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Question of the Day: How do you normally pay for purchases in stores?
New PC has Windows 8 pre-installed & Dont Want It
- Thread starter Bandicoot
- Start date
biometrics
Honorary Master
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- Aug 7, 2003
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Install the free ClassicShell and it will be a lot like Windows 7.
Chevron
Serial breaker of phones
Just get this and you will be happy:
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
There is a 30day trial to test it out.
grim
Expert Member
No, just no.
Stop being freetards and suggesting Linux as a desktop OS replacement for Windows. ****all the AVERAGE user is going to want to use works on it.
Linux has it's uses, but a desktop OS isn't one of them.
@OP What's your gripes with 8?
I find it far better than 7 once you get used to it and having played with 8.1 on my laptop and tablet it brings many welcomed improvements with it. 8.1 will be a free upgrade and should be available to everyone in the next 2 to 3 months.
If you really want to install an OS that's 10 years old(XP) you will probably need to disable secure boot in the BIOS. Note that XP won't support some of the newer technologies if you have a discrete graphics card, for that matter neither will 7 support the latest technologies.
Chris14
Expert Member
why not buy a custom pc? (i.e. no license or pre-installed)
Um, where have you been the last decade. Linux desktop is going strong. Go ask the devs at Steam. Its so easy I have my gran using it.
Yeah, it makes a brilliant desktop. Sorry if you dont know how to use it. It works fine for even below average users. Its very very simple to install and use. . All you need to do is have the capacity to insert a cd and click "next" a lot of times. Installing applications is even easier. You open the software center (thats the big yellow icon that says "Software Center" underneath it), click on the skype icon and then click install. You dont even have to visit a website and download an exe to install.
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akescpt
Honorary Master
sister complained about the same thing yesterday. will install ClassicShell and see how she like it. thanx.
Venomous
Honorary Master
It loads to the "normal" desktop she will be more familiar with...
grim
Expert Member
*cough*BS*cough*
Windows 7   44.49%
Windows XP 37.17%
OS X 7.20%
Windows 8 5.40%
Windows Vista 4.24%
Linux 1.25%
Other 2.04%
A whole 1.25% that's going really strong there, lol.
Get Nvidia Optimus or the Radeon hybrid graphics to work perfectly, for that fact get official drivers for all the hardware. Yeah um not happening.
Oh look Windows has a store now no need to download an exe either...
With desktop PC sales in a free fall don't expect Linux to gain much anytime soon either.
I work with a company that specialises in enterprise Linux solutions, they don't even run Linux as their primary OS on their laptops.
Sauce for market share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
PS. Stop being a cheapskate and buy a properly supported OS
@Bandicoot: Have you used Windows 8 yet? Maybe give it a go and see if you like it. After using it for some time now I don't really want them to bring the start menu back, and it's been the fastest & most stable Windows o/s I've used so far.
MickZA
Executive Member
Why would you need to buy Win 8 if it's already installed
... download ClassicShell for now and wait for the Win 8.1 update.
Fedora 19 with Gnome 3.8 is my current linux flavour
... smooth as silk.NeoNarchy
Senior Member
If you own xp then you can install it legally.You will need to slipstream the sata controller drivers into the xp media. Google nlite. Confusing but very easy. Once the controller driver is included it will detect the hdd. Another thing to look at is that the sata controller emulates as ide & not achi in the bios. When thats done xp should install & then you just need drivers. I use aida64 for that.
1.25% of 200 million computers a year. :erm: thats still a ****ing big piece of pie.
Ive never had a problem with my nvidia graphics gaming cards. I just use the drivers nvidia supply me. I buy nvidia because they make linux drivers.
Yeah they are pretty behind everyone else. Good for them to catch up at last. Makes for a better OS.
Oh it is. Its dominating (server, tablet, smartphone) almost every market but the desktop computing market. Now that we have major vendors starting to support native linux apps its only going up.
At their own risk.
Well I own Windows 8. I am a multi OS user. I decided not to have a single myopic view to operating systems and embrace them all. I cant use Microsoft at work. Too much risk and I work with sensitive client data. Like Google we cant risk running MS with our clients data. .
grim
Expert Member
That's total market share not yearly sales share.
I specifically mentioned Nvidia Optimus and the Radeon hybrid as niether manufacturer provides officially supported drivers for it on Linux and the 3rd party solutions suck.
True, I'll concede that they were way to slow to bring something like that to Windows
Tablet market is currently owned by Apple's iOS, while Android, which owns the smartphone market, is Linux base it's so far removed from a desktop distro of Linux I wouldn't really call it Linux anymore.
PR BS from Google. They are competing head on with MS these days so of course they will try to tarnish their reputation to turn people to their solutions.
A OS is only as secure as the person operating it and if the information is extremely sensitive it shouldn't be on an internet connected machine no less a user's desktop/laptop.
Windows security used to suck balls back in the day, MS has upped their game around this tremendously since the release of Vista onwards.
My biggest thing is MS Office, nothing comes close to the functionality of Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook and widespread use of it. Yes MS screwed the little guys by using a proprietary file format when Office originally came out, but if you own 90%+ of the market you kinda do get to decide what standards you want to use. I know it can be run in Wine, but why have to go through that just to get something to work that I can just install off a CD without anything else onto my Windows machine?
Then you lack understanding of the definition of the word Linux. It is Linux even if it doesnt suite your personal but different definition of the term.
Since I run an ISP and see daily the hack, spear phishing, phishing, ddos and brute force attacks on my network I can safely say they are on the ball.
Sorry, but MS fails all the time. As the pwn2own contents show. I can easly create a RAT that is crypted that can exploit the latest browsers and evade the top AV vendors. I can create those RATs easily for Windows. Your AV, browser, OS and firewall are not going to stop that type of spearphishing. And thats using cheap and easily accessible exploits. Mac and Linux are much more difficult to exploit.
Sorry man,its the easiest OS to exploit. I can turn a browser and fork a process just by getting someone to visit a website (they dont even have to interact with anything).
MS Office is a great Office suite. I do run a copy of it 2010 on my ubuntu desktop (I own CrossOver so its easy as anything to install) for the odd file that has some strange propriety code in it, though thats kinda still legacy computing. We moved all our documents in to the cloud a while ago. Best move ever. You should hurry up and catch up and get into the cloud.
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bekdik
Honorary Master
Try out ClassicShell and Start8, then if you are still desperately unhappy, which you won't be, you still have the choice of purchasing Windows 7.
If the WinXP you have is an OEM version, you won't be able to use it on another machine.
If the WinXP you have is an OEM version, you won't be able to use it on another machine.
NomNom
Executive Member
How so? You need to disable UEFI in the BIOS for it to pick up the Windows XP Disc.