No Choice but Windows 8?

This topic was created by Brett Weaver .

  1. Brett Weaver
    Thumb Down

    No Choice but Windows 8?

    I just went on to the Dell site to price up a desktop to use as an additional development machine.

    Because I use database servers on my machines I don't like other processes stealing cycles from the programs I want to run. Therefore the idea of compulsory "live" tiles fills me with dread. MS used to bleat that its file indexing did not use any resources. I do not know one professional software developer who did not find out how to, and turn it off.

    Remember when they said Exchange and MSSQL would free up memory when it was needed by other processes rather than stealing every spare KB?

    I get grumpy with WinZip,Adobe and all the others installing little virus' that "check for updates". I dont want "live tiles. I do not want them taking even 1 cycle.

    But I cannot buy a new Dell box without windows 8!!

    Its ok, I can buy second hand, or from hobbyist shops.

    But bloody hell! Dell kept XP as an option for some time after Vista - I believe until Win 7. Well, I guess they know their market better than me. I am a small niche.

    1. pixl97

      Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

      Don't go to the 'home' site, go to Small Business. Every desktop I've looked at in the business section has W7 on it.

      1. Frank D'soza

        Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

        I recommended Lenovo !!!

    2. Phil W

      Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

      As suggested either shop in the small business section or buy a non-Dell machine.

      Alternatively if you insist on Dell you could:

      A. Order it with Windows 8 and then contact Microsoft to exercise your downgrade rates within your Windows licence.

      B. Call Dell and ask for exactly what you want. I know people who have had success with this in the past.

      Personally I'd recommend buying something other than Dell. Their build quality has gone downhill a bit in the last couple of years.

      Toshiba or Asus would be my suggestions.

    3. Tabor

      Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

      As others said, if you want you can still get Dell machines with Win7.

      However: my primary machine is an HP laptop. Beefy, though (quad i7, 20GB RAM, large SSD). OS : Win8 (clean install). On this I have had running, simultaneously, my default applications, and a virtual test environment that combined 2 Windows 2012 servers (1 as DC combined with SQL 2012, the other as backup DC and Exchange 2013) and 9 Windows clients (3 XP, 5 Win7, 1 Win8). I have even had 2 additional XP vm's running on a usb3 disk. I haven't had any performances issues whatsoever, all of the vm's are default installs with indexing enabled. Granted, it's not terrible fast, but the client vm's don't run much slower than your average 3 year old desktop.

      I'm not a developer, and I haven't really done extensive performance testing (so Exchange and SQL weren't under heavy load), but I am curious to know why you think the live tiles would "steal" that many cycles ? AFAIK, that would only happen when you have "live" tiles (which I don't), and are in the TIFKAM interface (which is practically never in my case). All the auto-update stuff is disabled too (including Oracle/Adobe and other third party stuff), but those things will steal cycles on any Windows version.

      So please enlighten me : is your problem with Dell, with Windows, or what ? If you want to know at all times what your machines are doing, skip Windows (and most Linux distro's too nowadays, every recent OS does stuff in the background with a default install).

    4. AceRimmer
      Thumb Up

      Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

      I've been running a windows 8 Dell laptop for 4 months now - a Dell XPS15-l521x.

      I have had multiple VMs running at the same time (Windows server and Linux) and I've been running SQL Server natively both database and analysis services usung a 1TB database on an external drive. I regularly eat up all 8GB Ram, and will be upgrading that to 16GB although the immediate need has gone since I changed to a new contract.

      Anyway, my point is that once you get a start button replacement running and change the default applications to NOT use the win8 apps then you'll be fine.

      Apart from the tiles thing windows 8 is actually pretty nice

    5. Neil Alexander

      Re: No Choice but Windows 8?

      Windows versions going back as far as XP, or possibly even 2000, have had the ability to prioritise background services over desktop applications. And as for Live Tiles, they can be turned off.

      Just buy a Windows 8 laptop and have done with it. Why everyone has such a thing against it I have no idea.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Try a different laptop

    Why are you going for Dell Laptops. You should try other vendors such as Toshiba, HP etc. I am sure they still offer windows 7. Hope it helps.

  3. Princyxavier

    Yes it better to try some other good brands as well, apart from Dell there are many other good brands who are ready to offer service according to customer needs especially with with windows 7 platform

  4. xj25vm

    I know this is a rather old post - but in case others are looking for Windows 7 machines as well (and from what I see - there are few of us out there) - it looks like more and more OEM's have decided to offer again Windows 7 pre-installed. Look especially for business machines - as OEM's are allowed to pre-install Windows 7 on Windows 8 Business/Pro machines. A quick look online suggest Fujitsu, HP and Lenovo have a good number of machines for sale with Window 7 Pro.

    In case it helps

  5. chex

    Win 8 on hold

    I have 2 XP machines and 1 WIn7 an everything is working just fine so why would I want to upgrade to Win8 ? From everything I've read I should avoid this version of Win and hope for something better. I've avoided buying a new laptop for this very reason. So the laptop manufacturers and Microsoft have both lost a sale and that's the best way to wake up Microsoft - vote with your pocketbook. Rule #1 in software: The software must be easy for the user to interface with. Windows 8 fails miserably in this respect to the point where many IT people avoid it if possible. Balmer failed in his mission to carry on after Gates. Smart phone and computer technologies can and do have convergent needs but they also have very different uses as well. MS obviously ignore the latter in favour of the smart phone fever. We now hope that Microsoft will wake up and give the world what it wants - an operating system that is 1. easy to interface with 2. stable 3. efficient 4. compatible with existing technologies - a simple formula to print money.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So in Jun 2014 is Win 7 still available. . . . alternatively . . .

    Got a friend with win 7 and uses fairly complex s/w such as autocad + specialised plugins. Machine on the way out. Autocad seems to have gone down the subscription route of £2K per annum. He doesn't need the new features (and bloat). He is actually still using an XP in VM on Win 7 for the autocad stuff.

    He can downgrade with some OEMs but with win 8 can he use the Microsoft VM software (forget the name) and run that XP VM on Win 8? If he comes across a bargain Win 8 refurb via <insert company name here> can he migrate that VM?

    P.S. How do you start a new topic on this forum?

    Sorry for Anon post - rather make it that little bit harder for people to track me ;)

    THX

  7. josefo

    Yes of course, I also recommend Lenovo, is the best in this.

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