Don't Laugh...please!

i want to reinstall windows vista basic on my toshiba L350 laptop (really old). i installed win 10 (UGH) and the stupid thing is slow(memory) the system is 32 bit....the product key is on the bottom,as usual, so all i need is rescue stick or disc...i have been trying to find one to no avail...any help is appreciated...i have given up on finding a new copy of win7( it is on my main p.c.)

 

Hello Allison, I'm having the same problem as you. I have an old Acer laptop, 64 bit. The son of a friend got ticked off one day because it was messing up so he drove his fist into the keyboard. The only damage he did was take out the hard drive. I got him a quote on a new HDD and he didn't want to spend any money on it because of it's age so I wound up with it. It sat around for a few years before I replaced the HDD. I put Win 10 on it only because I had a copy of Win 10 on a thumb drive. It was so slow it was useless. According to All CPU Meter it was maxing out every resource It came with Vista, I believe it was 8.1, and originally worked really good. My problem was that I wanted to use Win 7 but the stupid thing doesn't have any kind of CD or DVD drive in it. I bought an external DVD drive but the machine won't recognize the drive and I can't figure out how to make it so for now it's stuck with Win 10. I can't believe that they didn't put a CD or DVD drive in it. Pretty friggin stupid if you ask me.

Anyway, I'm not laughing at your question because I have the same problem. I hope someone here can help you. By helping you it may help me as well.

Take care and be safe.

 

@ALLISON - https://archive.org/details/windows-vista-home

 

Download en_windows_vista_with_sp2_x86_dvd_342266.iso from https://massgrave.dev/windows_vista_links.

Win 7 can be found here: https://massgrave.dev/windows_7_links.

Then use Rufus and to make the ISO in to a USB key to boot / install from.

You could also use Ventoy to format the USB stick and just copy the ISO directly to the USB and boot from it. Advantage is you can add multiple ISOs, if you have the room.

 

Hi, done there, been that right now with an old (inherited) LENOVO machine. (Dual Core Pentium,) originally with VISTA. I was able to upgrade to Won 8.x easily enough, and it worked quite well, but like you, Win 10 was slower than molasses in Antarctica. (Read:unusable.) If you re-install "VISTA" from an ISO (for example via bootable USB) you would still probably have to download a few "model specific" drivers if still available from Toshiba, for video and audio functions, at least. (Same with Win 8.1) If you tried to "install" Win 7, you would still need a new "license key," the one you have on your machine for VISTA wouldn't work.
VISTA can probably be found online as an ISO file, and with the help of RUFUS ( or other programs) made into a bootable USB drive, but you may still have to search for drivers you may need.

As for CD/DVD drives? To conserve space and weight, many newer computers (especially laptops) ARE "doing away" with optical media drives, and relying (only) on USB flash drives or Internet downloads for software. Even the current Win 10 will NOT fit on a single DVD disk, so thee only feasible way to install even Win 10 now, is through a USB drive, with 8 GB or more of memory. (IMHO, of course; a computer should have at LEAST one optical drive; I still like to listen to CD music! But again [IMHO] MP3 audio files are FAR inferior in quality to CD quality. They are fine for use in an automobile, or other vehicle, where there's plenty of road noise, etc with which to contend, but not in MY living room. YMMV.)

 

All Windows OS here:
https://files.rg-adguard.net/version/f0bd8307-d897-ef77-dbd6-216fefbe94c5

 

I've gone to the site, and selected Win 8.1 (32 bit/x86) with updates but how do I actually download the file?

 

If you’re replying to my post there should be a download link shown when all choices are complete.

 

I read the "FAQ's" (what a novel idea?) and realized it is necessary to purchase a "key" before being allowed to download. I didn't realize that before, but thanks for the link!

 

Thanks. It seems that site is useless.

 

Try this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17oW40VIYVUp7jwLAXAkhrYyfkaLgZCd9/view?usp=sharing