Computer question re "7"...... is it still available despite the new "phone app "8"?

[J Tiers]

I know "8" just appeared, but "7" seemed to be only available for about 39 seconds.

I have available to me (to buy) a pretty new Dell M4300 which has what I want for running a bunch of engineering programs. But it has XP on it, and many of the programs are going to be transitioning to the non-XP world...... As of yet I am not sure if that means "8", or "7".....

Could mean "7" compatible, since "8" seems to be (deservedly) not super-popular.

The basic question is whether relatively new machines can be upgraded,

And whether "7" is still being sold for consumer install.

As for why would I not just buy a new one... a) it will come with "8", which I don't want yet.... and the kind of machine I am looking for is *not cheap* new..... I don't want to hand over big bucks and then deal with the "phone apps" system.

[oldtiffie]

My older computer (XP) is being up-graded to W7 (OEM) as the guy who services my machines only installs W8 by written request only - default is W7.

I don't use (and get by quite well without) "apps" either on my computers or my mobile/cell phone.

Not all newer main/mother and graphics boards will support all aspects of XP - which happened in my case so a new computer (W7) is being built from the ground up.

[Zero_Divide]

I bought my wife a new laptop with w8 installed.
Thought "what the heck i dont care as long as it still works"
Boy was i wrong.
Everything is absolutely annoying.
I had to download and install a third-party app that reinstated old style start menu as w8 does not have it at all!

Stupid sidebar keeps popping up every time to move the mouse to the right of the screen. AND there is no way to turn it off.
Color scheme is horrible. And attempts to make it more bearable make it look to ugly to ugly to tolerate.......
Install windows 7 and dont worry.
W8 will forever remain one of their flops. Just like Vista, ME, win 2000 and win 95.

[The Artful Bodger]

My new desktop has Windoze 8 and the best feature is that it can be, easily, made to look like Windoze 7.

[Zero_Divide]

My new desktop has Windoze 8 and the best feature is that it can be, easily, made to look like Windoze 7.

Did you find a way to turn off sidebar.
That thing just drives me nuts!

[The Artful Bodger]

I don't think it pops up if you are running desktop. Sorry, but you would have to Google how to do that automatically but what I did was made a shortcut to Desktop and that appears on the Metro window. Just click on that and you are pretty much back in the sanity mode.

To test, just click on START and start typing 'desktop', please let me know what happens.

John

[macona]

Windows 8, the new vista.

Some people say it runs faster than Win 7, it might, but the interfaces is a user interface nightmare.

Ill be sticking with Win 7 for the long haul.

[The Artful Bodger]

Yeabut, its not too hard to make it look quite like Windoze 7.

The magic words are "disable Windows 8" in the Google search box.

[Zero_Divide]

Yeabut, its not too hard to make it look quite like Windoze 7.

The magic words are "disable Windows 8" in the Google search box.

Noo man you simply CAN NOT disable stupid charms bar (the one i fitst erroneously? called sidebar)

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/4f4194f7-3c96-4719-8c7b-8596e2fa2f77/

Macona thanks for the video- gave me a good laugh!

[oldtiffie]

Here is the OP.

I know "8" just appeared, but "7" seemed to be only available for about 39 seconds.

I have available to me (to buy) a pretty new Dell M4300 which has what I want for running a bunch of engineering programs. But it has XP on it, and many of the programs are going to be transitioning to the non-XP world...... As of yet I am not sure if that means "8", or "7".....

Could mean "7" compatible, since "8" seems to be (deservedly) not super-popular.

The basic question is whether relatively new machines can be upgraded,

And whether "7" is still being sold for consumer install.

As for why would I not just buy a new one... a) it will come with "8", which I don't want yet.... and the kind of machine I am looking for is *not cheap* new..... I don't want to hand over big bucks and then deal with the "phone apps" system.

I have an idea that Dell and a few others have Windows versions almost hard-wired in and I am not sure how it can be stripped back to "blank" so that you can instal your own fully licenced OEM copy of W7.

[Zero_Divide]

Here is the OP.



I have an idea that Dell and a few others have Windows versions almost hard-wired in and I am not sure how it can be stripped back to "blank" so that you can instal your own fully licenced OEM copy of W7.

The problem one poor sob is gonna have when successful is DRIVERS.
If OEMs are not expecting users to install w7 they will not offer any drivers for it.
Besides w7 is not sold anymore and if its been installed before, second installation makes it illegal

[The Artful Bodger]

Noo man you simply CAN NOT disable stupid charms bar (the one i fitst erroneously? called sidebar)

Hokay...... I cant get the damn thing to pop up right now, what is the tender spot to trigger it?

(I did one of the registry patches to kill it).

[John Stevenson]

Macona,
Started to watch the video but was expecting a video and not a powerpoint presentation.
Would have been a lot better if he had actually used W8 to display what he meant, watched 6 minutes then had to bail out it was tiresome watching an explanation of something that you knew wasn't going to get shown.

[gizmo2]

Just went through this over the holidays. There was supposed to be a guy in town selling gov't surplus computers (Win7 based), but I couldn't find him. Most of the new computers don't have CD drives. How you s'pose to use your old info or music library? Tried to switch to an Apple, spent BIG money waited over a month and when it arrived the machine didn't work, so waited another month for the refund. Dug out my daughter's old laptop that originally had VISTA but switched to Win7. It's pretty slow as it doesn't really have the horsepower to run the newer programs, and the CD drive doesn't work any more. Hopefully it'll keep me until Windows 8 goes tits up; can only hope their next effort is a good one.

[Ohio Mike]

In large networks CD drives are frowned on, you boot and install from the network. Installing a CD drive is like a 3 minute job anyway.

An earlier poster noted he thought Dell was locking machines or such which isn't true. We order hundreds of Dell machines each year at work preloaded with an OS (what ever is newest) and each gets wiped clean and has a "corporate approved" software image installed. I've also done it at home because i don't want all that demo crap Dell installed.

Personally I'd look at something new, anything XP based is ancient. Even lower end stuff today is so darn fast its crazy. You can get an i5 processor based machine with 6Gb of RAM and a 750Gb hard drive for less that $600.