can we install windows 7 in a new laptop that is pre installed with win8/ubuntu /linux?

Why don't you like Windows 8? Have you used it on a day to day basis, or going off internet hype about it?

I've been running it since it came out and haven't had 1 program that doesn't run, and mostly everything runs better and faster.

If you don't like the tile interface, install Classic Shell, it gives you a start button, boots to desktop, hides the hotspot corners and makes it work like Windows 7.

A lot of new laptops coming out I see don't even offer Windows 7 drivers, only Windows 8 if the laptop came with 8, so if you are intent on doing this, check the laptop site for Windows 7 drivers before you buy it, not a lot offer them.

Windows is backward compatible for most of the software to run. You can also run in compatibility mode

And for the sake of interest, these laptops that will only work with Windows 8 from the Microsoft range, will the manufacturers be producing Linux drivers?

Frankly, I think the market should resist the attempts of Sony, Microsoft, Intel and all the rest of them, to bully us into revamping our perfectly serviceable under-supported hardware at some considerable cost.

And what is so great about [strike]Android[/strike] Windows 8?

The tile format could easily have been released as an alternative 'Skin' in Windows 7.

Oh but Win 8 is secure.

Well, why wasn't 7? Or Vista?

What was wrong with Win 98 that it needed to be abandoned?

Security? What did they learn in 2010 about security that they didn't know in 1999?

That the millennium bug was a scam?

Uh-huh.

It's not you mate, it's me. I have an aversion to being constantly shafted by multinational and global institutions.

They call it progress but we have walked into a kind of slavery, only we are bound by bonds that are wireless.

Please understand, I don't intend to come across as Microsoftist...

... it's a compulsion.

Microsoft will never produce decent software - there is too much money to be made out of mediocrity.

And just when you get used to it... BOOM! It has changed.

The Emperor wears no clothes.

Personally, I think the 'Tile' format for PC's and laptops is going to be a short-lived phenomenon. Just wait until people have to shell out for new touch-screens next year because they are not as robust as we assume.

Seriously, what is the difference between a tile and an icon from a programming point of view?

Window 8 should have been released as an add-on, a desktop gadget even, rather than as another $200 annual tax on computer users.

And how can the fact that programs run under Windows 8 be paraded as an accolade?

They are supposed to.

That's like saying that this is the best car because it will run on fuel bought from any filling station.

If it didn't then one would have to consider the fuel, wouldn't one?.

Are you saying that Windows 8 can successfully run bad code?

That it cannot be affected by bad drivers?

Sorry, but when the novelty wears off, you will see that I am correct.

Which is nice...

... unless you already bought it.

It will be a brave company that dares to sell a customer a Windows 7 machine one day on the basis that it will fulfil future requirements and render it obsolete the next by not providing support.

What really makes me laugh though, the Pentium, or AMD, has an instruction set. A well established language that allows for communication in the native tongue of the CPU.

And that is a standard in common with all PC's and laptops.

Okay, SSE 34 and virtualization and new modes of power-saving deep sleep but in essence, the CPU's development is more in the field of lithography than it has been in electronics.

The CPU - standard. VGA protocols - standard. USB - standard. Sound, memory, Wi-Fi, SATA - all standard.

When you think of it that way, it's a bloody wonder that all software won't run on all machines.

Why is that? Programs written in the precisely the same language, machine code, that were written a few years ago simply won't run on modern systems.

Why is that?

If everything is standard then why is backward compatibility an issue?

Money. Don't you remember in the days of Windows 98 when there was legacy ISA support. For years DOS was supported. Years.

And now, a five year-old computer is a classic. (Did they have colour in those days?)

Microsoft Windows enforces protocols that other programmers have to be aware of. A program written for Windows is in fact two programs.

One program of course is the one you intended to buy; GTA, Call of Duty, Mavis Beacon.

And the other program is the one that has to convince Windows that all the paperwork is in order. This program acts like the other program's lawyer.

The problem is though, every now and then, Microsoft decide to change the law but they only tell the lawyers whom are most recently appointed to the bar about these changes.

So, when you try to run an antique three year-old program, your lawyer is arrested for perjury and you are fined another $60.

Microsoft didn't need to change the law, really, and they didn't, much.

What they did was equivalent to randomly moving all the no-parking signs while we were all in bed sleeping. Many of us have woken up to find that we have become illegally parked without even moving the car.

But it is a very big bandwagon and plenty of room for Intel, Asus, NVidia, Radeon, not to mention how well Norton, McAfee, Kapersky do out of it.

It's perfect - they, admittedly cleverly, refine the lithographic process and their PR departments, admittedly cleverly, create the public perception that there is a direct relationship between improved lithography techniques and compatibility issues which can only be offset by Microsoft's intervention and production of new operating systems that understand nothing about the difference in the size of one transistor as compared to another.

Don't get me wrong; I'm as red-blooded as the next man and a well stacked CPU with a nice pair of double-cores will turn my head but surely that's a matter of choice.

Yes, I'd love a Porsche but the Micra is more suited to my needs.

I'd be really annoyed if just because they brought out a new model of super-car, they stopped making tyres for my newish car.

That's what Microsoft et al did.

Dude, if I were buying a new machine, I'd find the one that had the specifications I desire and I'd say to the guy (or girl), hey buddy/honey (delete as appropriate), I want this machine but with Windows 7 on it.

Or XP, for a bit of fun.

But you are as entitled to that as you are to say, hey, I want that car but I don't want the funky alloy wheels.

Don't let them make you have alloy wheels.

If this post is not the solution to the problem then I just don't know what is.

i just want to figure out how to disable this damn charm bar, everytime i move my mouse to the left it comes on and i have to hit esc. to get back to what i was doing.