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Sorry for contra, but I wouldn't really suggest installing *that* new version of Windows, if the laptop is too old.
I tried out Win8 (not 8.1, 'cuz it's even worse), and the thermal-hardware-shutdown mechanism kicked in after less than 15mins, because Windows Update (to be more precise, TiWorker.exe) ate up the whole processor (similarly like Chrome eats up the RAM).
Even disabling everything doesn't really help, the neutral load is always around 30-70%, while on XP it's around 4-20%. Okay, to be fair, Win8 runs alot better than XP, doesn't take ages to redraw the desktop, but it's not optimized for single-core processors, so it overhets *really* fast, and opening Firefox freezes the *whole* computer (while generating ridiculous amounts of heat).
Windows 10 is designed to work on tablets with 1gb that have very low end processors, so why not try it on an old Netbook that is no longer used for anything productive? I found it worked as well as Windows 7 ever did on my MSI Wind which was got general web browsing and taking notes in lectures.
You mentioned "the thermal-hardware-shutdown mechanism kicked in after less than 15mins" - the laptop you had was probably clogged up with dust from years of use. You would be surprised some of the laptops i've seen with that problem which have just needed a good clean out. That certainly does not happen on my MSI Wind.
When you initially install Windows its under load from the hard drive been indexed, Windows update and so on. But once that's all said and done it will idle at 3-4% cpu usage, not 30 to 70%.
I actually have a low powered Nettop with an Atom N2800 and 2gb of ram in it, that idles at 2% cpu usage.