Educate Me Please

i am looking at a new system. while i am not a complete novice i am certainly not in the league of anyone here so i need some basic help, please. i loath win 10 and 11 and all my existing systems run on win 7 which i want to retain. the new system has this hd in it... 256GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 35 Solid State Drive and my questions start with " what is that ? " i have a drawer full of the big sata drives and small lap top looking drives.... is this thing one like that in the sense that the plugs on it are the same ? the new system is an " all in one" so i presume it will have a smaller lap top looking drive in it.... the second question is... would one of the small drives i have be compatible with this in the sense that frm a pure hardware perspective, canm i just swap it out ? ... assuming i can re-load the drivers from dell download ? and this is a hardware question.... not a philosophical " why do i hate win 10/11 so much ? " question....

 

PCIe should be your clue - that is a drive that plugs into a PCIe slot - just like a graphics card. So no, the plugs are not the same as your hard drives which surely are SATA or IDE (PATA if really old).

When buying "new", current generation hardware, I would definitely advise against going with Windows 7 for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost is security. Windows 7 is already 13 years old and has been superseded many times over. Microsoft ended support 3 years ago. And now, more and more software developers are ending Windows 7 support. Several antimalware program developers have already stopped and more will stop supporting W7 come this January. Plus, W10 and W11 are simply inherently more secure than all previous versions of Windows.

Another major reason to go with Windows 7 when buying new hardware is compatibility. A lot, if not most new hardware does not support Windows 7. And why should it? There is zero financial incentive for hardware makers (new and old hardware) to maintain compatibility and driver development for ancient, superseded operating systems.

And no, you cannot simply download drivers for your old Dell and use them on your new computer. Drivers are hardware specific.

That vast majority of users who claim they hate W10/W11 never gave it chance or time to get used to it. This is the exact same issue we heard going from Windows 3 to W95, to W98, to XP, and even to Windows 7. Yet as soon as they gave it a fair chance, you could not pry it out of their hands.

That said, there is always Start10 or Start11 - replacement Start menu programs that make W10/W11 look and feel like W7.

The other group of users who claim they hate W10/W11 claim privacy as their reason. Frankly, that is nonsense.

Even at its worse, Microsoft is NOT trying to steal our passwords, full name, birth date, street address, bank account and credit card information, Social Security or Insurance Numbers, personal contacts, or read our emails. Nor is it trying to overwrite security certifications, redirect us to malicious sites, or take control of our computers to send spam or distribute malware, or participate in DDoS attacks against others.

So many just don't understand the difference between security and privacy. The difference is HUGE! These same people have no problems compromising their privacy with their cell phones. For example, on our PCs, Microsoft does not know our real name or our street address. They don't know our physical location. In fact, with an Ethernet connected computer the closest Microsoft knows where we are physically located is our ISP's POP (point of presence). The POP is the physical location where our ISP connects our computer to the Internet backbone. In my case, that is 6 miles across town.

On the other hand, our ISP already knows our home address, our real and full name, birth date, and our billing information too. They also know every single website we visit and what we did while there.

Our cell phone carriers are even worse. They also know our home address, our real and full name, birth date, and our billing information. They know who we have talked to and texted. But worse, our cell phone carrier knows exactly where we are standing to within a couple meters. They know the store we are in, the aisle and even the products in the aisle we are standing in front of! They know where we've been, how long we were there, the direction we are heading now and how fast we are moving!

Then of course, there's Google and Facebook - companies who work on the premise of learning everything about us and using (and sharing and selling) that information for their profits!

Frankly, when it comes to privacy concerns, Microsoft is the least of our worries.

So again - since you are buying "new", current generation hardware, I would urge you to go with an operating system designed to work with that new hardware - securely.

 

so much for the " no win 10 philosophy" bullsht... . thank you mr gates.

 

I had a whole book written for you in reply, since an old-timer like me has a drawer full of parts sitting there...

But here's the short answer:

You buy a new computer it will have Windows 10 or 11 in it.

They won't sell you one with Windows 7 installed.

If you get it home and install Windows 7 over it, the warranties and all tech support get tossed out the door.

Keep your existing computer just as it is, complete with Win7 and a drawer full of parts.
I kept a computer with Windows XP Pro on it for 2 years right beside the new one I bought.

New computer means step ahead with it,

I had to write all of this so I didn't sound "insulting" to you.

Your post prompted me to open the drawer here.
I found a Western Digital 4 gig hard drive still there.
It probably still has Win95 on it.
Also found a 10 gig seagate that has Win98 installed.

But I can't even plug them in since you can't buy a computer that still has the 4 pin socket wire.

Good thing I didn't keep the 36K modem card.
If I mentioned it people would know I've been around since dial-up.
The new SSD drives have no moving parts, no spinning disk.
Very fast!... and silent.
They look like memory sticks, but there's a couple different places you can plug one in.

You're better off pricing an upgrade to 500G or 1T .
It will eliminate all the "running out of disk space" warnings later on.

(upgrading to 500G is 50 bucks and a screwdriver)

Sincerely

 

No need to whine about it And this has nothing to do with any one's philosophy. It is just the technical facts you can easily verify yourself.

Most makers of new hardware today are NOT developing Windows 7 drivers for their new hardware. That's a fact. There's no return on their investment for that.

And much of today's hardware is not compatible with Windows 7. And the requirement to go with UEFI play a big part of that. Again, simple fact.

 

You can always run Windows 7 in a virtual machine.
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/virtualbox.html

 

He'll still have Windows 10/11 with the dastardly Mr. Gates lurking in the background.

 

LOL

Yeah, like Bill Gates was such an evil man, infecting our systems, compromising our children's security, producing useless software nobody wanted or could use, hoards over his money, and is still pulling the strings at Microsoft.

Time to stop hating and the pointless opportunist bashings, and move on.

 

It might be easier to help if you post actual model numbers of the systems in question.

As for upgrading "Starting with Intel's seventh-generation Core processors, the Kaby Lake series (I7-7xxx, I5-7xxx CPU description = Kaby Lake), processors will only have Windows 10 and Windows 11 Operating System support." Key word "support", there were ways around that requirement, just not "supported". But you'll also run into other hardware drivers that are no longer developed for 7.