installing windows 7

[ember1205]

...still reading about that stuff on the internet.

 

I looked up the information regarding OEM and my understanding is this:

The manufacturer MS gives acer the okay to sell Win 7 but only in connection with hardware. acer is not allowed to sell Win 7 separately.

The plus for MS is they don't have to support the customers, that's up to acer or the store you bought the hardware from.

The plus for the customer would be it's kinda cheaper. And acer can sell it cheaper because they don't have to give the customer installations-/ recovery cd's which saves them a lot of money. I didn't read that acer is the owner of the OS though. (maybe I'm blond)

 

There are many different opinions about the use of a OS that's been pre-installed. I read many posts saying as long as the pre-installed version on a laptop is deinstalled before it gets installed on another one it's supposed to work.

 

This is very confusing and I feel kinda stuck. That's what I don't like about the ongoing technology. Am I really supposed to keep up with this? In my mind it's supposed to make life easier for me, but it doesn't.

 

My problem is that I trusted a computer guy once (he owns a computer service business) and he screwed up big time. That's why I can't / won't use the acer anymore.

 

The HP isn't that old and I got issues already. I wish I would have known how to stop the update in this first place.

 

Actually, MS has the best lawyers on the planet... They always have, currently do, and always will "own" every copy of every version of Windows ever sold. Your money is nothing more than a sort of "lease" on using the software. MS can revoke your right at any time and leave your machine essentially unusable (and I'm not being facetious about how Windows often leaves machine unusable by nature of the errors and problems).

[BRay'sGirl]

Sorry, there is a misunderstanding.

 

I wasn't referring to MS not 'owning' the OS. I was talking about acer. I'm trying to make sense of it since there are different opinions on the internet about what's possible and what not.

 

This is way off .... all I want is a running laptop.

[ember1205]

You had mentioned not seeing where Acer "owned" the OS. I was simply saying that MS owns ALL copies of Windows, period, regardless of license type.

 

-IF- you have a license that's an OEM one, you are not allowed to move it to another machine, per the license agreement.

 

-IF- you have full license (very, very uncommon to have this from a machine manufacturer if you bought the machine with Windows pre-loaded), you can install it anywhere you'd like, but you can only have one running copy at a time.

 

"Uninstallation" doesn't really come into play anywhere - all that matters is whether you attempt to run more than one machine using the same license or not. Think of it this way... If the machine got run over by a truck, you would have no way to "uninstall" it. But, you could load a full version with a full license onto a new machine and there would be no issue because the old machine was gone.

 

The OEM license has to stay with the machine - that was in the link I posted earlier.

 

You bought a machine with Windows 8, and it updated to Windows 8.1. Have you tried to see if there are OS installation CD's that you can make from the laptop itself? Is there a recovery partition that will let you reinstall? If you have either of those options, that's how you return the machine to Windows 8, but you will lose EVERYTHING that's on it as it re-formats the drive. And, if you don't reformat the drive, you're going to have functional problems.

[BRay'sGirl]

Alright - I think I got it! Thanks for taking the time and explaining! I appreciate it a lot!

 

I know there is something called recovery on this thing...going to figure it out what it really is.

 

I do have MS Office on the HP but I bought that one and therefore I can put it back on later - did that after the update to 8.1

Other than that I got Skype - so no biggie. Kaspersky is mine too, I can re- install later on.

 

thanks again, Mel

 

looked it up - it's a recovery partition -

[StinkyCheese]

I have been running Windows 7 for a little over a month, and I am VERY pleased. Windows 7 is Vista with all the fixes it needed to make it a reliable OS. I was running XP until I upgraded to Windows 7. As long as you do an upgrade, it will keep all your old files, and transfer many of your settings to the new installation.

Yeah, but I'm not a fan of dirty installs. They work, just not my thing.

[Chris]

Yeah, but I'm jot a fan of dirty installs. They work, just not my thing.

Thata what causes the old stuff to live in a locked area of the HDD right? It pissed me off so i did a full wipe for 10

[StinkyCheese]

Thata what causes the old stuff to live in a locked area of the HDD right? It pissed me off so i did a full wipe for 10

Probably one of the causes yes. I'm the same way with Android too. I don't like dirty flashing from either. I guess I'm just odd.

[ember1205]

Dragging bad configurations and a legacy of changes, installations/uninstallations, and problems forward is something I don't like to do either. Migrations are not trivial, especially when multiple people use a PC under different accounts, and newer software versions will sometimes CAUSE problems if the system has gone through too many updates.

 

For Android, I've absolutely NEVER had positive results from doing a straight-up upgrade. I always end up having to do a factory reset afterward anyhow. For iOS, I've never had an issue doing a standard upgrade. For Linux, I've had only a couple of quirky issues that were the result of architectural changes in the operating system that weren't really well-advertised. So, a lot depends on who's writing the particular software that you're upgrading.