAM or (secondary) storage. At least my Swift (which I purchased in early 2018 as a slightly less low-end model than the Inspiron) had a M.2 SSD slot available in addition to the 64 GB eMMC! The Inspiron doesn’t.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Ascaris.

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[brian1248]

This is an old retired lady on a fixed income. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to afford to buy something new. I have suggested that to her as a possibility, but good for you that you can see that as an easy thing to do. Not everyone can.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by brian1248.

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Bill C.

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I certainly can’t – I buy old and used.

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Buy refurbished. They make EXCELLENT machines. Anything that is coming off of a business lease is generally well spec’d and lightly used.  I have purchased refurbished desktops which are cheaper than laptops and I have never had issues with them. Go to Amazon.com and search on refurbished computers.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

3 users thanked author for this post.

brian1248, Bill C., Cybertooth

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[a]

A few years back I got a used Lenovo Thinkpad T530 (which I believe is about 7 years old now) on ebay for $100 something and it now has a 500GB sammy SSD in it. It came with USB3 so I really want for nothing. In other words, there are lots of inexpensive ways to not be confined to a 28GBdrive. Put your time to better use! (I have an external sammy 1T SSD plugged through Sabrent to USB3 for fast backups etc.)

2015 op system??? I certainly wouldn’t let that access the internet!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by a.

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28 gig is the max of the C drive? Heavens that’s even worse than my 32 gig Acer.
Yes it’s criminal that Microsoft and vendors ever got away selling those boxes. Buy a refurbished Laptop.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C1HV2V1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
She will be MUCH happier.

My 32Gig Acer temporarily went to a co-workers house so he could watch streaming church services on his big TV. The ONLY way I can feature release update that sucker is with a Western Digital External hard drive attached to it during the upgrade process with the ISO downloaded to the WD drive ahead of time. It is not a functional computer. You certainly can’t install Office on it, LibreOffice BARELY fits, and you cannot install anything else. And it’s 4 gig of memory is getting horrible to use as well.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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WHY did they ever get rid of touchpad buttons?  Costs two grand to get a laptop with a good touchpad now.  Integrated buttons stink. Just ‘cuz Linux fans are OK with “I use a mouse; I’d never use a touchpad,” that ain’t what a laptop’s about and maybe the mouseophiles have never used a good touchpad, IDK!

That HP’s a classic.

🙂

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[brian1248]

No touchpad buttons on her machine. I hate that. One of the reasons I went with my current machine, an HP Omen laptop, is that it had actual touchpad buttons.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by brian1248.

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What’s Linux got to do with it? Most of these machines come with Windows and will never run any other OS besides Windows. I doubt they are designing laptops around the desires of Linux users!

I use Linux on all my laptops and I use touchpads all the time. Initially, I didn’t like the clickpads (if you haven’t used one, it may not be obvious– you press down on the whole thing to click it) either, but it’s like so many things… GUIs, widescreens, etc., all stuff that I loathed when they became the standard, and I’ve adapted.

GUIs I’ve come around completely on; widescreens I still merely tolerate (one of the selling points of my new XPS was the 16:10 display rather than the more typical 16:9), and clickpads… well, when I use my old Asus with discrete buttons, it feels weird and clumsy now.

When I wanted to buy a cheap laptop that could go anywhere and last several hours on the battery (my trusty Asus weighed in at 5 pounds and change on a 14 inch unit, and lasted about 1.5 hours on a battery charge), clickpads were the only choice, so I bought my first one on the Dell Inspiron (the same one I mentioned that came with the tiny 32GB drive, which is not big enough for Windows even though it came with Windows on it). It was a “hold my nose and tolerate it because it was cheap” thing at first, but I adapted pretty quickly.

Now it’s so easy just to press down wherever my finger happens to be to click, or to do it with two fingers if I want to right-click. Dragging and dropping is simple, and I can do it one-finger (using the dragging finger to hold the pad in the clicked position) or two (hold it down with one finger and just move with the other). It isn’t confused when I switch back and forth between one and two finger drags, and the dexterity needed to do it is less than with the older laptop with the discrete buttons.

The clickpad can also be configured to respond as if it was a left click when clicked anywhere but the portion that would be the right button if it had discrete buttons (there’s even a dividing line so you can see where the buttons would separate). I’ve also experimented with having it set to ignore touches on the lower left, so I could rest my thumb there as I used to on the discrete button with my older laptops, but it felt clumsier and slower than the one-finger, two-finger click I had become used to by that point.

One added plus to this is that I broke a lot of the touchpad buttons back when they were a thing (as I have on actual mice, for the same reason: the “hinge” is nothing more than a flexing piece of plastic). I repaired them with ABS cement (from the plumbing section of a hardware store… tremendously useful stuff for cracked or broken laptop cases or the plastic bits inside cars new enough to have it but old enough to have had it go brittle), which sometimes worked, sometimes not; in the “not” case, it was time to order a new palmrest from eBay.

I’ve yet to break a clickpad!

The best touchpad I have yet used is the one (clickpad style, no discrete buttons) in my XPS. I haven’t used one of the Mac ones that everyone seems to think are the best, but it’s considerably nicer than any of the others I’ve used over the years, discrete buttons or not. I don’t know if they did the “neat” things like using glass on the touch surface (much harder and doesn’t wear like plastic) during the discrete button days. My Dell G3 and Acer Swift have shiny spots worn into the center of the touch surface on the touchpads, as have all my others, going all the way back to my first laptop in 2001.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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The physical drive is slightly larger, but a portion of it is partitioned as a Recovery drive, which leaves just 28GB for the C: drive. She does not use the machine for a lot. Email, signing on to her banking, some video viewing online. She wants it to be more responsive and not constantly throw low storage errors. I have not done a full evaluation yet. We had planned to look at it earlier in the week, but she canceled again and again, and I finally got to look at it Friday evening before I was leaving to travel out of state. Consequently, I was hesitant to make too many changes. I expect to be looking at it again later this week.

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brian1248 wrote:

The physical drive is slightly larger, but a portion of it is partitioned as a Recovery drive, which leaves just 28GB for the C: drive. She does not use the machine for a lot. Email, signing on to her banking, some video viewing online. She wants it to be more responsive and not constantly throw low storage errors. I have not done a full evaluation yet. We had planned to look at it earlier in the week, but she canceled again and again, and I finally got to look at it Friday evening before I was leaving to travel out of state. Consequently, I was hesitant to make too many changes. I expect to be looking at it again later this week.

With this and only this criteria, a Linux distro with a Windows-like interface would work for her since it sounds like she is not creating a lot of space hogging content.

The only hesitation I would have is the banking aspect. Some banks that use their own software or apps may not work under Linux. Others that ‘certify’ or ‘register’ themselves with Windows, may not work as before and will default to a 2-factor login. However, if it is truly a browser interface it will work with Firefox under Linux. Additionally, for a laptop, I do not use that certification system at all, but use a 2 factor system with my iPhone as laptops walk away too easy.

You should be able to launch a live boot Linux to show her what it looks like and even if she likes it or feels comfortable with it. For my wife, we used Ubuntu when Vista ceased to work), and later Linux Mint Mate on a refurb Lenovo with a new SSD, but there are other Linux desktops that are similar to Windows on lighter weight (disk space size) distros. If that fails, as I said, I am a BIG fan of refurbs from Dell and Lenovo as bases for Linux (or Windows) laptops. That is because refurbed business class laptops are very upgradeable and are spec’ced for reliability and easy service and not for looking trendy, or bleeding edge, or gaming.

I think as you say, issue number one is not to advocate for a new laptop, add-on drives, or for one OS over another, but first and foremost to assist this individual who is not a tech person, with her problem as quickly and with as few complications as possible, so she can do what she needs to do, which seems to be your intention. Bravo!

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Might as well put Linux on it if it’s not workable with Windows. Linux Mint (XFCE 64 bit, version 20.1, the latest) takes up about 9 GB, including LibreOffice, Thunderbird Mail, Firefox, Movie, TV, and music players, and all of the other basics to get started, and still leaves you two-thirds of the tiny drive free for whatever you want to use it for. I know, Linux is not for everyone, but reasonably using Windows on it has already been ruled out, so you might as well!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Bill C., doriel

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^ This!  I have a 10+ year old netbook with 2gb of memory that works perfectly on Mint XFCE.  The original Windows 7 Home install had become absolutely and completely unusable over time with the typical Windows Update Entropy.

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[Alex5723]

brian1248 wrote:

but i have doubts that partitioning changes will help

This are not partitioning changes but “extending” drive C to external storage.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Alex5723.

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Not sure even what the question is here but that drive is far too small even if you eek out a GB here and there.  Your friend will be fighting the same issue forever.  Get her a 1TB drive, they’re cheap.  SSD would be better.  Seagate makes excellent hybrid drives, as fast as SSD’s once they get going.  But, read on…all of that’s probably moot.

If the numbers you mention are true and they probably are, you may be looking at an IDE interface with lots of pins and different connectors than SATA’s.  That’s not a problem, though, large IDE drives are still available.  I bought an IDE enclosure with USB connectivity recently to read a HD from an Inspiron 8200 desktop, 2001 vintage, RD RAM, wow!!!, just be sure what you have.

I remember upgrading my Inspiron to a 160 GB drive, huge!  The original was 60 GB, which I used as a slave.  Then I added an external 350 GB USB drive after adding a USB 2 card.  Used the machine for 10 years, became far too slow.  Still have it.  IDE? Yes.

You could clone the old drive easily to a larger one but Windows may be rather scrambled by now, so a new install may be best.  ISO’s are available from MS.  And then upgrade almost everything in the computer to make it slow but not as slow.  I’d give you mine with everything upgraded, Win XP, good as it gets!

Bottom line, with 2 GB RAM max, RD or not, slow processor/ buses, USB 1.1 and AGP graphics, don’t expect much.  It would be fun to get it going well but that’s about it.  With RD RAM, these were hot desktops in their day.

🙂

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[brian1248]

I’ll evaluate all options for her. The C: drive is an SSD, which was a surprise to me, since the response was so slow.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by brian1248.

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Most likely it is eMMC storage, which is technically a solid state drive, but isn’t in the same performance league as “real” SSDs. It stands for embedded multimedia card, like a SD card, but soldered to the motherboard and not removable, generally. If she is lucky the unit may have a separate SSD slot like my Acer Swift (which came with eMMC storage also), but there is a good chance the unit is not upgradeable.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Trim, and, yes, defrag.

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Your friend will be fighting the same issue forever.

Switch to Linux and she wont be. 10+ years NTBs can run GNU/Linux easily, thats my experinece. Especially when she is older person, she just wants to surf the web, read email, watch video? Show her hpw to launch the browser and thats it.

GNU/Linux generally works as you initially set it up. And it remains the same, which is mostly wellcome for older people. She does not want to fiddle with updates all the time, her notebook will constantly require something from her, her application will be different or even removed!

Also Chromebook could be the way, as Alex5723 suggests.

If new machine is not an option, create fresh new user and delete the old one, that could save some space.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Ascaris, Charlie, Cybertooth

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brian1248 wrote:

She does not use the machine for a lot. Email, signing on to her banking, some video viewing online. She wants it to be more responsive and not constantly throw low storage errors.

Chromebooks are the laptop she needs. No monthly/half yearly updates, no bugs, crashes…
She can get a decent second hand Chromebook.

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I am an older person myself and I wear my glasses to view my 17 inch standard 4:3 aspect ratio monitor.  The thing that has kept me from buying Chromebooks and new “Laptops” are the really small screens that are also widescreens.  It seems that one is hard pressed to find an inexpensive laptop or a Chromebook that has anything bigger than a 15 inch widescreen.  Most are 10 to 14 inches with high resolutions.

The resolution of my 17″ monitor is 1280 x 1024 which is good for my needs.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Bill C.

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Charlie wrote:

The thing that has kept me from buying Chromebooks and new “Laptops” are the really small screens that are also widescreens.

I am with you on the aspect ratios, but what finally made me move to a widescreen monitor on my desktop was that it was an IPS model… and all of my old 5:4s were TN, with its terrible vertical viewing angles.

Low cost units will usually use 16:9 widescreens, but you can escape that in some midprice models. The Acer Swift 3 has a version with a 3:2 ratio panel, and 16:10s are coming back in style it seems. I just bought a Dell XPS 13 with one, and the competing Lenovo had the option too. These units will start at about $600 US, so they are not low price models, but they are not the $2000+ top of the line models either.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Charlie

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External drive enclosure with 250 GB SSD and Mint. $80 or less and you will save on the aspirin…
Just make sure it can boot from a USB port.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I’m going to step in here for a minute to clearly oppose linux for this situation.

Stick with windows for her – much easier.

Stepping back out! 🙂

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Your opposition is noted, but Linux XFCE, Mate, and Mint look and even work much like Windows 10, but without all that hassle of Win 10.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Ascaris

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That is simply not true. BTDT. Many times.

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Many of us have found that it is true. We have several people here who are not techie types who use Linux and find it to be quite a bit better than the mess Windows has become. Your opinions and experiences are no more universal than theirs.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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brian1248, bottom line is
If her PC isn’t upgradeable for the drive and RAM, replace it with a new or refurbished PC or laptop.
Discuss the options to her to help her decide her preference: stay with Windows, go with a Chromebook, maybe an Apple or decide on Linux.

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

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