Infuse life into your old laptop

Posted on Thursday March 17, 2016

It can be tough to see your laptop die. While you likely shared many good moments with it, undoubtedly, there will come a time when it's ready to be retired to the back of the closet or disposed of. If you are lucky enough to still have yours hanging around the house or office, then there's no better time to dust it off. A new software is available that's breathing new life into old laptops across the country. Here's what you need to know.

A New York City based startup known as Neverware has developed a dual-boot system that essentially turns your old laptop into a Chromebook, and even uses the same operating system as a Chromebook: Chrome OS. The software that enables this is called CloudReady and, once installed on your system, you can switch between your old OS and Chrome OS at startup.

How does CloudReady revive your old laptop?

Because the Chrome OS operating system is lightweight, it frees up your laptop from its old, sluggish operating system. With CloudReady installed, your old laptop can boot up more than twice as fast, and you can browse the web twice as fast as well. However, it should be noted that these times vary, and in some cases, you may see no difference in speed.

Does it work for all laptops?

Most, but not all. CloudReady can be installed on many different models of the Macbook Pro and iMac. As for Windows, it will only work on PCs preinstalled with Windows 7 and up, and installed in UEFI mode. While that last bit may sound a bit confusing, if your laptop is ten years old or younger, CloudReady will likely work.

How to install CloudReady

To get started, you'll need the following two items:

• A laptop with internet connection
• A USB drive with at least 8 gigs of storage

Everything else you'll need to install the software can be found at Neverware's website. Once you've got all your tools handy, here's how you install it:

1. Download the OS
2. Install OS on a USB drive
3. Insert USB into your old laptop and reboot it to CloudReady drive
4. Install the OS on your laptop's internal drive (make sure to backup your files first).

Depending on how tech savvy you are, the installation process can take anywhere between 45 minutes, to well over an hour.

So is it worth trying? Well, besides maybe an hour or two of your time, you don't really have much to lose by giving it a shot. If you'd like more ideas on how to improve the life of your hardware or are interested in buying some new tech gear this Spring, get in touch with our experts today.