Is it possible to get Windows 10 to work on an E6400 laptop?

I realize it's a super old laptop but...is it possible to get Win10 to work with it or should I just abandon all hope? Thanks!

 

I've run Win10 on my m4500 which is just from the next generation of Dell machines after yours. It worked alright, nothing was really not functional. Biggest problem I had was the battery life wasn't as good as 7. I'd say give it a whirl, backup your data first, then upgrade. Then do a windows restore (hold shift, then click restart. Select wipe and reset windows). Only pull down the drivers you are missing after the wipe.

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I did the same with an M4400 (same gen as E6400 and very similar internals) and the results are great. It might be that the weaker GPU on the E6400 will lag a bit with Win10 but I'd be surprised if it is much. I'm going to do an E6400 switchover soon since the M4400 went so well. Just do a clean install, not the upgrade, for a good result. Another thought: throw an SSD, even a cheap one, in there and you'll give that old machine a lot more zip. As long as you know your Win7 key you can do a clean install from the current Win10 ISO that you can get from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/software-download/windows10. Another suggestion, while you've got it open to install that SSD repaste the CPU on it with some good thermal paste (and blow out all the dust): you might get it working so cool that you can experiment with a little overclocking and/or undervolting.

After the clean install you might want to try the Dell touchpad driver (latest is probably from Win7): the M4400 touchpad was working but cursor movement was way too slow and Win10 didn't install any touchpad driver for it but the Win7 driver seems to work fine.

Bluetooth might not work out of the box but you could try a Dell Win7 driver for it if you need Bluetooth.

I recommend NOT installing newer nVidia drivers through the nVidia Setting systray (GeForce) interface. The stock Win10 nVidia driver should be fine and more stable. I've heard of some of those GeForce drivers mucking up the Win10 setup on these older machines. You aren't using an E6400 for gaming anyway, I assume .

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

 

I've done some older machines, including an Inspiron 1720 (I believe this would be from the generation immediately before your E6400), without any trouble. I think pretty much anything that worked with Windows 7 should work fine with Windows 10, unless you have some rather obscure hardware. Most Windows 7 drivers work just fine on Windows 10, including things like the touchpad. GPU drivers are a case where you'll want to get Windows 10 specific ones if available, but those will probably show up bundled or via Windows Update.

If you are doing an in-place upgrade, there is an option to roll back if the upgrade does not go well. This option disappears after you've been on Windows 10 for 30 days, but you can find it under Settings -> Update & security -> Backup or Recovery (can't remember which).

 

As said, install an SSD (Don't really worry about the speed since you'll be limited by the older SATA speeds anyway) and it'll feel like a new machine.

Run Driver Identifier once Win10 is installed and it will tell you if there is anything that Win10 hasn't found drivers for - I did the upgrade on an E6410 and there were only a few drivers that weren't automatically installed. There were only Window 7 drivers for the most part but they work fine. Overall the OS change has been positive and there have been no problems. Once installed, use 'O&O Shut Up 10' to stop telemetry if you are concerned about privacy.

If you don't have a discrete graphics card, you may find that things like task bar transparency don't work - although it's nowhere near as nice in Win10 as it was in Win7 with Aeroglass, anyway. Probably beast to confirm but I know that Intel aren't great at maintaining support in this area.

 

Windows 10 worked great on an E6500 I gave away. No problem at all, and all the drivers that were strictly necessary came down from Windows update -- no need for Dell drivers at all (although there were some drivers not found, they were things I didn't care about like the USH.) Ran great other than being a bit physically hot which was always a problem on that particular E6500 -- better than Windows 7 and Vista did, given the lower GPU requirements without Aero.

Heck, this is far from the oldest machine I've put Windows 10 on -- that would be an Inspiron 9400. That machine did beautifully with Windows 10 (32-bit), and it's a generation and a half older, and only has an iGPU. Would be concerned about the NVidia driver of that generation -- haven't tried a D620 yet, but really ought to before the free upgrade period is done.

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Both of the above were, FWIW, clean installs of 10 and not upgrades.

 

Hi all, thanks for the help! Successfully got it running except the ALPS touchpad drivers are not compatible. Any ideas how to get it to work? As it is the touchpad is terrible!

 

Go to the Dell support site and download the drivers from a later machine that also has an ALPS touchpad. (I think most of the regular Latitudes and Precisions use ALPS.)

 

Did you run Driver Idenitifier? It finds all of the necessary and compatible drivers for Windows 10 when I run it on the E6410.

If the drivers are compatible with Windows 7 then they'll work just fine with Windows 8.1 & 10.

 

Straight from Dell.

http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER02870405M/1/Input_Driver_2K28M_WN32_8.1206.101.118_A08.EXE