Definition for what is spyware may vary between us as well as between us and the software companies. Windows 10, Skype... They all are either suspected or proven to be spying. Yet most users would avoid thinking that products from somebody as big as Microsoft are spyware, and definitely not expect their OS itself to be detected by MalwareBytes....

I loved windows 8.1 which is what my computer originally came with but then it auto updated to windows 10 and i HATED windows 10... so i ran off to linux, first i tried mint, could not get the drivers for it, so i did ubuntu, then i flipped from ubuntu to puppy linux, and now I'm using sparky linux, I'm was wantingto conjure up the $40 to buy the OS installer USB stick (Windows 8.1 w/bing) Bit it appears to no longer be offered... which is unfortunate... i may go buy another of this same PC someday, very good computer for what i need... i'd make sure it came with 8.1 and not 10 though......

HomeBrewLamps,

Have you looked into finding the disk image for windows 8.1 ? It appears to be offered for download from microsoft itself. You would need to burn a DVD or make a usb installer. It is not piracy either since it is the original disk image on microsofts website itself. The product key (The part of windows you actually pay for) is built into your machine since it came with 8.1.

Here
is the link to it on Microsofts website

Computers is my largest hobby for 11 years 

HomeBrewLamps,

Have you looked into finding the disk image for windows 8.1 ? It appears to be offered for download from microsoft itself. You would need to burn a DVD or make a usb installer. It is not piracy either since it is the original disk image on microsofts website itself. The product key (The part of windows you actually pay for) is built into your machine since it came with 8.1.

Here
is the link to it on Microsofts website

Computers is my largest hobby for 11 years 

Yes i have, windows 8.1 is not the same as windows 8.1 with bing, and since i need windows 8.1 w/bing, windows 8.1 will not be activated by the integrated BIOS key on my PC, it requires the bing version for some stupid reason and they don't offer it on the website, stupid microsoft, i tried pirating it but that did not work...

"Windows 8 with Bing" was just a licensing option for manufacturers making very low cost, low margin computers that would compete against Chromebooks.  When a manufacturer creates an image to load onto a new machine, they will often set the default browser start page to be a page for a company they have a marketing agreement with, like AOL, and may set the default search to Yahoo.  All that "...with Bing" meant is that the when the image was configured or loaded onto a qualifying machine, the default browser had to be left as Internet Explorer with the default start page being Bing and the default search had to be left as Bing.  In exchange, they got the license for that version of windows for low to no cost.  The end user was still free to set those options to whatever they saw fit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8.1#Windows_8.1_with_Bing

I pretty much skipped over Windows 8.  Back in 2012, when my laptop was starting to show it's age, I started looking at a newer machine.  When I was greeted by that start screen, I stopped looking.  When the hard drive finally failed in my old machine, I ended up picking up a nice gaming laptop which listed among it's many features, Windows 7.

Its rare to find someone who likes windows 8, most snicker when I tell folks that I like it. I started using 8 when it was still a beta, I installed it on all my windows machines and still use WMC on the one in my den. I personally have a mac now, but win 8/8.1 is my favorite modern windows version.

Guys erm now that I am out of uni and I will be job hunting. I am considering to get a low cost Windows laptop (less than £300) or $400 for those using the dollar currency!! Because the reason is every time I look for jobs online the majority say you need experience or can work with Microsoft software and Windows and since I am a Mac user, they may be repelled by the fact I shy away from the Windows/Microsoft lot! Plus I may need to use software that is only Windows compatible!! I also do not want to use a VM option/bootcamp feature to run Windows on my Mac as that will take up a lot of SSD space and could have a big impact on Logic Pro's performance (DAW application owned by Apple)

I have the money (or shall we say the funds I received for my uni course and I got enough for a less than 300 quid laptop) to have what is known as my 'work' or 'secondary' laptop. Do you think that I should get a Windows 10, or stick to Windows 7 for my work laptop I plan to obtain around August or September?

Guys erm now that I am out of uni and I will be job hunting. I am considering to get a low cost Windows laptop (less than £300) or $400 for those using the dollar currency!! Because the reason is every time I look for jobs online the majority say you need experience or can work with Microsoft software and Windows and since I am a Mac user, they may be repelled by the fact I shy away from the Windows/Microsoft lot! Plus I may need to use software that is only Windows compatible!! I also do not want to use a VM option/bootcamp feature to run Windows on my Mac as that will take up a lot of SSD space and could have a big impact on Logic Pro's performance (DAW application owned by Apple)

I have the money (or shall we say the funds I received for my uni course and I got enough for a less than 300 quid laptop) to have what is known as my 'work' or 'secondary' laptop. Do you think that I should get a Windows 10, or stick to Windows 7 for my work laptop I plan to obtain around August or September?

I think in 2018, you won't have much of a choice.  I think they licensing Windows 7 for new machines in the fall of 2013, so if you were to buy a new machine, it would come with 10.  8 was never really widely adopted by the business community.  At one of my jobs, they just transitioned from 7 to 10 this last spring.

A word of warning about shopping at the bottom end for laptops, is that many of the least expensive ones aren't much more than tablets with keyboards and no touch screen, and have only a tiny 32 GB of flash storage.  That said, your price point should get you something with a real hard drive.

Depending on the field you're going into, I'm not sure seat time behind a Windows machine would really be that important.  That is of course, unless you're going into IT.  In most jobs I've found computer skills generally involve being comfortable with using them in general.  Proficiency with applications would be more important.  Being familiar with MS Office would be more helpful, but I would think MS Office for Mac would be similar enough to gain proficiency.

I have two jobs which both involve using computers.  At one, they just transitioned from using Windows 7 to Windows 10.  The other uses Linux-based thin clients that use run applications or Windows sessions from a server.  Both use MS Office, but beyond that, most other programs they use are either web based or terminal based, which would work the same on a Mac, Windows or Linux.

If they want you to use Windows/Office at work, looks like they are going to provide you with a PC with Windows/Office (a desktop at the workplace). I don't see how this requires you to get a Windows PC of your own

For most jobs, if you are familiar with using Windows / Office on other's computers (at school, uni, ..) that is sufficient



As kid i started being into PCs, so i am familiar with Windows from 9x (that was still being installed in the early 00s) through XP. By 2003 i was allready running Linux exclusively on my PCs (and do to this day). All subsequent knowledge/experience was only from what i encountered as IT on other's computers. I have since been working as IT in multiple places, the latest of which few years ago when there was masive moving from Windows XP to Windows 7

Now it's Windows 8..10 everywhere and while i am still getting the occasional messing with computers here and there, i no longer work in IT as my main job. I have a Windows 10 PC that i use at work (electronics engineering) and it's the IT guy's job to maintain it, allthough whatever few things it needed (set up network, install some software) i did myself and it was not complicated

The idea of me getting a Windows 10 laptop is to be comfortable using the interface and when I am outside of whatever job I will get accepted to, I can keep all of my work documents (hopefully not too much paperwork!!) and I may have to download some software that is only available on Windows  

I love my Macbook because of the Logic Pro software and the fact is that after 3 years of adequate use, it still boots up pretty fast and the internet browser works pretty fast! I both love using Safari and Google Chrome. If I ever get a Windows laptop, I will use Google Chrome instead of the awful Internet Explorer because it is kind of messy especially in Windows 7 and later   not to mention being aggressively slow compared to Chrome and Safari. Also does anyone use FireFox? Whats the benefits compared to Safari, Chrome and IE?

As regards to the hardware for the corresponding price tag, I will get a laptop with a HDD as SSDs are still xpensive with less GB/TB compared to what HDDS offer. Plus if the HDD ever (I really hope not!!) fails then its a better chance of data recovery from HDD than a SSD (correct me if I am wrong). For my dad I got him as a sort of an early Father's day gift, a HP Elitebook from online retailer which is refurbished with Intel Core Centrino CPU, 160GB HDD, Windows 7 Pro and 4GB RAM. It was pretty slow booting up but when I turned off the Windows updates, it was back to its original boot up speed. I don't see the reason or benefits of these nuisance updates!! Its just bloatware!!!!!

Now then a question regarding MS office packages. Would MS Word 2016 be able to open up a Word file that was used by MS word 2007 or MS 2010? Or the inversion??

From my experience when I started Year 7 10 years ago, my former secondary school still had Windows XP PCs with MS office 97-2003 and when I had to do homework using MS Word 2007 on my mum's Toshiba laptop (with Vista Home Premium) and when I brought the homework to school on a USB stick, the teacher (IT one) said he couldn't open it because I used MS word 2007. So I learned to do the convert feature on Save As on my mum's laptop whenever I needed to do so. Later on in my last school when PCS were still XP but this time with MS Office 2007 (Thank God!!) but my mum's laptop was upgraded from Vista HP to Win 7 Pro it had MS Office 2010 and it was a Godsend as MS 2007 files would happily open i n MS office 2010 software!!!

The reason why I ask is because I found the MS Office 2007 disk and its the only spare MS Office disk I have got!! Will Windows 10 accept MS Office 2007 in terms of installation and will MS Office 2007 be able to open files from MS Office 2016 files?? Please let me know as that could be potential to save money

I still think you dont need to own a Windows computer to know how to use Windows, as long as you had the occasional time of using it elsewhere. Especially for things "users" do (in contrast to sysadmins), it is straightforward

On my new work PC there still is only IE (now Edge), it works acceptably well, at least in basic use..

The PC is brand new Core i5, i think with 4GB RAM and SSD

The Linux PC i put together out of random stuff that was laying around the company's IT department. I was not supposed to have one but use the Windows PC like everyone else, but in fact i use the Windows PC to run the Windows specific CAD software + MS office, and the Linux PC for actual going through forums, reading things, programming and doing the other important stuff

The Linux PC specs are G31m mainboard (Asus P5KPL), Core 2 Duo E7400, 2GB Ram, old 160GB SATA hard drive. Comparable to my PCs at home for the most part. Works exceptionally well considering that it's a PC made of ~10 years old parts, and running the biggest current version Linux desktop (KDE 5)

I think Office 2007..2016 stuff got to be interchangeable, at most there may be some formatting glitches... Atleast i have never had problems between Office 2007..2010 and 2013..2016



Updates :

Some are security updates and it is important to install them. Without them your PC can be compromised

In Windows 10, the updates are in the form of big packs of updates (no single updates you can pick to skip etc), and officially you cannot disable them at all. The updates form in control panel itself is quite representative of what Windows 10 is... A cloud operating system. You don't even have the choice to not update for more than 35 days

I started with good old DOS, still have the original disks for DOS3.22 somewhere. First Windows system I used was 3.1, then 3.11 then 98, I skipped 95 for some reason. Then I got a machine with XP and I still have a copy of it on an old laptop somewhere.

Currently I don't use Windows at all regularly, my main machine is dual boot, the main OS is Fedora 28, but I can boot into Windows 7 Pro if I want it. I only really keep it as I have a few specialist programs (for programming my amateur radio hand portables and one or two other things). It probably gets run up once or twice a month, just to keep the Anti-virus program up to date.

Wouldn't touch anything later than Win 7, don't like 8 or 10 at all. XP was always the best of the bunch.