Windows 7 came after Vista, why not use Windows 7?
Do you know there are no hardware issues? That laptop is a bit long in the tooth.
Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. Free. Capable. Easy to use.
My strongest advice: Stop. For the amount of time you’ll waste trying to install Vista and update it to current, you could buy a cheap computer and a s-video card and be up and running.
If you wish to continue on with this computer, download Ubuntu, burn it to a CD, boot on that and install on the drive. It already comes with browser, you can add on open office or just use web based word processing.
Above all, do not try to continue with Vista. It just isn’t worth the trouble.
This!
I’d recommend setting the computer to boot from CD, and try several flavors of Linux to see if they will do what you want. If you find one you like, install it.
With older machines, you might find an older version of Linux works better than a current one. Start with Distrowatch. http://distrowatch.com/ and search for features you want.
OS: Kodibuntu - Kodi is the latest fork from the old XBMC (XBox Media Center) that features a ton of on-screen options for management of your media libraries and TV control.
Remote: Logitech Harmony 650
IR Receiver: FLIRC 09028 (USB)
Wireless MAK: Logitech K400
This is how my home environment is configured, and it should run fine on the machine you have. Kodibuntu is an Ubuntu-based revision of the Kodi front end. Kodi is also available for Windows, if you are more comfortable with Windows.
If it were me, I would boot off the Vista OS disk, reset the partitions, and reformat the HDD, then install the OS to the HDD if you don’t get HDD errors. You might want to just put in a new HDD if you think the current one is toast, which is possible. The OS installation might take longer than you think. If that goes well, go to Dell with the service tag number from the case and get all new drivers. If you have a working internet connection, do it through the laptop, otherwise you will have to do it through another machine and save the files to removable media to transfer to the laptop.
Your effort is well-intended, but that laptop will perform poorly while keeping the fan on high all the time. That computer is best left to internet browsing and Word.
I have a similar system and honestly, the juice is not worth the squeeze for real-time video.
Also, I don’t believe there is a direct upgrade path from Vista to 10. That upgrade is for 7 and 8.1 to 10.
If you want a free OS, Linux Mint is a pretty good one and it almost certainly has the drivers you'll need. If you have a friend who can download the thing (it's free) and burn you an ISO to a DVD (or CD if that's what the lappy has) then you'll be up and running for the cost of the disk. It may or may not run the applications you intend to use for the purpose you've described, but at least it will get you on the Internet and you can bootstrap that into whatever you want.
Just my $0.02. I'm doing something like it for a friend right now. Computer professional, and he has neither his distribution media NOR a viable backup. Tsk tsk.
Why? Low-Spec laptops are pretty cheap, especially refurbished ones.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/03/26/one-free-step-to-make-aging-computer-run-like-new.html
http://www.neverware.com/
I have tried this before with a laptop I had, a Acer. It had Vista on it when I got it but I had a buddy switch it to XP and it ran great.
It caught a bug and I tried to fix it using the Vista backup disc I made but never could get it to load.
I had a Dell Desktop that ran on XP and ended up using the Dell software to get the thing working again. Finally decided it was time for a new laptop. But the old one worked fine, except I never could load the wireless LAN specs back on.
My suggestion is to go on Ebay and buy either a Vista or a XP professional home program, they should be pretty cheap and reload from that. Should work just fine.
Buy a Roku.
If you have two hard drives or partitions, check the size on them before you try to install the OS, especially if someone already ran out of space trying to upgrade the OS. If there is no available space on the OS partition, then you can’t simply install another OS to that drive. You’ll have to install the OS to the other drive, or reformat the drive before you do the installation.
I just installed a Seagate 8 Tb in a Dell workstation last night as I’m writing a review for it that was requested by Seagate. It took 3 attempts. The first attempt the drive would not even initialize, and the second attempt I couldn’t set the partion. But the third attempt went so smoothly I couldn’t believe it when the 8Tb came up. Computers can be tempermental like women.
Get off the Microsoft Plantation!
There are many “small Linux” distros that work fine on older computers. I’ve got one running on a Celeron with just 360K of memory.