HP brings back Windows 7 by popular demand

The Verge ^ | 1/20/14 | Tom Warren

[newfreep]

Your comment is irrelevant.

The issue was people falsely propagating a myth that Win 8.1 cannot run old programs.

My experience indicates Win 8.1 DOES indeed run older programs such as 2003 Office/Outlook that I was running on Win7.

[GreyFriar]

yep, verrrrrry interrrressstingggg

[Red in Blue PA]

I upgraded to 8 about 2 months ago, and have actually come to like it. Very stable. It just takes some getting used to. But I would never go back.

[dforest]

How do I install classic shell? I have a computer with 7, but this windows 8 is freakin awful.

[Still Thinking]

If you have a license for Win8, I believe you already have the right to “downgrade” it to 7, whether HP will do anything for you or not. So IOW, you already have a license, you just need to find some Win7 install media somewhere.

[GeronL]

http://www.classicshell.net/

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmarked.

[Still Thinking]

Shoot, I liked Word for DOS better than the alternatives (primarily Word Perfect). Winword is...OK, relative to the alternatives, but not impressively good like Word for DOS was.

[GeronL]

Word for DOS

Still sounds funny to me.

[Still Thinking]

Or as we liked to call it at the time “Word for DOGS”, replace by “Word for Widows”!

[Repeal 16-17]

It takes 2 minutes to install “classic shell” on windows 8, which bypasses metro on start and gives you a windows 7 interface.

What is the substantive difference between Windows 7 and the classic-shell version of Windows 8?

[GeronL]

There are some alternatives to the Microsoft stuff these days, LibreOffice does about 99%+ what MS Word can do I think.

[GeronL]

Windows 7 does not constantly ask you to upload your very soul to the cloud.

I mean, from what I gather by reading these threads.

[Still Thinking]

Yeah, it’s OK, except for that stupid combination recent file list (like if Word, Excel, Access, etc., shared a recent file list). Unfortunately, there are a couple critical things it’s missing that I need, more in Calc vs. Excel than in WP app. One thing that’s is missing in the word processor though, is the ability to search for formatting characters in Word. Like search for for ‘^t’ to find tabs or ‘^p’ to find paragraph marks. The Windows office suite field is OK. They’re all decent, but no standouts, OO and Office included. Fortunately I don’t have to do most of my work in those type apps.

[GeronL]

Last time I needed it, OpenOffice did not do interactive forms very well (or at all). “Fill in the blanks” kind of thing.

[Varmint Al]

My solution is a dual boot system with KUBUNTU & Windows XP Pro. I have been spending more and more time on the Linux side. XP can die slowly as I slowly give up on Windows.

Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

[oh8eleven]

My point was old, 2003 programs installed & operate perfectly on Win8.1
Well, my point was that it's not surprising that 2003 MICROSOFT programs installed & operated perfectly on Win8.1 because it's a MICROSOFT OS.

[dangerdoc]

ahhh, thanks, didn’t know how to turn that off.

[dangerdoc]

I use Start 8, it actually looks and acts very much like Win 7.

Although, I’m missing Media Center.

[KevinB]

It takes 2 minutes to install “classic shell” on windows 8, which bypasses metro on start and gives you a windows 7 interface.

That eliminates any reason I can see for preferring windows 7 over 8.

Agreed. Windows 8 is more robust than 7 and boots significantly faster. I just moved all my XP machines to 8 and am quite pleased.