Windows 8 Upgrading windows vista ultimate

[echelonphoto]

So I have an older machine using a core 2 duo 8500 processor with 3.18mhz. I use this maching mostly for social media and email and it has worked fine until microsoft stopped supporting vista. I even upgraded the drive to a nice ssd and the machine boots up pretty fast. But as time goes on, I am having continual problems because of the old software. Have tried some of those cheap windows 7 upgrades you buy on line with no luck. I now either have to go to win 8 or10 or buy a new machine. I would rather keep the machine intact with the existing programs I have there, but am willing to do a clean boot. What are my best options?

 

[Neemobeer]

Well there is no direct upgrade path from Vista to Windows 10 or 8.1. If you wanted to upgrade you would need to upgrade to Windows 7 then 10 or 8. I prefer clean installs because you don't know if there are latent problems in the OS or possibly malware that will carry over in the upgrade or the upgrade may just break something. Plus upgrading is going to require a Windows 7 and Windows 10 license.

 

[echelonphoto]

Thanks for the input....I have already tried some upgrade on line solutions....the 7 dvd is way too expensive for an obsolete program

 

[livix07]

If you don't want to spend money buying Windows 8 or 10, then you can use a Linux for free.
Social media and e-mail work with Linux too.

 

[echelonphoto]

Wish I knew how to run it. Does it run other windows programs too?

 

[livix07]

You can run SOME Windows applications on Linux by using Wine. You can read here.