the latest OS for my PC

[thonni]

which is the current and best OS for my hp elitebook 2730p, and where or how do i get it. Is there any link via i can get the latest?

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@thonni

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

To answer your question -- the latest and "best" OS for your PC would be the most recent version for which HP provides drivers -- and that is Windows 7.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the problem you're up against is that Microsoft only supplies drivers with the most basic functionality, and what you really need for FULL functionality is the specialized drivers written for the specific hardware found in your HP PC -- and unfortunately, there are no HP Win10 drivers for your PC. HP only guarantees Win10 compatibility for machines made after August, 2013. HP is no longer producing Win10 drivers for the older machines.

This means that your PC is most likely NEVER going to be fully functional under Win10 because the drivers it needs for full functionality simply do not exist! This is especially true if your PC has switchable graphics because, in this case, the ONLY drivers that will work properly are the OEM drivers that were written for that hardware.

My own advice is NOT to press forward with the Win10 Upgrade -- free is not necessarily better. I upgrade 5 PCs from Win7 to Win10 and not only did all of them have serious problems afterward, two of them were reverted back to Win7 -- at the owners' requests.

However ... if you want to experiment, the before you do that, at least take the time to make an image backup of your current setup so you have something to restore FROM if the downgrade goes badly.

I personally prefer to use third-party Recovery solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

Good Luck

[thonni]

Thanks a bunch sir wood. Your information is helpful.