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Post by alexham36 on Jan 26, 2015 17:30:44 GMT
My wife has been pressing me to buy her her own computer and I found a Dell laptop for under £200 that comes preloaded with Windows 8. As far as I can tell the package does not includ OS installation CD, so I am worried that I will not be able to do anything is the OS crashes or gets corrupted. The laptop has no CD drive, just two USB slots, so it looks that I will need to buy an USB CD/DVD external drive if I want to format the drive and install Win 7 from the CD that came with my PC. Is that right? Is usual for laptops with preloaded OS not to have some means of re-installing the OS in case of emergency?
Many thanks,
Alex
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Post by merchant42 on Jan 26, 2015 18:46:01 GMT
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Post by mikkh on Jan 27, 2015 13:00:56 GMT
There's almost always a recovery partition which is fine unless the HD gets corrupted. I'd avoid anything cheap with Windows 8 myself, it's likely to be the straw that broke the camels back in terms of performance - it's basically cheap for a reason. Either lacking in processor power or inadequate RAM, possibly both. And legally you can't use your Windows 7 DVD on it, unless it's a multi licence one that's meant for several devices This looks a good deal if you want to spend a bit more - Windows 7 and 8 upgrade option www.ebuyer.com/660265-lenovo-essential-b50-70-laptop-mcc2huk |
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Post by jojo on Jan 27, 2015 14:48:44 GMT
I have a desktop and disconnected my DVD drive. I now use an external one. Reason is, the DVD drive is only being addressed and using power, when I need it.
Merchant's link sounds excellent.
I recently bought a DVD with 12 episodes of Callan from 1967/8. So as you can imagine, I do need that DVD!
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Post by alexham36 on Jan 29, 2015 11:54:36 GMT
Thank you Mikkh. Lenovo looks good. I have not met anyone who liked Win8 and I know one guy who bought a laptop with it installed and refuses to use it!!! I find this strange because when I use the computer I am using applications like Thunderfox; Thunderbird; Libre Office etc, which should look and behave the same irrespective of the OS. I will only see the OS at start and finish of each session and briefly when changing applications. So, what is there to like or dislike about Win8. I probably would not like the touch screen, but only because I am not used to it and I would hate fingerprints all over it. My wife will not know the difference and on a rare occasion when I want to use the laptop, I would plug in Puppy on an USB stick. For my next "project" I will go to a computer shop where they have Win8 running to see what it is to dislike about it.
Thanks again,
Alex
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Post by mikkh on Jan 29, 2015 15:24:16 GMT
Most peoples dislike is the pseudo phone interface, which is meant for touchscreens. That would be fine if Microsoft were actually in touch with reality and didn't 'guesstimate' the demand
it's my belief it was developed for tablets and phones and was never meant to go on desktops. And as the tablet/phone market is already dominated by Apple and Android, there was no way this was going to succeed on them either, so it's a big failure all round.
Windows 8 can be made more tolerable with the freeware 'classic shell' and it's no surprise the new Windows 10 looks more like 7 than 8
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Post by jojo on Jan 30, 2015 14:41:54 GMT
mikkh,
Here's as good a place to ask you as any.
What are your thoughts on W10 and the free offer? Also the glasses?
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Post by disownedsoup on Feb 1, 2015 11:27:01 GMT
I downloaded a Beta version of W10 and its basically W7 revamped.I run W8 and you can tweek it to work without the awful swipe function at corner to corner app opener.
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Post by vikingken on Feb 1, 2015 17:21:31 GMT
Windows 10 is a billion times better than Windows 8, I can use it without going totally insane. Classic Shell makes Windows 8 usable, but only just. I have found Windows 10 very easy to use, but not easy to get into. Windows 7 is easy to work, I applied the same tweaks as I had with XP and had no trouble in finding my way round to do it. Although Windows 10 looks similar on the surface, its screwed up below decks. I'm not too bothered, I think Windows 7 will work for me the rest of my days. If it lasts as long as XP, it will probably out last me by a few years.
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