Re: Tutorial creating & using Hirens Boot CD & MemTest86 diagnostic stress testing tools for USB boot to Windows 10 PE & WinXPmini on BIOS & UEFI

Arlen Holder wrote:
> In summary, if you have an XP machine off the net, you might consider
> booting to the Hirens XP which seems to work as well or better than the
> original XP did.

That isn't the way I would 'do that' -- where 'that' is breathing some 
life into some old hardware which is lying around fallow.

I have such an old low resource machine which I inherited as a 
hand-me-down from a friend.  It has an 'original' *legitimate* OEM WinXP 
on its hdd; it is a Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop w/ 600 MHz Pentium M and 1 
G of ram, BIOS 2006.  Its battery doesn't work, but its screen does.

6 y ago I equipped it w/ a lightweight graphical linux as a dual boot; 
that was a Mint 17 XFCE which runs fine, but is now out of its support 
lifetime.  I haven't gotten around to replacing that linux w/ a 
currently supported v., but I have tested some options such as current 
MX Linux, which also runs fine.

The biggest advantage of the linux over the OEM XP are that it runs a 
modern browser.

In the case of your machine, a linux would also be a better choice for 
it because:
  - the Hirens wasn't 'intended' to be used as a OS except for its role 
in troubleshooting
  - it certainly wasn't MS's 'intention' to be providing an outdated old 
OS for old hardware

Since your machine has 2G ram, it has even more linux options than my 1G 
machine; likely the 'bottleneck' restricting choices would be what its 
old graphics are, which we don't know at this point.




-- 
Mike Easter