Animations, the first thing I turn off with any os. I hate them, why have an animation when it makes things slower.

With a 2000w chiller, maybe.

My parents still use a 7th gen Intel dual core laptop.

It is not the fastest machine, but YouTube, generally Internet Browser works just fine. Excel, Word etc is no problem.

The screen is 720p but for them it is still fine.

Shut down? Never, reboot when necessary.