What does the Fox say?

[blybrook PE]

Here's one for the Fox. What current laptop manufacturer still produces a product that can be downgraded to Win7? Most of the information I've seen recently is no downgrades possible, stuck with Win8.x (horrible in my opinion).

Currently steering towards Dell, HP and Compaq. Trying to avoid Acer and Toshiba (bad previous experiences).

Have been out of the computer spec side of things for a few too many years. Old HP is on it's last legs, the battery lasts maybe 30 minutes and it's taking longer to boot every day. It's had a hard life though, I'll send it out in style when the time comes.

 

[Flyer_PE]

I haven't looked in a while but you could still get Win7 machines on the business side of Dell's web site. I picked up a new laptop last Summer for that very reason.

 

[blybrook PE]

^ Yeah, I've been looking at the business side for a while. With the move; it's been tough to have the spare $$$...

Currently, the laptop is used for business purposes mainly. No gaming (random solitare sessions don't count), but has to be robust enough to handle ACAD & Revit. I think those are my two main resource hogs.

 

[knight1fox3]

Here's one for the Fox. What current laptop manufacturer still produces a product that can be downgraded to Win7? Most of the information I've seen recently is no downgrades possible, stuck with Win8.x (horrible in my opinion).

Currently steering towards Dell, HP and Compaq. Trying to avoid Acer and Toshiba (bad previous experiences).

Have been out of the computer spec side of things for a few too many years. Old HP is on it's last legs, the battery lasts maybe 30 minutes and it's taking longer to boot every day. It's had a hard life though, I'll send it out in style when the time comes.

Acer (despite your bad experience) has really stepped up their game in my opinion (LadyFox has an Aspire and it runs great). I typically look for ASUS, Acer, or HP (in that order). As for Win8, I can try and dispel some of your concerns. Win8 is actually very nice when SET UP CORRECTLY. It's faster than 7 and has some nice new added features that I really like. This is very contrary what my opinion was of 8 about a year ago. I had to have first hand experience in order to actually realize it's actually pretty kick @ss. My current laptop (ASUS G750J series) boots in 3.6 seconds (and not waking from sleep either). No Win7 machine I have seen can match that. You can install your own start menu and have Win8 boot directly to desktop (bypassing the "Metro" interface). That's how I have mine set up. Other than that, everything else is in the same place as you are used to with Win7 (i.e. control panel, add/remove programs, paint, calculator, CMD, etc.).

The reason I now recommend going with Win8 is because Win7 is on course to suffer the same fate as XP with the halting of security patches. Only, MS isn't going to ride that one out for 14 years like it did with XP. For 7 it will happen much sooner. So take that as you will. But I suggest ignoring all the random horror stories with Win8 and actually give it a go to see for yourself. And I can certainly provide the tips/tricks/tweaks to get it running properly.

To answer your question, Tiger Direct has various HP (elite and pro book series) laptops that come with both Win7 and Win8. So you can choose which one you prefer to use. I really like that set up because then you have both. You can use 7 until your ready to make the jump to 8 and not be forced to pay for another license. I generally spec these machines for LadyFox's engineering firm when they have a new hire or need an upgrade. Let me know if you have any further questions on this.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Have you had a chance to play with Win 8.1 yet? I saw an announcement that it had been released but haven't seen anything else. Wondering if it's worth the effort to take the upgrade the local priest's machine from 8.0 to 8.1.

 

[Master slacker]

(cough) UBUNTU! (cough)

 

[blybrook PE]

Thanks Fox.

I will start to take another look at Acer again. First and last Acer had both the mother board and the video card fry itself after 3 months of use and the warranty wasn't worth wiping my bum with. Had also watched too many Acer's fail while in college. Maybe their laptops are better than the desktops were. Hopefully they've stepped up their game.

I have a Win8 Pro disk & license on hand. Installed it for a grand 30 minutes (was before the win7 desktop cloning really took off) and wasn't impressed; so removed it and reinstalled 7. Have played with it a few times on a couple other machines and wasn't really happy with it. Still have one radio programming software that requires XP, which I can use the Virtual Machine in Win 7 for; so that left 8 out (at the time). Not to mention those that require DOS (GASP, HACK, COUGH)...

I know Win7 is about to see the door, it's on the horizon. Hopefully the coming versions give something worth buying.

As for Ubuntu, I've got it on a flash drive for portable operations / use. Works OK, but even with the WINE, I can't get some imparative programs to work. Not good when trying to program 50+ radios in quick succession.

 

[knight1fox3]

Have you had a chance to play with Win 8.1 yet? I saw an announcement that it had been released but haven't seen anything else. Wondering if it's worth the effort to take the upgrade the local priest's machine from 8.0 to 8.1.

Yes but not on my machine. It's basically the same as 8.0 with some new tweaks. Nothing major IMO. Consequently, I can't get the upgrade to go on my laptop due to my specific video card that's installed. LOL

(cough) UBUNTU! (cough)

LOL. Indeed that is certainly another viable option.

Thanks Fox.

I will start to take another look at Acer again. First and last Acer had both the mother board and the video card fry itself after 3 months of use and the warranty wasn't worth wiping my bum with. Had also watched too many Acer's fail while in college. Maybe their laptops are better than the desktops were. Hopefully they've stepped up their game.

NP. It all depends on what you're comfortable with and what software you need to run. But honestly I love my Win8 laptop and wouldn't go back. As for Acer, I was specifically talking laptops. I really like their laptops and recommend them to people who in the market for something new. I can't speak to their desktops but then again, I really don't like proprietary desktop systems. I prefer to build those myself for a fraction of the cost and also with better than mediocre hardware.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

The reason I now recommend going with Win8 is because Win7 is on course to suffer the same fate as XP with the halting of security patches. Only, MS isn't going to ride that one out for 14 years like it did with XP. For 7 it will happen much sooner.

MS didn't plan on supporting XP for 14 years. They thought that Vista would kill it. They were wrong, and they only were able to sunset XP after Win7 proved stable enough to replace XP. With the bad start Win8 got off to, and the way people view MS operating systems, I think they will be supporting Win7 for at least as long as they did XP.

 

[Dark Knight]

KFox...I finally need a new laptop. Mine would not start as it seems to be in a repairing start up for ever (48 hours and counting) by now. I do not do too much with it other than handling the pics of my kayaking trips and spamming here. Use XCEL, Power Point, and Word every now and then. Do not want to go for something too expensive and just saw an ASUS (4GB & 500GB) in $349.

What would be your recommendation? I may have up to $500 to spend on this.

 

[knight1fox3]

KFox...I finally need a new laptop. Mine would not start as it seems to be in a repairing start up for ever (48 hours and counting) by now. I do not do too much with it other than handling the pics of my kayaking trips and spamming here. Use XCEL, Power Point, and Word every now and then. Do not want to go for something too expensive and just saw an ASUS (4GB & 500GB) in $349.

What would be your recommendation? I may have up to $500 to spend on this.

Sounds like the hard drive is getting ready to or has already experienced some type of low-level failure. The existing data could be preserved by using some type of disk imaging software (i.e. Acronis, Macrium Reflect, Norton Ghost, etc.). My top 3 recommendations are generally ASUS, Acer, and HP (the elite or probook series). I have an ASUS at home and LadyFox uses an Acer and really likes it. Your price range is reasonable but I recommend a few additional pointers to look at before you purchase.

- Try to find a machine with an Intel processor (Preferably a 4th gen or "haswell" CPU as they are called. You could probably get by with an i3 but I would go for the i5 if you can swing it).

- For memory, I would at a minimum not go any lower than 4GB (6GB would be ideal)

- Don't let the Windows 8/8.1 horror stories scare you off. Go with 64-bit though. The OS works great when configured correctly (you can even install your own start menu and set the OS to boot directly to desktop instead of the annoying "metro" interface)

- Hard drive should typically be 500GB or larger and see if you can get a 7200 rpm drive vs. a 5400 rpm.

Any other questions, let me know. Or shoot me a link to something that you're interested in and I can take a look at the specs for you. Good luck! :thumbs:

On a side note, I would advise against any additional warranty protection. The machine itself will be covered for at least 1 year under the manufacturer warranty. If something is going to happen to the laptop, it will certainly be in the first year. It's really not practical to purchase any protection beyond that in my opinion.

 

[Dark Knight]

Thanks.

Fox helping DK with technology. Where have I seen that before? :dunno:

 

[Supe]

Windows 7 question:

Every few minutes or seconds, if I'm typing, both the cursor, and usually the window, be it browser, word, etc. become deselected randomly. I have to click back in the window to continue typing. This is ANNOYING AS SHIT, as it happens randomly with no real rhyme or reason. This never happened before they moved me over to the Windows 7 OS.

Any ideas?

 

[knight1fox3]

Windows 7 question:

Every few minutes or seconds, if I'm typing, both the cursor, and usually the window, be it browser, word, etc. become deselected randomly. I have to click back in the window to continue typing. This is ANNOYING AS SHIT, as it happens randomly with no real rhyme or reason. This never happened before they moved me over to the Windows 7 OS.

Any ideas?

I know exactly what is happening. This is on a laptop I presume, correct? Occasionally the touch pads can be super sensitive. As such it doesn't take much for a finger or spec of something to come close to or in contact with the pad. Which then deselects the active window you have up. If you use an external mouse like I do (I don't care for touch pads), typically there is a function button on the keyboard to toggle the touch pad on or off (often the icon looks like this).

Try toggling the touch pad off and see if that improves anything for you.

 

[Supe]

Laptop, but with a docking station and full keyboard + USB mouse. I don't have similar issues on my home laptop or desktop.

 

[knight1fox3]

Laptop, but with a docking station and full keyboard + USB mouse. I don't have similar issues on my home laptop or desktop.

Not all touch pads/laptops are created equal. I would still try disabling it either with the hotkey I mentioned or within Windows itself (mouse options in control panel). Since you have it docked anyway, the touch pad isn't needed.

 

[NJmike PE]

docking?! That's disgusting

:ghey:

 

[goodal]

Riddle me this Kfox. I am trying to view some pdfs that I paid for and downloaded a long time ago. They are ASHRAE and NFPA files that they are very possessive of. When I try to look at them, I get a message from adobe that I have to install some new stupid plugin. It constantly fails at the same point. See screen shot.

 

[Supe]

Laptop, but with a docking station and full keyboard + USB mouse. I don't have similar issues on my home laptop or desktop.

Not all touch pads/laptops are created equal. I would still try disabling it either with the hotkey I mentioned or within Windows itself (mouse options in control panel). Since you have it docked anyway, the touch pad isn't needed.

No dice, still doing it. Also seems to do it if not using the keyboard on occasion. I can just be scrolling down, and all of a sudden the window deselects.

 

[blybrook PE]

^ does yer workstation table vibrate? Had a coworker over an hvac unit with a wireless, 2.4ghz laser mouse that would do the same thing as you just described. Switched to a bluetooth wireless and problem disappeared.