two for one post…

i’m going to buy a cheap ‘make do’ pc and its looking like one from ebuyer with no os is the best deal.

is windows 8 the way to go or am i right that 7 is better? may be totally wrong on that. currently on xp.

also wheres generally the cheapest to buy the os from?

whatever you do dont buy Win8 its an annoying schizo POS on a PC

Just bought a new OEM copy of Win 7 home from Amazon.
Avoid win 8. It’s is rubbish. In my opinion

Windows 8 is perfectly useable and with 8.1 it’s now possible to make it work very similarly to 7. If you really dislike it, you can install classic shell or similar to make it look near enough like W7 to make no real difference.

I wouldn’t put 7 on anything new especially if you’re likely to want to keep using it for a good while (which still being on XP suggests you are).

http://www.classicshell.net/

I’ve been looking at getting a new MS O/S and think that Win 8.1 is the way to go – can upgrade no problem from Win 8 I believe. Win 7 is good though and if it was much cheaper I’d go for that. Best prices I’ve seen are on Amazon.

Wouldn’t touch 8 with a shitty stick. Bloody dad went and bought a laptop without saying anything with it on and guess who gets called when something won’t work. I think I’d buy a mac first.

Is Linux something you have thought about? Any specific Win requirements?

I got an OS free laptop from ebuyer and stuck Ubuntu on there as a stop gap – 7 years ago. Now on Mint and no need to go back to Windows.

Completely free download and you can run from a Live CD to “try before you buy”.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Do you have anyone in education in your family?

http://software4students.co.uk/products/windows-8-dot-1-oem-full-version

i run stuff that needs windows so linux is out i’m afraid.

an oem of 7 from ebay for 35quid is looking like the best way so far.

but then the new question is, 32bit or 64?

but then the new question is, 32bit or 64?

How much RAM is in the PC?

IIRC, the same licence can be used for either edition of W7, but it’s different under W8. I think, anyway. My copy of W7 came with both discs (as did my Vista).

how “make do” do you want?

http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/product_detail/14726/IBM-Lenovo-Thinkcentre-S51-8171-P4-3-2Ghz-1Gb-40GB-Win-7-Home-with-CDROM-17-LCD-keyboard-Mouse/

Just to flesh that out,

32-bit supports up to 4Gb of RAM, any more than that and you’ll need x64; so if there’s a chance you’re going to be going beyond 4Gb now or in the future then go x64.

There’s a widely held belief that you “need” x64 to utilise all the memory, which whilst true is a misleading oversimplification. If the maximum you’re ever going to install is 4Gb (in a low spec PC that may be all you can install) then I’d stick with a 32-bit OS.

TBH though I’ve not used it loads, I can’t see where the extra performance that win 8 is supposed to have over Win 7 is…
Win8 can be configure back to look and be usable like Win7, so why not just buy Win7?
Window 8 works ok with touch screens, but is a waste of time IMHO on non-touch screen machines.

I have an original XP CD so I just need an upgrade right? I plan to install onto a blank HD so will it just ask for me to insert the CD to verify I have a copy – this is what XP did IIRC.

a) I don’t think you can just give it a disc, you have to have Windows already installed, and,

b) I don’t think offhand you can upgrade from XP, the “upgrade” version is from Vista only.

Further reading.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_use_your_windows_7_upgrade_disk_fresh_pc