Very Old Wallet - will it update flawlessly?

[wersaup]

Hey there.

In a couple hours i will receive back a laptop from the police that was seized in 2011. The computer contains an old bitcoin instance, if i remember correctly it should be around version 0.28, just short of 180k blocks. The wallet on said installation should contain several hundred bitcoin, so obviously before doing anything I'm gonna back the whole thing up.

My question is -

A) the computer in question runs windows xp and a debian etch or lenny... Will a current bitcoin-qt run on windows xp?
B) if i just upgrade the bitcoint client(i know there was some break in wallet compatibility and probably more than one libdb upgrade in between, which normally should have just transitioned)… will it convert the wallet to current standards and be able to use it?
C) if not, is the old pywallet still around and compatible allowing me to just dump the private keys?
D) if none of the above, what should i do?

Ps: i know for certain that the wallet isnt encrypted - the feature was too new for me back then to be used, besides the root partition is crypted(and i still have keys)

[shorena]

Hey there.

In a couple hours i will receive back a laptop from the police that was seized in 2011. The computer contains an old bitcoin instance, if i remember correctly it should be around version 0.28, just short of 180k blocks. The wallet on said installation should contain several hundred bitcoin, so obviously before doing anything I'm gonna back the whole thing up.

Smart.

My question is -

A) the computer in question runs windows xp and a debian etch or lenny... Will a current bitcoin-qt run on windows xp?

Why bother? Just take the wallet.dat and sync with a modern machine, it will be faster anyway.

B) if i just upgrade the bitcoint client(i know there was some break in wallet compatibility and probably more than one libdb upgrade in between, which normally should have just transitioned)… will it convert the wallet to current standards and be able to use it?

AFAIK, yes.

C) if not, is the old pywallet still around and compatible allowing me to just dump the private keys?

-> https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet

D) if none of the above, what should i do?

Ps: i know for certain that the wallet isnt encrypted - the feature was too new for me back then to be used, besides the root partition is crypted(and i still have keys)

You sure the coins are still no there? 5 years in the hands of someone else without encryption...

[wersaup]

Thanks for the answer first of all. And yes, while the coins werent encrypted, the drive holding the coins was. Since the device was seized as potentially stolen(bought it on the net, turned out that it isnt a smart move to register equipment you buy with the vendor after all), it was never searched.