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zBrown
Ice climber
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Of course you just went to your backup (cloned) machine and recovered them, eh?
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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So outside of costing more money, are there any downsides to Windows 7 Professional version?
Can I turn auto update on and let it go or do you need to be more on top of it? (I occasionally remote in to provide support for my mom's current machine)
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Didn't realize some of the better features of the Pro version of WIN7.
I think I'll grab a copy and try my cloning procedure, though off the top I don't see why it wouldn't.
Good to know the official support end date, too.
thanks
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Uh, wouldn't a rather large downside to Win 7 be that a lot of software won't run on it?
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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wouldn't a rather large downside to Win 7 be that a lot of software won't run on it
I'd think MORE software will run on Windows 7, which also has "XP Mode" for backwards compatibility.
Windows 10 is for "beta" testers, imo.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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You can find brand-new, unopened retail versions of Window 7, XP, etc. on eBay. Don't get an upgrade version. You will want to be able to install to a new hard drive directly, without having to pre-install a prior version of Windows. I'm mot sure if the OEM version is different from the retail version, but I would get the retail version, unopened, in the box.
You might also be able to find a retail version of an older Windows OS online at Best Buy, or some other store that would have NOS in inventory, and would be anxious to sell it off.
If someone installed the OS on their computer and registered it with MS, and then sold you the disk and keycode on eBay, you would not be able to properly register your installation. One exception to this is if you have Windows XP Professional Corporate Edition, the keycode is not limited to just one computer. There might be a corresponding corporate version of Windows 7. Even if you don't register with the MS website, whenever you have the computer connected to the internet, Microsoft will try to check for validation, and do odd things to your computer if you are not in compliance.
Don't attempt to install Windows 7, or XP, over a Windows 10 installation. If you intend to do a multi-boot installation, which allows you to select from a variety of OS versions (DOS, Win98, XP, 7, etc.), you must install the earliest version first, and then install the next later one, and so forth. At the time of the later installation(s), Windows will recognize the earlier version(s) and ask if you want to overwrite them, or install multiple OS versions. When you boot the computer, it will allow you to select which OS to use. This isn't limited to Windows. I have a Linux box that does this, with Windows XP as an option.
You should get a brand new hard drive, and install the OS to that. A reformatted hard drive can potentially have issues with the boot sector, via redundancy and error correction from a previous OS installation (especially a more recent version). You can later set the old Windows 10 hard drive as a second, slave drive, so that the computer doesn't recognize it as a bootable hard drive. That way, you can access your files, and transfer them to the boot drive that has XP or 7 on it. You will probably not be able to run programs that were installed under the Windows 10 OS, because of the byzantine way that modern software installs in multiple locations, interfaces with the Windows Registry database, etc.
You will need to obtain and install all the software that doesn't come included with the XP or 7 OS. Older software can be just as useful as newer, but not have the same restrictions on installing it. For example, I have the last version of Office (2000, I think) that will install properly without having to go online and register it. This is very useful to me, because I like to restrict my internet access to one computer, and leave the others unconnected to minimize the risk of viral attack.
Instead of buying a new computer, and then upgrading the OS from Windows 10 to Windows XP or Windows 7, you might consider getting a new motherboard, CPU, memory, hard drive(s) and a Windows OS , and use the shell, power supply and CD/DVD drive of an old computer. You can get a really high-end MB, with a very controllable BIOS, from companies like ASUS, for less than $200. Most retail computers that are not really expensive have inferior MBs. For much, much less that the cost of a new computer, you can rebuild an existing box to create a very, very nice computer.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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New Windows 10 user here.
I'll try to report my findings over the next couple months re Win 10. Big Win 7 fan here. -hfcs
Today's discovery: Windows 10 doesn't need Daemon Tools or any equivalent to mount .iso files. Ability is built in, so this is one plus w Win 10 over Win 7. FYI.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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One big drawback is that MS has decided yer not in control of yer puter
any more - when they say it's time for an update, it's time! You have
bloody little say in the matter! WTF? I left the puter on the other
day and came back to see that the screen was blank. There was no 'update
in progress' message so I figured it had updated (or somehow gone into sleep
mode) but not rebooted. Bad decision. It took about 6 reboots and half an
hour before it resolved. I shoulda just left it although it appeared
dormant even though I've turned all that nonsense off.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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when they say it's time for an update, it's time!
With my new Win 10, I was annoyed by inability to shut down without updating first (meaning a delay, often substantial). Then I learned about alt+f4... which worked for me. Immediate shutdown when I want. Now I still update (an important task of course, just like re one's belief system, btw) but only after a suggestion to do so. Much improved now. YMMV.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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So the new computer with Windows 7 worked just fine. The only issue (which I guess is a known issue among any IT crowd that still deals with new Windows 7 installations), the first time you update windows it can take hours. It looks like it has locked up, but let it go overnight.
Thanks for the previous help/comments on this thread.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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All in all Win 10 is stable and very good. The latest update seems to have
improved Edge a good 100%. I'm quite surprised how quickly they seem to
have fixed it. You Luddites going back to Win 7, well, enjoy yer Edsels!
Like an Edsel yer gonna have to make yer own parts. I loved my '54 Ford,
too, but I love my new Raptor waaay more, especially the air conditioned
seats! ;-)
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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My mom would probably like to have her '57 Chevy back...
Personally, I would be thrilled to have her '67 Mustang (which had air conditioning). And Mustang parts are actually pretty easy to purchase (no 3-D printer required).
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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You Luddites going back to Win 7
Reilly, there are much better things to do in life than endless tech support....
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/macs-cost-one-third-much-223047938.html
edit - from above:
Only 5% of IBM's Mac employees needed help-desk support, versus 40% of PC users.
At that time, some 30,000 IBM employees were using Macs. Today 90,000 of them are, he said. And IBM ultimately plans to distribute 150,000 to 200,000 Macs to workers, meaning about half of IBM's approximately 370,000 employees will have Macs.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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There are two hot fixes for Win 7 that can be applied manually before trying to run updates so that the updates load in about 5 minutes instead of days. Google 'Windows Update Stuck' to find them.
I had a terrible experience with Windows 10. At some point MS figured out I had a Microsoft account and switched to it as my log in. That was fine until I went to do something that required admin privileges and found out that account wasn't an admin. There is a link to switch back to the local account and I chose that. MS then recreated my local account but didn't make it an admin either! Now I had a computer with no users with admin rights. Completely fubared.
I saved my files off, reformatted and loaded Win 7 back up. Windows update hung so that is how I know about the hot fixes. F*#k Win 10!
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