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Inspiron 3537 and Windows 10?
Hello,
I have an older laptop as a secondary PC, which is an Inspiron 3537 with a Core i3 4010U and no dedicated GPU (so it has the Intel HD 4400). It came with 6 GB of RAM, but this was recently upgraded to 16 GB of DDR3L 1600 MHz CL9. It originally had a 500 GB 5,400 RPM HDD, but this was changed to a 128 GB SSD shortly after I purchased it. The BIOS was recently updated to the latest version (A12) to deal with the Intel CPU security flaw.
It originally came with Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, but I've been using it with Windows 7 since I got it. Since the RAM is maxed out and it has an SSD, it works fantastically for it's role, but Windows 7 has been unsupported since a year ago. I therefore have two questions as I am looking into possibly updating it to Windows 10.
Does the PC run fine with Windows 10? I'm not as concerned with performance as I expect that to be fine (for my uses, anyway) as it currently runs very well, but more the drivers side of things. Looking at the Dell support/driver page for this model, there are indeed a number of drivers for Windows 10, all from recent years surprisingly for a model this old, so I presume it should be well supported as it's older than Windows 10 anyway, but it never hurts to be sure if there aren't any known issues with this laptop under Windows 10.
More importantly, the PC has no sticker with a Windows product key on it. Will I have to purchase one, or does the Windows 8 one within the BIOS (I think this was a thing around that time?) allow me to upgrade to Windows 10 and it will use that? I'm sort of hoping this is the case.
Thank you in advance for any answers, and have a wonderful day
ejn63
10 Elder
10 Elder
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23K Posts
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February 6th, 2021 09:00
If the system came from Dell with Windows 8 or 8.1, it will have an embedded license key as long as you have the original system board.
Anything that came with Windows 7 will have a product key on a sticker on the base of the unit (or if the battery is externally removeable, under the battery).
nyc10036
5.6K Posts
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February 5th, 2021 16:00
Make a backup of the hard drive.
I have installed Windows 10 on numerous laptops and they have all worked with Windows 10.
garnet_alexandria
8 Posts
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February 6th, 2021 09:00
Thanks for the reply,
Windows 7 installation is somewhat bare and there's nothing on it especially that I can't lose, so no backup needed.
I'm also pretty confident it'll work well spec/driver-wise after seeing all the drivers Dell offers for it.
The primary reason for my inquiry was that I was hoping someone knew if the BIOS/UEFI for this model had the original windows product key stored, and that Windows 10 would automatically grab that and use it if I tried installing it. I suppose I could always try installing Windows 10 using the latest media creation tool and see if it does, and put Windows 7 back on it if not, but I was hoping someone knew for sure so that I wasn't potentially doing two pointless OS installs (plus further setup). If I get no answer I'll probably do this in a few days and update with results myself.
garnet_alexandria
8 Posts
0
February 6th, 2021 10:00
Thanks! One way way or another (be it that it'd work or it wouldn't work), I wanted to be sure before putting the potentially wasted time in.