Next update.
I've spent the last few days installing old programs again and getting my local web development environment up and running for IIS and other websites I've done.
First problem I found, was the 30GB on the main C drive was not nearly enough. Windows itself chewed up about 18-20GB, then by the time I added Lightroom, Photoshop and other programs (not their data, just the programs!) I ran out of space trying to install Microsoft Office.
And this was after I'd already allocated the 80GB of the 120GB SSD to the D drive. So I had to re-copy the D drive contents to external HDD, format the D partition and unallocate it so I could re-allocate an extra 20GB to the C drive.
Now I have about 53GB on the C drive with about 7GB to spare, and everything is now installed. Although I'd be in trouble if I tried to re-install the CoD franchises
My data drive (D) only has 58GB and it's already full. The iTunes library is 30GB on its own, so I haven't been able to copy on any photos yet. I barely fit the Lightroom library (~6GB).
So now I'm waiting for the casing to be able to mount my old mechanical drive in my DVD drive bay to allow me to free up a bit of space on D and put my pics and music on the other drive.
One consequence of re-installing is that the DVD driver seems to be busted, even though Windows recognises it, and *some* CD's can be read - it won't recognise Office or some other CD's or DVD's. I've got around it by sharing the DVD drive on the other laptop.
I'll have to get a USB DVD drive soon though.
And good news, got my 8GB RAM today and of course it went in easily.
So I can't wait to try out PS and LR. I've definitely noticed the increase in speed in general running of Windows with the SSD hard drive. It's so quiet too! The laptop does feel fresh again. I love it. It needed a good cleanout too.
120GB SSD is really too small for most purposes though. They'll have to increase capacity soon
Oh and I did spend hours trying to get MySQL, PHP and Apache working properly. Permissions problems, Windows UAC and other annoying things.
Then I finally installed WAMP and wow what a breath of fresh air. I wish I installed it years ago
The Wordpress and modern sites worked fine immediately, but the IIS platform is old and requires an older version of PHP and changes in the php.ini which screwed me around for a while. All good now though.
There's my update.
Thanks to Andy and others for their help and advice in this thread. It's been much cheaper than a new laptop and I actually look forward to image editing, not like a week ago when it was a very painful experience.