Do we have any idea the specs on that system?

An SSD would be a night and day improvement. They're getting pretty cheap. Then reinstall windows. See if you can get 8 gigs of memory in it and call it a day. I have a late 2012 MacBook that runs like new now that I have an SSD in it.

Why make it complicated? Throw an ssd and at least 8gb of ram, should be fine to run windows 10.

I don't know about option 2... if you are only home during weekends, I would stick to something more reliable. (and no, I am not sure if USB passthrough would work this way or not.)

If you want to really boost performance, I would change the hardware. Since the laptop is 10+ years old, it likely has DDR3 SODIMM memory and something like a 640 GB super-slow 5400 RPM 2.5 inch hard drive (of course, check inside the laptop before buying parts if you plan on changing hardware).

I would give it at least 8 GB of RAM (for printing / editing documents and web browsing) seems like a good idea (I would get Crucial or Samsung because then you don't have to play with XMP, which is unsupported on some laptops, to get the full speed). Of course, upgrading to a 2.5 inch SATA SSD would greatly improve boot and load times. But, be careful, as some laptops only leave enough room in the 2.5 inch drive bay to just fit a thin 5400 RPM hard drives. A lot of SSDs are thicker than that, so make sure you have the room if you choose to do this.

With an SSD and 8 GB of RAM, you could just theoretically use the built-in Windows reinstall feature to get a completely fresh Windows install, and it should work fine for a while (should be Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Reset This PC).

Or, you could get a nice Windows-like Linux distro like Kubuntu or Linux Mint.

See if you can fit another motherboard in the HP case. If that works, new motherboard, cpu and ram. Just tell them u had to change the windows version because of updated printer drivers. New pc, same case, same printer. Done!

Get a half decent mini pc for like $200. It’s a small box and “looks nice” and will connect to any printer you want. It will be virtually silent and use almost no power.

If they ask what happened just say it always looked like that.

Hey dude, that's indelicate. My main rig is 11 years old.

It’s Black Friday! go to, Costco, Sam’s club, Best Buy, or micro center and buy a new all in one.

It will “look nice-er”

Limping a 10 year old computer for printing is a fools game especially in the home environment.

10 year old PC is fine especially if its not one of those atom processors and the processor was current at that time. just upgrade the memory, replace the HDD with an SSD and do a fresh win10 install. it will do fine until win10 EOL. i am currently using such 10 year old PC myself as a daily driver.

Speaking from experience: do not give your parents something that looks like windows and isn't. Actually, don't give them Linux period. I wiped and reset the PC after a ransomware thing. Gave it centos and locked it the hell down to web browsing and mails and no admin perms. It lasted 2 months before failing to get to GUI.