Windows 7 vs 10 on Your Laptop

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Paragon54

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2003
Messages
136
Just curious are any of you still using Windows 7 on any of the newer non-touch (Late 2015 or 2016) laptops. If so are you having any difficulty? I need a new laptop and am trying to decide which OS to order, I would prefer 7 if everything works as it should.

Thanks!
 
Hi, I have 2 Sager laptops; NP9130 and NP8677-S. The 9130 I got back in 2012 was originally running 7 and I upgraded to 10 with the free upgrade. Ran into some odd issues afterwards. The 8677 I got last year in November and trying to put Win7 on it was such a headache. 7 doesn't include USB3 drivers so I had to inject them into the image on my USB flash drive. Upgrading to 10 caused some random issues as well. Re-installing 10 from scratch on both laptops resolved all the issues. Maybe it was just my laptops being wonky but ymmv.

TLDR: I would suggest going with 10 from the start as driver support for 7 with newer laptops might be a crap shoot and with laptops doing away with USB2 ports makes it difficult to get 7 installed unless you do the injection workaround.
 
If you are able to order the laptop from the manufacturer with Windows won't it have the proper drivers? This will be used strictly for business, no gaming.
 
you can still buy Windows 7 Pro laptops from Dell and any other business provider....
 
I would just use Win 10. I have a Surface Pro 4 and windows 10 on it has no problems for me at all. If you get something that has Windows 7 on it, It will run great but it might not last as long as you would want it to. Also MS is pushing Windows 10 really hard. You will also be bugged all day long about upgrading from 7 to 10. Which I would hate.
 
Paragon54 said:
Just curious are any of you still using Windows 7 on any of the newer non-touch (Late 2015 or 2016) laptops. If so are you having any difficulty? I need a new laptop and am trying to decide which OS to order, I would prefer 7 if everything works as it should.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The real question is: will there be any software you use that won't work properly on Windows 10, or any conflicts you'd expect on your network?

If not, go for Windows 10. You'll get better hardware support, longer-term software support... and, simply speaking, join the modern era. I wouldn't want to feel like I was a couple of generations back if I could avoid it.
 
Paragon54 said:
If you are able to order the laptop from the manufacturer with Windows won't it have the proper drivers? This will be used strictly for business, no gaming.
Click to expand...
You can choose to have the manufacturer install Windows but they tend to install "bloatware" so I like having the ability to install my own operating system. Also some manufacturers don't include a driver disc. Even if they do, some of the newer model laptops do not have a CD/DVD drive. The Sager NP8677 does not have one.
 
"better" is relative, in most any and most every situation so... ;)
 
for touch based hardware Windows 10 is actually better from a use POV. From the we are going to give you an anal probe due to all of the data collection they do with Windows 10 pov, it is more like this:

CartmanGetsanAnalProbe21.gif
 
I put 10 on everything except older laptops that don't have the necessary driver support (Asus I'm looking at you.) No point in delaying the inevitable plus it works just fine.
 
If you buy a signature edition at the Microsoft Store, they don't have bloatware. I think it's also called blue edition at Best Buy. There might be other names for similar versions, but my point is you can buy laptops without extra stuff on them.
 
If you get a Dell (not sure about other OEMs), you can get whatever you want. I would get 10 just to be safe.

Then if you decide you hate it for whatever reason - I personally like it better than 7 for most stuff. It just takes a bit of getting used to them moving stuff around - you can just put 7 on it by downloading the Dell Windows 7 ISO.

I'm running 10 on old laptops as well as my work laptop - Precision M6600. It works just fine.
 
jimh425 said:
If you buy a signature edition at the Microsoft Store, they don't have bloatware. I think it's also called blue edition at Best Buy. There might be other names for similar versions, but my point is you can buy laptops without extra stuff on them.
Click to expand...

The HP Spectre x360 Bang & Olufson Special Edition Hybrid I got at BB was one of these. The only real crapware it came with was a short term McAfee sub. BB included a 1 year, 3 machine Trend Micro sub so I used that instead. I normally buy BitDefender family licenses but this will do until it expires.
 
I'm running 7 on my laptop which originally came with 8.1. Everything works. I didn't bother looking on the manufacturer's site for drivers. I grabbed the ones I needed from Intel which were not detected or installed by Windows.

The problems with Windows 10 laptops (non-touch screen) running 7 of course have to do with driver availability. Since Windows 7 still has a majority of the market, driver support is still pretty wide-spread.

A big exception is low end models which use Atom processors (including Atom-based Celeron and Pentium processors). Intel does not even make Windows 7 drivers for those chips, so you're forced to use 8.x or higher. AMD does the same thing with its low end SoCs, which mostly have no driver support for Windows 7.

Within another generation or two (2-3 years from now), it's likely that flagship processors may stop including driver support for pre-Windows 8.x OSs.
 
pxc said:
I'm running 7 on my laptop which originally came with 8.1. Everything works. I didn't bother looking on the manufacturer's site for drivers. I grabbed the ones I needed from Intel which were not detected or installed by Windows.

The problems with Windows 10 laptops (non-touch screen) running 7 of course have to do with driver availability. Since Windows 7 still has a majority of the market, driver support is still pretty wide-spread.

A big exception is low end models which use Atom processors (including Atom-based Celeron and Pentium processors). Intel does not even make Windows 7 drivers for those chips, so you're forced to use 8.x or higher. AMD does the same thing with its low end SoCs, which mostly have no driver support for Windows 7.

Within another generation or two (2-3 years from now), it's likely that flagship processors may stop including driver support for pre-Windows 8.x OSs.
Click to expand...
Completely agree with this. Driver support is key to future-proofing which is why I suggested to my friend to upgrade his machines to Windows 10.
 
Isn't Win10 like 10GB smaller or something than 7? Curious if it uses less resources. Maybe someone will know or let me know OP.
 
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