HP makes Windows 7 default OS for new PCs in US

[naokaji]

HP makes Windows 7 default OS for new PCs in US, Windows 8 only optional.

Source:
HP online shop, http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/hom...hTerm=sevenpcs

Allegedly its due to popular demand.

Wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the Windows 8 design team when they found out

[AbortRetryFail?]

Thread Title Fail ...

Wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the Windows 8 design team when they found out

Operating system ... Laptops & Hybrids
Android (1)
Chrome OS (5)
Windows 7 (2)
Windows 8 (7)
Windows 8.1 (28)

Operating system ... Desktops & AIOs
Android (1)
Windows 7 (3)
Windows 8 (7)
Windows 8.1 (26)

[koc]

I just remember when Intel refused to upgrade from window xp to window vista.

[demonkevy666]

I just remember when Intel refused to upgrade from window xp to window vista.

heh me too I also remember them saying it was 15% slower because the turbo couldn't work right with the thread scheduler throwing around threads on Nehalem hyper threads instead of locking them to main cores and keeping them their.

[rge]

Not surprising, most vendors at the very least are offering a choice, since many wont buy a new laptop with windows 8 on it, let alone that tablet GUI on a desktop.

[AliG]

I actually prefer Windows 8.1 to be honest; still a few driver things here and there but the overall user experience is much better - and I use a desktop

[WangChung]

It's not default. If you try to configure their laptops or desktops with Win7 you are limited by hardware choices. They're just clearing out old inventory it seems.

I just bought a 15t Quad Edition a couple months back and had to manually roll back to Win7 from Win8 by buying a license. If you wanted a machine with Win7 from them you were limited to Intel integrated graphics.

[Buckeye]

I actually prefer Windows 8.1 to be honest; still a few driver things here and there but the overall user experience is much better - and I use a desktop

I agree with this after using Win 8 for sometime now. On tablets Win 8 rocks.

[Heinz68]

Battlefield 4 Windows 7 vs. 8.1 Performance Review HardOCP

Is there a performance advantage in Windows 8.1 versus Windows 7 for BF4? The answer is, "Yes." We consistently found that under Windows 8.1 BF4 performed faster than Windows 7 on both AMD and NVIDIA hardware. Both GPUs, from both vendors, had a consistent performance advantage in every test we performed. More importantly, in the real-world multiplayer gaming session that matters, there was a performance advantage.

Now, this performance advantage is small on the R9 290X at around 3%. It is larger on the GTX 780 at around 6%. We found this more interesting. It seems the GeForce GTX 780 was more advantageous in performance under Windows 8.1 than the R9 290X was. We did not expect that. With all the work AMD has put into BF4 and DX11.1, we figured the R9 290X would show the highest performance advantages. However, the reverse is true. It is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 that is benefiting the most from Windows 8.1.

EDIT
Hope Mantle will fix that

[Sparky]

Really the only things that irritate me about 8/8.1 are:

1) If you want to use any of the handy tiles on the start screen you MUST use a Microsoft account. No way to have the calendar, mail, etc show your Google stuff for example. Makes that nice feature 100% useless. I'm not changing my email address just for that...

2) The start screen is missing the basic Computer, Documents, Control Panel, etc. I know control panel is off to the right, so that isn't too bad, but the rest just not being there is a little dumb. Can't tell you how many times I tap the windows key to then hit Computer just to realize yet again it isn't there.

3) You can no longer drag and drop, right click to delete or move, etc in the start screen. Yes, you can drag the stuff around in the abbreviated "most common" main screen, but not in the everything else list. If you want to clean up the mess in the start menu you have to go dig up that folder as there is no easy access to it.

4) Let's face it, Windows 8 looks very flat and boring. Windows Vista and 7 were both pleasant to look at. I know part of it is because Aero used more resources, but they went too far with it. Win7 basic looked better than Win8. Even win95 has more shape than Win8. Feels like they focused far too much on underpowered tablets that couldn't handle a little more visual style. How much more did Aero really use anyway? Integrated Intel video from 6 years ago could still run Aero, come on.

Over all, I don't mind Windows 8.1 (I love that new task manager, and finally they fixed Windows Backup!) but a few things just grind my gears.

[AliG]

I think you may just need to get used to some of the features:

1) You don't need a microsoft account, you can actually set up a local one instead if you prefer. As for google, my outlook is setup to work with my umich google imap and works just fine. The tile doesn't live update, but you still get the ribbon notifications.

2) If you right click on the start button, you can access pretty much anything important (including subfolders within control panel). My computer was replaced with the folder icon on the taskbar, which really is the same exact thing - just without having to go through the start menu.

3) I'm not sure what you want here. You can arrange the main start screen however you like, the extended one happens to be alphabetical. That actually makes a lot of sense to me.

4) I'll give you that one. The themes in 8 are better, and I love that you can control multiple monitors to have different backgrounds and scaling, but they should have kept aero.

[bmaverick]

Hate 8. 7 is heaven.

[NKrader]

glad, if i were to purchase anything i would buy a apple before getting a computer with windows 8 on it..

such a silly os..

[AliG]

Again, you guys should really give 8.1 a shot. There's actually quite a different overall user experience from Windows 8.

[Sparky]

I think you may just need to get used to some of the features:

1) You don't need a microsoft account, you can actually set up a local one instead if you prefer. As for google, my outlook is setup to work with my umich google imap and works just fine. The tile doesn't live update, but you still get the ribbon notifications.

2) If you right click on the start button, you can access pretty much anything important (including subfolders within control panel). My computer was replaced with the folder icon on the taskbar, which really is the same exact thing - just without having to go through the start menu.

3) I'm not sure what you want here. You can arrange the main start screen however you like, the extended one happens to be alphabetical. That actually makes a lot of sense to me.

4) I'll give you that one. The themes in 8 are better, and I love that you can control multiple monitors to have different backgrounds and scaling, but they should have kept aero.

I'll try to clarify a bit (though it is 1 AM and I really should have been in bed a long time ago, so it may not be very clear anyway!)

1) Not the computer account. I have a local account only on the computer (although they sure push a microsoft account and the cloud very heavily. A local only isn't a very obvious option). I meant having those handy tiles/apps work with my Google email/calendar/etc. They don't. Microsoft only. I kind of get why, but I think they could have been a little nicer to allow it to operate with others like Google. Although, maybe the limitation is more on Google's side perhaps? Really don't know. Maybe my irritation is misplaced.

2) I know the folder is there on the task bar, but old habits die hard Would it have killed them to have it in both spots like they did in 7? Besides, it takes you to "libraries" not the root "Computer" first! Yes I know I could change that too I'm just whining about them removing a feature that started in XP that I really have liked and gotten used to lol. Until 8.1, there was no start button to right click on. SO glad they brought the button back, removing it was probably the stupidest thing they ever did.

3) Try right clicking anything in the full start screen to edit, or delete, or whatever. You can't. That's what I mean. A minor thing, really, but still annoying that I cannot do some "spot" clean up of my start menu from within it but rather have to go into the folder view. I always have done the folder view when doing any major changes as that was always faster, but for a quickie "oh I want that gone" it was nice to just do it right there in the menu. Not anymore. Oh, I do wish you could collapse the menu groups like in all the previous versions instead of having every sub menu in the start menu opened up across the whole screen. Just looks very cluttered, and I hate clutter

[deathman20]

Win7 vs Win8 = Win7 wins
Win7 vs Win8.1 = I don't know but I'm willing to try it out at least...

Personally if they can make Win8.1 or Win8.2 similar experience as Win7 without dealing with Metro all the time, it will have a better chance that I'd upgrade to the OS. There are other advantages to the upgrade as well, but if I have to consider using Metro day in and day out on a desktop I think it would drive me mad. Its already a pain just working on relatives PC's that have Win8 installed.

[Evantaur]

Again, you guys should really give 8.1 a shot. There's actually quite a different overall user experience from Windows 8.

?
i did give it a shot, and it was terrible...removed it from my laptop in a month

[crash5s]

Win 8 is fine. It's faster than 7 and has everything that 7 has.

I can see the gripes if you were someone who manually clicked on everything you wanted with the mouse cursor instead of using shortcuts, because you now have to about things from a different manner... but that's grandma level problems right there.

[Evantaur]

Win 8 is fine. It's faster than 7 and has everything that 7 has.

I can see the gripes if you were someone who manually clicked on everything you wanted with the mouse cursor instead of using shortcuts, because you now have to about things from a different manner... but that's grandma level problems right there.

it's not all that bad...just some software that i need doesn't run, RTC issue when overclocking, and then there's the Rubik's cube known as modern ui...tho i liked some modern ui apps like the weather app

[Buckeye]

For my desktop I use Start8 and 8GadgetPack to get gadgets back.

It boots right to the desktop and I use it just like Win 7

[kromosto]

When i tried 8.1 i lost my usb 3.0 and x-fi titanium also still have very stupid things which are not suitable for desktops like dragging metro apps to bottom for closing them. I returned back to win7 on on my desktop (can live with usage things and xfi problem but usb 3.0 is important) but still have 8.1 running on my laptop but i think if i format that again i will install win7 on it. Doesn't make sense to use 8.1 when forceing myself to use it like 7.

[Manicdan]

Again, you guys should really give 8.1 a shot. There's actually quite a different overall user experience from Windows 8.

at work 8.1 was:
a nagging error message asking us to upgrade all the time, then it did it without me actually approving it,
forced a re-install of windows along with authentication because 8.1 on enterprise is treated as a different version instead of as a software patch,
broke video card drivers,
forced screen scaling options that made no sense and could not easily be turned off,
broke our network vpn,
and in some cases BSOD'ed the machine after the update finished.

8.1 was and still is a nightmare for us.

[alpha0ne]

at work 8.1 was:
a nagging error message asking us to upgrade all the time, then it did it without me actually approving it,
forced a re-install of windows along with authentication because 8.1 on enterprise is treated as a different version instead of as a software patch,
broke video card drivers,
forced screen scaling options that made no sense and could not easily be turned off,
broke our network vpn,
and in some cases BSOD'ed the machine after the update finished.

8.1 was and still is a nightmare for us.

Maybe your work should sue ms for all the downtime

I used W8 for over a year with Start8 so basically it worked as W7 . . . . . BUT . . . . . being forced to use the windows 'store' for silly things like burning an OS image because W7 DVD Tool refused to work with W8 (maybe I'm just dumb, and VERY impatient and pressed for time) and when you do find a app from the windows store it tries to install bloatware/payware as well if you fail to de-select all the hidden crap, I wiped the next day and 'downgraded' to W7

I'll bet the OEM's are screaming bloody murder, never mind the economic downturn when ms are also killing potential sales

[Sparky]

I've really had very few issues with 8.1, stability-wise.

My laptop came with Win7 Pro, with recovery DVDs for both 7 and 8.

[kiwi]

at work 8.1 was:
and in some cases BSOD'ed the machine after the update finished.

8.1 was and still is a nightmare for us.

I had similar issues with 8.1. Win8 was fine but 8.1 random BSODs. Analyzing crash dumps did not help much. I am back to Win 7. On other configs though Win 8.1 works just fine.