Building My first PC, should I use Windows 7 or Windows 8?

[c627627]

Yes here's what you do:




Everything you need is and can be in your custom Start Menu and if for whatever reason you want to access Metro or Charms,
you simply hold SHIFT when clicking Start Menu button and there they are, bonus Windows 8 features, which your Windows 7 doesn't have and for certain things in the future which would have been excellent if they weren't set up to be the default GUI in 2013 when tiny fraction of the market is on touch screen.

 

[habbajabba]

After shopping for a new laptop and seeing as how the store (fry's) was trying to force windows 8 (99% were 8) on me I got pissed. It's quite obvious what they were doing and apparently from what the (ignorant-no offense) clerk said no new pc's will ship with anything BUT 8. MS will be the last idjits to force anything on me & 7 does everything 8 does; from touchscreen to fingerprint readers, anything. The metro ui is a joke to say the least.
In any case for a small touchpad such as the dell it may be perfect, but for a large screen desktop home pc? Hell NO. Plus like any os once installed what's the point of having abilities for other devices for which the os is not installed on? I could run out and buy a super expensive ts but I doubt it. Also the last thing I want to do is to have manually configure it in order to use it like a normal pc user would want. Windows already has that problem and in a bad way.
Putting shutdown shortcuts in the start menu is as easy as creating the 2 bat files in a folder, creating shortcuts for them, changing the icons, dragging them to the menu, and lastly naming them.
OTH I got a fujitsu 17.3'' with O as in NO crap AT ALL on it with 7 (f8). Plus they partitioned the 700 odd gb drive into 2 equal parts which i notice no other manufacturer's do. Less than 600$. Too bad it's only 2.5ghz. I actually plan on getting the 10'' Pengpod with linux installed. It's only around $200 with a separate keyboard.

That's xp. That sf menu prog does not work for xp.

That's 7 with the Classic Start Menu customized.

 

[c627627]

It's true Windows 8 is pushed onto most newly released Laptops.

You probably shouldn't Spend $ to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 8 but given an equal choice b/w the two where no money is spent, I would take a chance with Windows 8 on a new system.

You can totally disable Metro but it will be there if you ever get new monitor touchscreen technology that's coming, it will be there as an option, maybe you never get to use it, but it's not like you can't disable it for now.

The only reason no to go Win8, given an equal choice is if truly two identical new hardware systems with Win7 and win8 installed and one Win8 can't run your program and Win7 can, but having a multi-boot I have yet to test anything I cannot run under Win8 that I can if I boot into Win7, so I'm not too sure compatibility is a wide-spread problem. Get a 32-Bit Win8 for wider compatibility maybe if that's the case.


We usually uninstall most stuff off of retail Laptops so yes the problem is that it might take longer but for high end, I would be on a look out for feather light new stuff with new generation Intel CPUs, since clock for clock they will run faster.

On the cheap end, Office Depot frequently has sales on an Ivy Bridge CPU with 750GB hard drive for $399, less with coupons (I snagged one for $349). Windows 8 of course, but since no touch screen, just get rid of Metro, I liked that is has Win8 since you can hook up future touch screens to it through HDMI for home use. I think it would boot slower if I put Win7 on it.

 

[c627627]

I guess we need a reference. Would the boot be just as slow on the identical system with identical programs installed under Win7?

When people do that and use a stop watch, what happens?


EDIT: I just rebooted into Windows 8 then rebooted into Windows 7. Using a stopwatch to measure: Windows 7 is a few seconds slower than Windows 8 on my Desktop.



_____________________
Intel i7 950 [206] BCLK x 20 = 4.12 GHz @ [1.4000] CPU Voltage & [1.35000] QPI/DRAM Uncore Voltage, Batch 3029A40
2 x 4GB Kingston HyperX T1 DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) [DDR3-1651MHz] 9-9-9-27 @ 1.66 DRAM Bus Voltage
ASUS P6T Deluxe v.1 [LGA 1366 Intel X58] BIOS 2209
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT with 120mm Scythe S-Flex F fan
ATi Radeon HD 7870 XFX Black 2GB HDMI 2XDVI GDDR5 1050MHz Core Clock
OCZ Agility 3 180GB SSD
Asus Xonar DX sound card
Antec nine hundred case, two front 120mm fans, one back 120mm Fan, one top 200mm fan
Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W

 

[habbajabba]

XP on my 2ghz older laptop boots extremely fast, faster than 7 that's for sure, using the .Net vbs at startup.
C6 you have a sick sig.
I attached the .net4 script if anyone's interested. It goes in: All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\Microsoft .NET Framework v4 - Slow Windows XP Boot Fix.vbs

 

[c627627]

I don't know about that, it was originally built in Nov 2008, the first day i7 was launched. But hey - the power of overclocking - back in 2011 I asked over in Intel CPU section of the forums what the best thing running as a show model on the floor at the store, Best Buy, Micro Center , Frys, etc. and if it can beat my 4.1 GHz LGA 1366 system from 2008 and they said there wasn't.

I'd kind of like to know if there is now, maybe later this year Intel Haswell platform will finally outperform it at stock?


But actually I can confirm you are right for Windows XP, last night I did also reboot into my Windows XP partition and interestingly, it clocked in about 1 second faster than my boot into Windows 7 partition [all OS partitions were the same SSD.]

 

[makoppag3]

The new Start Screen 'invisible' button is not that annoying anymore, as I have got used to it while testing the Consumer Preview. The way that Microsoft reorganized things in Win 8 makes sense now, if you use it on one of those hybrid touch laptops.

Even so, if I were to bring back the Win 7 orb I would suggest the Start8 tweak from StarDock. It costs around five bucks for the full version so I guess that pretty much anyone can buy it if they hate the new Metro UI.

 

[c627627]

And why spend your five bucks when Classic Shell is fully customizable and Free?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/files/

 

[m715]

I'm debating the same thing with my new build, I have both win 7 & 8 Pro, i picked up a retail copy of the WIN 8 pro upgrade for about $27-28 AR from newegg. I have tried WIN 8 in the past and just gone back to 7.

I did a full install on my new desktop but it didn't like either a 7770 or GTX 650 graphics card, install would start and then just turn black, just went to on board graphics for the install, now just waiting for my 7970 to show up

Two things I have to read up on and figure out...
1) How to do a clean install with the WIN 8 upgrade disc? 1st time I tried I had 11GB left on my 120GB SSD, it keep almost everything, yet was told to keep nothing. 2nd time I've got 40GB left, it still kept an old system when told to keep nothing.

2) How to enter the BIOS On boot up the screen stays black until the metro screen shows up

I'm sure these are pretty simple I've just got to do some reading on windows 8, but this thread has given me some hope that I can modify the interface and get rid of metro.

 

[c627627]

1. [If you upgraded] To free up a considerable amount of disk space: Hover mouse over top right corner > Search icon > click on Settings > type this in the search box:
clean > Click on Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files > Select the system drive > OK > Click on Clean up system files button > Select the system drive > OK > CHECK: Previous Windows installation(s) and scroll down and CHECK: Temporary Windows installation files > OK > Delete Files

2. Depending on the system, you need to hold keyboard key like ESCAPE while booting up to get into BIOS.


You can modify the interface. You can get rid of Metro. You can COMPLETELY disable its GUI, while also having the option to hold shift and click on the Start Menu button to get into it.

 

[m715]

1. [If you upgraded] To free up a considerable amount of disk space: Hover mouse over top right corner > Search icon > click on Settings > type this in the search box:
clean > Click on Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files > Select the system drive > OK > Click on Clean up system files button > Select the system drive > OK > CHECK: Previous Windows installation(s) and scroll down and CHECK: Temporary Windows installation files > OK > Delete Files

2. Depending on the system, you need to hold keyboard key like ESCAPE while booting up to get into BIOS.

You can modify the interface. You can get rid of Metro. You can COMPLETELY disable its GUI, while also having the option to hold shift and click on the Start Menu button to get into it.

Thanks for the tips!
I also was reading your thread, How I modded my Windows 8 installation - How (not) to install Windows 8 and got some more good ideas from that.