ThanksI wave a windows 10 laptop that was given to us, and it is slow as molasses- I mean really bad. I put Linux on it as dual boot option, but even with Linux, its still slow. I doubt that formatting and putting windows 95 or 98 on it will help, but maybe. I do have windows 7 is, but not sure that a windows 10,machine can be “downgraded” using a windows 10 product ID number for windows 7 installation?.
Many older laptops were Win7 upgraded to Win10, and where the original RAM installed was only 2gb. Upgrading this to 4gb or 8gb, plus replacing the spinning hard-drive with an SSD will likely may this laptop at least tolerable, if not enjoyable to use again.
When you switch from a newer computer to an older computer they do feel sluggish. But Windows 10 and a bunch of crapware will slow an older computer to a crawl. Since it is a laptop that came with Windows 7... it has an OEM license. There are ways to reinstall Windows 7. The first step would be to find as much information and drivers from the manufacturer's website along with the latest bios update. I assume that you do not have the original recovery DVD that came with most Windows 7 laptops but you might be able to order one from eBay if the manufacturer no longer carries it or find an ISO file. Even if you can't find any of that with enough determination you can should be able to get Windows 7 reinstalled and activated using the OEM info contained in the BIOS.
If you send me the specs I will try to do a little research on it... My guess is that the old dog could run smooth again with a clean install and then being careful what you install on it. Whether it is worth it or not for you is the question. There is a good chance that you could buy a much more powerful laptop used or new for a couple hundred dollars.