[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

I'm getting back in to astrophotography (and astronomy in general) after a really long break.

I've pulled the PC out of the observatory as part of the "spring clean", and Windows has died, and seems beyond recovery with everything I have tried.

The PC is old (2009 vintage Core 2 Duo with 4Gb ram), and ran Windows 7 32bit primarily because of the various serial port and firewire adapters I needed to run my gear (real serial ports not USB adapters).

I remember needing to stay 32-bit and "old windows" in order to have the drivers for everything work, including for the dome controller, but I'm assuming in the intervening time, people must have come up with solutions around some of this.

I'm not up for spending lots on replacing gear (ie my Firewire planetary camera is not going to be replaced with a USB one etc).

Before I embark on a new OS re-install (which is going to take a LOT of hours!), looking to get advice on if it's "safe" to move to a newer OS (Like Win 10 x64) or do I need to stick with vintage windows and 32 bit?

Thanks in advance.