Railfan Technology > Windows7

I'm in need of a W7 CD. Had to get a new computer 2 weeks ago and it has W8.1 on it and I need W7 in order to run a bowling program on it. I can't scan pic. from my printer to PC as it says it isn't compatable. I'v never heard anything good avout the W8 and I believe it very much. If anybody has a W7 CD that they don't need any more, I would be interested. upkpfan

Did you try using 8.1's compatability mode feature? It may work for those programs, but I had a couple of programs that no longer work with 8.1, including a DeLorme map program, even when using the compatability feature. 

No, I didn't as I know nothing about this. Where is it at? Thank you. upkpfan

upkpfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm in need of a W7 CD. Had to get a new computer
> 2 weeks ago and it has W8.1 on it and I need W7 in
> order to run a bowling program on it. I can't scan
> pic. from my printer to PC as it says it isn't
> compatable. I'v never heard anything good avout
> the W8 and I believe it very much. If anybody has
> a W7 CD that they don't need any more, I would be
> interested. upkpfan

And you never will hear anything good on W8.x. You can still buy Win7 and not have to mess with the transfer of ownership with MS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5213932&srkey=M17-7302) . You should also know its not that easy to load Win7 over a W8,x machine. Make sure you find Win7 specific drivers for your motherboard chip sets, audio, video, hard drive control, etc. You also need to disable the UEFI in the BIOS. MS has an article on downgrading to Win7 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2832566). You may fine it easier to install Win7 on another partition and dual boot your machine.

upkpfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, I didn't as I know nothing about this. Where
> is it at? Thank you. upkpfan

You will need to find the executable file that starts the program, a file with the extension .exe.  Right click on the file name, and you should bring up a menu that has an item "troubleshoot compatibility." This feature will allow you to try to run the program as though you were using another operating system. I may or may not work -- I have a couple of programs that will not run with 8/8.1. You could also see if the manufacturer of the program has an update that would allow it to work with your operating system. Sometimes, however, you are just faced with either getting a new and compatible program or reinstalling a previous operating system. 

Others may have another solution to your problem.

See, this is why I have a MAC with an InTel processer. Yes, I know they're expensive but you can do more with them. I have a program called "Parallels" and it will allow you to run Windows Programs on your Mac. Don't mess around with "Boot Camp", partitioing your hard drive and all that crap. I run XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 with Windows 10 soon to follow. Do this and all these problems fade away. You can run DARN NEAR ANY PROGRAM.

Plenty of OEM disks on ebay.co.uk like this
eBay item number:301697196501

Microsoft is giving free upgrades to Windows 10 if you currently have 7 or 8.   Just upgraded my laptop tonight from 8.1 to 10 and looks alot better.  Upgraded the desktop from 7 to 10 and had a minor glitch that had to be fixed by looking online and seeing it has happened to other folks.  Took about 2 minutes to fix.  I really never did like Windows 8 and it appears so far that 10 is alot better.

As noted previously, it's not a problem to find a Windows 7 CD.  The problem is device drivers.  Although I've never installed an earlier version of Windows on my computers I've built (as well as on friends computers), even reinstalling the original version can be difficult for a number of reasons, sopmetimes necessitating looking at individudal chip numbers on the mother board and getting the appropriate drivers online.

Depending on how new your computer is, the vendor of the computer, the video chip(s), sound chip, I/O chip, etc may or may not have had a Windows 7 version, as the chips may have been made since Windows 8 became the 'defacto standard' for all new computers.  If you're really lucky, the Windows 7 CD might have the drivers, or, the chips are generic-enough that something close might work. 

One of the other problems with getting a Windows 7 disk from <somewhere> is that it may not be the correct version.  Microsoft has several 'flavors' of the Windows 7 CD, including OEM version(s), computer manufacturer version(s), and full retail versions.  I would not expect the Dell-specific version to have drivers that work on Toshiba laptops, for example.  Add to the fun, that Windows 7 and later (or maybe Vista) has 'authentic version' verification when the installation is 'registered' shortly after installation...you get maybe 14 days 'grace' before it will stop working if unregistered.  Even on the same physical computer after doing a Format C: and re-installing everything due to a virus problem, Windows automatically checks your hardware (processor, RAM, and maybe HD) to verify that it's the same one as originally registered.  If there's a mis-match, it may or may not successfully 'register'.  Then there's pirate CDs.  Depending on where one buys it from, pirate CDs install fine and dandy, and may even allow a seemingly genuine registration.  However, it could have been a 'fake' screen created by the pirates, as well.  More often, however, is the pirates provide a special executable file to run that will mark the 'registration complete' indicators in the Windows Registry. But Windows 7 and later routinely re-checks authenticity, most often after doing a hardware upgrade such as adding RAM.  Somehow, it detects pirate versions, I don't know how, though.  It may even stop doing Windows 7 updates once a pirate version has been detected, again, I don't know for sure.

I had my first encounter with Windows 8 when a friend bought a new laptop computer a month ago and asked me for help, as it was completely foreign looking.  I've known that since the introduction of Windows 8 and 8.1, there's software available to restore the 'look and feel' of Windows 7 (or even XP!).  So I simply Googled: make windows 8 look like windows 7 and chose the program from Classicshell.net.  After that, almost all the time it had the complete look and feel of Windows 7.  I also gave them a nice donation via Paypal.  Yes, there's ways to fiddle around with settings in Windows 8 to make it more like Win 7, but the Classicshell program was easy and trouble free.  And no, I'm not a shill for that company.  I had read that name numerous times and even read multiple reviews of the product when it first came out.  So when I saw that name as one of the Google results, I went with them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/15 08:17 by BRAtkinson.

BRAtkinson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Add to the fun, that
> Windows 7 and later (or maybe Vista) has
> 'authentic version' verification when the
> installation is 'registered' shortly after
> installation...you get maybe 14 days 'grace'
> before it will stop working if unregistered. 
> Even on the same physical computer after doing a
> Format C: and re-installing everything due to a
> virus problem, Windows automatically checks your
> hardware (processor, RAM, and maybe HD) to verify
> that it's the same one as originally registered. 
> If there's a mis-match, it may or may not
> successfully 'register'.  Then there's pirate
> CDs.  Depending on where one buys it from, pirate
> CDs install fine and dandy, and may even allow a
> seemingly genuine registration.  However, it
> could have been a 'fake' screen created by the
> pirates, as well.  More often, however, is the
> pirates provide a special executable file to run
> that will mark the 'registration complete'
> indicators in the Windows Registry. But Windows 7
> and later routinely re-checks authenticity, most
> often after doing a hardware upgrade such as
> adding RAM.  Somehow, it detects pirate versions,
> I don't know how, though.  It may even stop doing
> Windows 7 updates once a pirate version has been
> detected, again, I don't know for sure.

The "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" started with Windows Vista. I owned a license for Home Premium, and wanted to install it on another machine which had a licensed version of Vista Business, which had mediocre codec support for video editing. The registration is checked whenever you run Windows Update, which means authenticity of the license is checked over the network. There are many other ways Microsoft checks the license, so disconnecting the network is NOT a workaround, but for Vista anyway, your Windows is functional, but you get a black background saying "Not Genuine" and you can't personalize your desktop. The first Vista released to the public deliberately slowed down your system if your copy was not "Genuine," which generated lots of complaints and bad publicity, so Microsoft went to the unpersonalizable black nag screen instead.

I called Microsoft and obtained a Home Premium license for the ex-Vista Business machine to make the installation work. The install CD was for Gateway, but it worked just fine on a Dell, but like you mentioned, I had to obtain device drivers separately, which were easy to find. In the meantime, the newly installed Vista ran on generic drivers.

My suggestion for those who want to "downgrade" is to find a secondhand machine with your desired version of Windows already installed and licensed. Prices tend to go down the more you wait, so time is on your side. The money paid for that second machine is worth it, if you don't want to waste hours and hours of time re-installing an OS on your current machine, and risk crashing it if something goes wrong. The good ol' days (Windows 2000 and older) of easily installing/re-installing/swapping different OS on one machine is over.

cchan006 Wrote:
> My suggestion for those who want to "downgrade" is
> to find a secondhand machine with your desired
> version of Windows already installed and licensed.
> Prices tend to go down the more you wait, so time
> is on your side. The money paid for that second
> machine is worth it, if you don't want to waste
> hours and hours of time re-installing an OS on
> your current machine, and risk crashing it if
> something goes wrong. The good ol' days (Windows
> 2000 and older) of easily
> installing/re-installing/swapping different OS on
> one machine is over.

That is exactly what I did about a year ago.  I purchased a seller-refurb ASUS laptop online, with a clean installed, genuine Windows 7 Home on it.  Added 4gig RAM and cloned the HD to SSD using my 'big' computer and it's worked fine ever since!  Unless it goes toes-up, I'll keep it until perhaps 12 months AFTER Windows 7 support ends.  FWIW, I still have my XP computer up and running as some software I use either doesn't exist for Win 7 (vendor out of business) or the cost of getting an upgrade version is unreasonable.  One thing I did when I went to Win 7 as my primary computer was to buy 1 or 2 release 'old' versions of software I regularly use as they hit the market after Win 7.  I paid about 10-15 cents on the dollar for 3-4 year old software!