Windows 7 over 8

[Mitsuru]

While I was in a store which deals soley with electrical goods, I asked
how much it would cost for a new windows 7 disc and license thinking
that as windows 8 is out the price might have gone down a little.

Oh boy was I wrong!!
In fact as I sat there while the assistant checked on her computer to
see what stock and their relevant prices, a woman customer sat down
at the next desk and over heard me asking about windows 7 discs.

Here is what she said
"Are you getting it too! Windows 8 is rubbish I'm having windows 8
REMOVED from the computer I just bought and having windows 7 put
on it instead!"

I know I tried it for a few hours and hated it but thats because I prefer
desktop to the tiles and the programmes thaata look like that too.

This goT me thinking is it just one or two people who feel this way or is
it much wider spread?

I asked the store assistant if this has been asked for or enquired about
regularly? She stated that it's something that gets asked for a couple
of times a week since they started putting windows 8 directly onto the
machines. If people knew they could specify which version they could
get installed they would probably all be requesting 7 over 8!

[JPB]

Death by toenail extraction and slow bleeding, or by gradually drilling into your own head with a hole cutter that's been soaked overnight in cat faeces, that's pretty much the choice these days.

I have to run three Windoze virtual boxes on this (Ubuntu from new, good old Dell ) laptop in case I'm asked for remote assistance from another site and of the three I have on the panel, Seven Pro is the closest thing to usable, being pretty quick in 64 bit form and not being too difficult to strip back to the bits that are actually needed.
I even like how well 7 runs Safari but 8, what the **** is that all about?
I've had a play with a sample on one of the test boxes left by a rep for our amusement last term, but on a machine that has no touch screen capability, Why would you? Imagine taking your Android (other distros for phones & netbooks are available, the mention of this one is simply to make the point) device out of your pocket and finding that you had to plug a mouse into its USB connection to make a call or send email, that was pretty much how much sense 8 seemed to make. Even on a desktop environment, there are screen prompts to touch this icon or that when doing so can elicit no response whatsoever.

As for retro installing 7 from 8, the Windows upgrade site currently allows this to happen if you've registered any Windoze product and have a user identity - provided you select 7 in its "Ultimate" form - but that's probably not intentional and anyone wishing to make that particular change had best do it before someone at Microsoft wakes up and notices what's going on!

If people knew they could specify which version they could
get installed they would probably all be requesting 7 over 8!

[rich.]

ive heard that double glazing is quite good

[Luxobarge]

Are these the things made by Crittall??

[rich.]

around here we use leul, but im sure they are just as good

[TerryG]

Having bought a new laptop on Saturday as my 5 year old Dell has finally decided that it has had enough and one of the screen hinges broke. (new ones on order)
It came with Windows 8 PRO which out of the box is a royal pain in the ass. If you install "start8" on it, it suddenly looks like Windows 7 again. No more stupid touch friendly start menu. £3 well spent.
You could butcher it and put explorer from Windows 7 on if you prefer. This isn't a supported solution but it works and makes windows 8 exactly like your 7 computer at no extra cost.
As Windows 7 is aimed at business the price won't drop. No corporate with a degree of sense will install Windows 8 on production machines for at least a year (or as soon as Microsoft release an official desktop friendly start menu). It has only been a few months that Microsoft stopped offering downgrade options with the equipment I order from Windows 7 to XP.
Ignoring the stupid interface (which is SUPERB on a tablet but worse than useless on a traditional computer) Windows 8 is OK. It is certainly no slower than windows 7.
I'll be ordering 5 Windows 8 laptops on Monday as work will be paying. They will be for testing to ensure when someone (self) important buys one and suddenly it is the highest priority job in the world to have it working that it can be done.

[Talking Hoarse]

Many thanks TerryG. I will explore Start8.
I (as an ex desktop tech) am quite happy with Vista (am I the only one?) and a notebook on Win7. I took advantage of the £15 Win8 pro download deal, and tried it out but could not get to grips at all with it at all, and so have reverted. I have now reloaded Win8 on to an old laptop to try & get to grip with this.
However I too have heard that you can regress from Windows (eg 8) to an earlier version at nil cost with the licence valid - but the searches I did suggest only for OEM builds (ie as supplied on new PC by Dell, HP etc) - and then I guess that you need the Win7 media ie DVD as I was unable to find the image download on Microsoft's site.
Whatever though - Win8 will here to stay and I will have to get used to it.
Ed

[Toledo Man]

John, it sounds like you're almost praising Windows 7!

I've been running Windows XP for quite a few years now and in the last few months it has been running slow. I've tried everything I could think of including defragmenting the hard disk to within an inch of it's life. In the end I went for a fresh install and gave Windows 8 a try but I got an error message. I tried Ubuntu but I just can't seem to get to grips with it so I got hold of Windows 7 and it is running fine on this desktop PC. It recognized my hardware and installed the drivers. It is streets ahead of XP. I ran the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant and I found out that my processor (AMD Athlon XP 2000) isn't supported by Windows 8 which explains the error messages. When I get some better hardware I'll give Win 8 a go.

[TerryG]

If you have 7 there is no point in upgrading to 8. It is really nice to use on a touch screen but otherwise doesn't really offer any advantages and it has some major downsides (mainly that metro (the new "start menu") is rubbish)
XP is too old to be usable any more. It is losing support next year anyway (April 2014) so by then anybody still running it will be in a security black hole.
Ubuntu is fantastic if you want to experiment with your PC. Even as an every day Desktop OS it is pretty damn good these days but if you have any unusual hardware it can be a fiddle to configure correctly. If your system has a VIA chipset Windows has a hard time with it, I definitely wouldn't recommend trying it with Linux. Either JPB or myself would be able to assist you with a Linux install if you want to run it and can post what the issue you were having is.
If you " just use" your PC rather than wanting to experiment then Windows 7 is currently the best all round OS.

If you really have an Athlon 2000 (1.6 single core) I would strongly recommend you start looking at replacement hardware as that is incredibly slow by modern standards. I'm impressed that it has lasted as my older AMD kit never lasted any significant length of time. If you want to give the performance a kick without replacing the whole lot you would probably find a SATA PCI card and new hard drive would improve it quite a lot as long as you already have at least 2gb of ram. If you have 1 or less then that would be the next thing to upgrade.

I think I have a couple of dual core 1.8 Intel boxes kicking about (HP Mini desktops), if you are in the midlands and fancy a trip over alton towers way you are quite welcome to one as an upgrade .

[JPB]

Only almost, David? Being objective, 7 isn't too bad at all, it's just that it's soooo slow compared to the Linux options, among which Mint is currently the critics' favourite. Try a few distros, selection is as much down to taste as any technical differences and whichever you settle on, defragging will be a thing you just won't need to do any more, much like worrying about registry issues, also consigned to history.
I've played with Win8 since the last time I saw this thread and would have to say that, if I wanted to turn a decent pc into an overgrown tablet, I'd save the grief and just install Android 4.2 on there, but that's Linux too, so I would.

As Terry suspects, I too would be happy to help you with any Ubuntu-related stuff, maybe by e-mail though, before Terry gives me a jolly good kicking for turning a thread into a platform for anti Microsoft propaganda. .