As you all might have noticed, Microsoft took Windows 7 down from its digitalriver site.
But if you still need the image here are some official mirrors of the image (completely legal).
Note that even if they say german they all have the option to set them to english when installing them.
Windows 7 Home Premium:
http://winfuture.de/downloadvorschalt,2662.html
Windows 7 Professional:
http://winfuture.de/downloadvorschalt,3291.html
I hope they're useful to you.
This thread is legally dubious, but I guess it's OK as long you don't give out product keys.
Quote from: Juju on May 01, 2015, 03:19:54 PM
This thread is legally dubious, but I guess it's OK as long you don't give out product keys.
Of course I don't give them out.
The link are okay. They're deeplinks from Winfuture (http://winfuture.de/).
Yeah that's what I guessed. You need the key to use those Windows images.
Well you can install and use these without a key but it's just a trial period, after that you need to activate it with a legit key or a crack.
Ooh nice I didn't know. That can be handy to see if we like it Iguess :)
Who never used win7 ? :P
Linux users? :P
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 01, 2015, 04:33:27 PM
Linux users? :P
Most Linux users needs Windows to download their favourite distro, unless the computers come with Linux or something.
Nope. I installed Arch Linux on a laptop that came with Windows without actually touching Windows.
I hate non-*nix environments because I have no clue how to do anything, so I was unable to actually get the install iso onto my USB stick from Windows. Instead, I found my dads laptop and installed the iso onto my USB stick using the dd command.
So you're running Linux off an USB?
Also, i don't want to windows-fanboy, but you know, google. Anyway whatever works i suppose :P
No. I said I installed the installation ISO on the USB
oohhh wait, i get it now :s. gg2me
Actually, sharing the iso is a good thing. Nadeo did the same with Trackmania United Forever as you need the product key to register to the game. It helped me as my CD broke... :/
Yeah I agree. That said, always make sure that the ISO files are officially made available by the company who made them before sharing links to them, because just because the Windows 7 ISOs might be legal doesn't mean every ISO that requires a serial but doesn't come with one are.
I just updated the links, as they were broken.
Have fun!
Cool, thanks, although I should be fine for now. That reminds me, I should check if I can access my serial key on my computer. I wonder if I could simply download a Windows 7 ISO, reformat then re-install 7 and use my current serial key, or if it would be like TI-Nspire Student Software with which each key can only be used once?
For windows 8 and up, serial keys are tied to cumputer hardware, so if you uninstall windows, you can reinstall it using the same key as long as you reinstall it on the same computer (it should even enter they key automatically then if you have an internet connection).
I don't know how windows 7 handles it though. I never installed Windows 7 from an ISO file, but I always used a CD. I used the same CD for several computers and they all ended up with a registered (genuine and non-trial) windows installation. I never checked if the product keys were different though.
What if you replace a part of the hardware, such as the video card?
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 27, 2015, 04:15:24 AM
What if you replace a part of the hardware, such as the video card?
I'm not sure how a changed video card would effect OS installation O.O
Detecting that it's the same machine for the key. That said I think it's probably based on the CPU serial number or something. Or it's the OEM thing where the BIOS stores the key.
Please don't buy windows
Quote from: Streetwalrus on September 27, 2015, 11:26:52 AM
Detecting that it's the same machine for the key. That said I think it's probably based on the CPU serial number or something. Or it's the OEM thing where the BIOS stores the key.
Please don't buy windows
But if you change the CPU?
Also yes Linux is better, I would switch right now and forever, but so many tools that I use everyday are Windows only.
Quote from: DarkestEx on September 27, 2015, 11:29:28 AM
But if you change the CPU?
You're screwed ? :P Windows hates it when you change hardware without reinstalling too which is a huge pain in the butt. Not sure about a CPU or a graphics card, but a motherboard, definitely.
Quote from: DarkestEx on September 27, 2015, 11:29:28 AM
Also yes Linux is better, I would switch right now and forever, but so many tools that I use everyday are Windows only.
My small print statement was more directed at not giving microsoft the money they don't deserve than not using windows at all. I still use it once in a while myself.
Quote from: Streetwalrus on September 27, 2015, 11:34:55 AM
Quote from: DarkestEx on September 27, 2015, 11:29:28 AM
Also yes Linux is better, I would switch right now and forever, but so many tools that I use everyday are Windows only.
My small print statement was more directed at not giving microsoft the money they don't deserve than not using windows at all. I still use it once in a while myself.
Yes, they do not deserve it, and I am not a Windows fan at all.
Problem is, that they have such a huge ecosystem of programs already and only a few are Linux compatible aswell.
And Play on Linux or Wine are just not working well for many tools and programs.
One of the reasons I like writing my Programs in Java or C# is that they do run on Linux aswell, allowing others to use my stuff without having to have access to a Windows machine.
And as soon as Mono is installed, all my programs run natively on Linux and integrate just well. I don't think installing mono is a huge deal.
It depends on what you're doing really. I rarely need to use windows only programs, even games are getting linux support now. But that's just my own use case.
I agree that wine has horrible compatibility, but it's great for things that do actually work. Otherwise a VM also works. I use wine and dual boot right now, but I'm considering removing my windows partition and running a vm instead. Depends whether I'm really interested in windows only games or not.
As for java/c# etc, it's true that it just works with most programs but writing cross platform native code is easy too. To each his own I guess.
HP Prime softwares are now Windows-only, for the most part. Even XP is no longer compatible with them.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 27, 2015, 03:49:58 PM
HP Prime softwares are now Windows-only, for the most part. Even XP is no longer compatible with them.
Well XP is dead anyway. A person who still uses XP really has to be a moroon :P
Windows 7 is way better than XP so who is still using XP should really upgrade.
It depends. Some people are still stuck with XP for whatever reasons or simply can't afford a copy of 7 or 10 (I think 10 is only free for WIndows 7 users or above). I myself will never use XP again, though.
What's so bad about Windows XP?
No new updates. It's not supported anymore, so security issues are worse and stuff. Also don't like all bank atms have xp or did they upgrade by now, because I remember reading how the lack of support from windows for xp made atms less secure cause apparently they use xp, which I did not know.
Hey, Windows XP was release back in 2001, which is over a decade ago, plus Microsoft only stopped supporting it last year. XP was a very widely used operating system so people who programmed viruses and other malware knew they could cause the most pain by making them for XP.
I never knew that ATMs used XP!
Quote from: SiphonicSugar on September 28, 2015, 01:23:06 AM
What's so bad about Windows XP?
From experience, XP tends to act more erratically than Seven, as in, some weird bugs will occur, such as when you drag and drop an icon and it remains "printed" in the screen somewhere. Security issues are highly present but were more because it was the most used OS and because most people used IE6. It also happened to be the most widely used OS when Limewire was around (that P2P thing had so many viruses on it). Personally, the only issue I had with XP is that it seemed less stable than 2000 and Seven. Security issues were regularly patched until the OS was discontinued in 2014 and viruses are often caught when people don't use common sense (eg using IE6 in 2010 unless parents or school refuse to let you install anything new and blocked all storage mediums on which you could use portable softwares)
XP was great back in the days but it hasn't aged well. When Vista came out, a lot of people stuck with XP. Vista was obviously not ready to be released, and there was absolutely no benefit in using the 64 bit version since most drivers were incompatible with it, which caused that huge marketing lie that it was fully 64 bit. While the OS had a 64 bit version and most CPUs sold were already capable of running 64 bit, OEM machines came with the 32 bit version instead. When 7 came out and fixed pretty much everything about the Vista fiasco, XP was already pretty old and people buying new machines stopped complaining. It makes no sense to use XP on a Vista era and newer machine. Instead, use Windows 7, 8.1 or 10.
Oh god... I still remember all the issues people had with TI-Connect and TiLP when Vista/7 64-bit came out. It took 4 years or so until they could finally send programs to their calculator.
yeah personally I never used vista. I went from windows 95 to 98 to xp to 7 to 8 to 8.1 to now 10 :P
Windows 10 is annoying. As I ranted it made me lose data, and also I don't like cortana that much, so I disabled it. It has very little answers and it researches stuff on bing(cmon). I expected it to be really good, but its just like, eh.
Also windows 10 is pretty good, but it was way overhyped. It didn't really make windows 8.1 too much better(although it improved it a bit), so it was way overhyped. Also im annoyed that my new comp has locked bios so I can't disable hyperthreading. Not too bad but still.
Is it true that Windows 10 can destroy partitioned hard drives? Someone on Facebook claims this happened to him.
I think so. My social studies teacher said that it deleted everything on his comp when he upgraded, but fortunately it didn't happen to me :)
I don't use Cortana too, and I use windows 10 similar to windows 8.1. so far, I never really had problems with windows 10 (other than some bugs which I was able to find solution for on google).
I'm mostly happy with windows 10 though.
I used an oem disc to install win10, and can shed some light on it destroying data. Windows 10 requires some special formatting to run off a hard drive (idk why, but whatev)(not the filesystem, but how mbr is set up) and most hard drives arent partitioned in this style. Its supposed to be more secure for the data. Anyone who dualboots linux, or just generally formatted their hard drives themselves via gparted/similar, probably didnt notice that win10 doesnt abide by standard mbr partitioning tables and requires a reformatting of the entire hard drive - since the oem disc requires you to conceiously delete your old drive, i guess the guy didnt know what he was doing. Unless the 'upgrade' installer is different. My dad used that, and it only uninstalled a few programs; documents werent touched here.
I never lost data cause i have 2 hard drives, and i just removed my main to protect it, just in case. I had to use the oem cause i was upgrading from xp, which worked wonderfully till recently (my fault, not xp's).
Anyways, yeah. If you choose to upgrade, dont do anything stupid, and you should be fine. Just read what your doing.
Of course, we can always complain about how win10 cannot dual-boot with other OSs properly - to my knowledge.
What would suck is if Windows 10 eventually only supported SSD drives. While this would be fine in a few years, currently it would be a disaster because SSDs are still expensive.
But would Windows 10 in its current form also require special formating on a SSD or is it only on HDD that it's a problem?
I'm personally thinking more and more about sticking to Windows 7 (or perhaps upgrading to 8.1 at one point) then switching to Linux as soon as either are discontinued. I would only use Windows for gaming and stuff that won't be feasible in Linux then (eg HP Prime program transfer)
You know, windows 10 should give you a warning and at least save your data on a cloud drive and then restore it or something. Seriously. Many people losing their data just cause microsoft changes something.
Windows 11 could work though, once it comes out, if it is good(but then again, they will probably stay with their new format).
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 01, 2015, 02:15:40 AM
But would Windows 10 in its current form also require special formating on a SSD or is it only on HDD that it's a problem?
SSD and HDD both would need special formatting. SSD is not much different from HDD in the way it is formatted. Only difference is how they work (electronic vs physical disk) and the speed.
Windows 10 would reformatt ssds and hdds; its the mbr partitioning system that its incompatible with. Its nothing to do with the drive itself.
Also, the oem is meant for use on a blank system; they (ms) dont expect oem users to use the disc for offline upgrading.
The upgrade installer available for win7/8 users doesnt really wipe things, it just plops win10 on top of the old system, since most everything in 7/8 is compatible. No idea what happens with mbr+win7 systems, but the newer partitioning taboes were introduced with winVista, so there shouldnt be any anyways.
Of course, it will uninstall programs listed as incompatible within the installer; many older Antivirus programs, Windows Media Player, etc.
The only program it forced me to unistall was to uninstal the windows 7 xp compatibility mode(or whatever it's called)(so I can play empire earth, cause it only runs on xp and vista), but I reinstalled that as soon as I updated, and I can still play ee.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 01, 2015, 01:25:04 AM
Is it true that Windows 10 can destroy partitioned hard drives? Someone on Facebook claims this happened to him.
I upgraded to windows 10 on my dual boot setup and didn't have any issue with it, the only thing it will change on UEFI systems is that it sets itself as the default OS so I had to go into the bios settings to set my boot menu as default again. I suspect that on legacy bios systems it will override the bootloader though which means that you need to reinstall grub.
From what I could read elsewhere, it appears that what I mentionned is more at risk of happening if you don't know what you are doing when trying to set your computer to be able to dual-boot. Otherwise, you should be fine.
@DarkestEx Is the site you supplied legitimate for other downloads as well? Wanna screw around a little with old versions of windows.
Quote from: brentmaas on October 24, 2015, 10:12:40 PM
@DarkestEx Is the site you supplied legitimate for other downloads as well? Wanna screw around a little with old versions of windows.
Sure, the site is alright.
Yeah it's usually good to check if websites are safe and legit prior posting links to them. I remember in the past when I downloaded some software that allowed me to have animated Windows 7 wallpapers, but I went on the wrong site and ended up with a version bundled with malware and ads.
Also, make sure to not check those pesky toolbars when installing stuff.
And of course, if you find another website as alternative, make sure that it doesn't contain keygens or pirated copies of softwares that you can run at will with no serial before linking to it ;) (often, those aren't that safe either anyway)
The download wasn't really that legit, because it was something.sfc.exe, not anything I expected like a .iso
Ah right. Be careful guys >.<
ALso, in the past, I ran into many instances where a so-called safe/legit download was marked as clean by at least 9 people, who received 10-20 upvotes, yet, I still got virus warnings and sometimes the virus warning came up 1-2 years after installing.
I think that some trolls just upvotes posts from lying people and downvotes those that says the truth just to mislead people into downloading garbage.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 30, 2015, 06:22:46 AM
Ah right. Be careful guys >.<
ALso, in the past, I ran into many instances where a so-called safe/legit download was marked as clean by at least 9 people, who received 10-20 upvotes, yet, I still got virus warnings and sometimes the virus warning came up 1-2 years after installing.
I think that some trolls just upvotes posts from lying people and downvotes those that says the truth just to mislead people into downloading garbage.
Well I can't promise for a 100% that this is legit, though I have been installing this image in my own computers and I think they just worked fine. Also I know the site already and I think its legit.
How would he mount the file he mentioned, though?
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 30, 2015, 06:41:38 AM
How would he mount the file he mentioned, though?
Well if he gives me a link i could look into it ;)
Quote from: DarkestEx on October 30, 2015, 07:56:57 AM
Well if he gives me a link i could look into it ;)
http://winfuture.de/downloadvorschalt,69.html
I'm not sure about that, but 'Bootdisketten' translates to floppy disk. I'm not so familiar with that stuff, but I don't think that's what you want.
Quote from: brentmaas on October 30, 2015, 02:18:04 PM
Quote from: DarkestEx on October 30, 2015, 07:56:57 AM
Well if he gives me a link i could look into it ;)
http://winfuture.de/downloadvorschalt,69.html
Yea old boot disks almost always come in exe files.
You need to either unzip it using 7zip or open them.
Quote from: p4nix on October 30, 2015, 05:43:30 PM
I'm not sure about that, but 'Bootdisketten' translates to floppy disk. I'm not so familiar with that stuff, but I don't think that's what you want.
Imagine if copies of Windows 7, 8 and 10 came on floppy disks... O.O
(https://i.imgur.com/94GFNGX.jpg)
https://i.imgur.com/94GFNGX.jpg
IIRC if you buy this you get a box with like 8K floppy disks O.O
I am sure that is fake, though, and I am curious if any store sells packs of floppy disks anymore nowadays? I know that some stores still sold empty audio cassettes and VHS tapes until just a few years ago.
Hmmm let's see. A Windows 8.1 ISO is 3.7GB, (3,809,480KB). A 3½" floppy disk is 1440KB, so you would need 2646 to fit the entire image. It is probably possible to use the entire 2MB on each disk, in which case 1861 would be enough, but there is still some overhead per disk to take into account (you can't just put pieces of the ISO on there, but rather individual files so the 1.44MB scenario is more realistic, and you'd end up actually using quite a bit more due to empty space on each disk (even though it should be optimized as much as possible).
Wait, do you mean that there's extra space besides the 1440 KB? That said, it's not much useful if there is, since nobody uses floppy disks anymore nowadays. :P
The worst part would be installing a modern OS from them. Not only it would take ages to swap the floppy disks one by one in the floppy drive, but they are so slow it would probably take 6 months to install the OS.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 08, 2015, 08:25:17 AM
Wait, do you mean that there's extra space besides the 1440 KB? That said, it's not much useful if there is, since nobody uses floppy disks anymore nowadays. :P
Yeah they are actually 2MB but the filesystem takes a good part away.
That's interesting. I would have thought that floppy disks simply used the computer OS' file system routines.
Yeah the filesystem is implemented by the OS but it has to be stored on the disk, how do you think it would find the files otherwise ? :P
I didn't even know it needed to do that.
Well it's like the VAT on TI calcs, it needs to be somewhere. And that somewhere is the floppy disk itself which is the most logical location.
Ah I see then. I thought the file system was what made the files show up, rather than the content, so I thought it was just a routine from the operating system running from the hard drive.
On a side note, imagine how slow Windows would be if it was on a floppy disk
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 08, 2015, 08:25:17 AM
That said, it's not much useful if there is, since nobody uses floppy disks anymore nowadays. :P
My dad still has some, i think his pc has a floppy disk reader too. Then again, he is a streetwalrus-level linux guy :P
You could invite him to CW? :trollface:
And yeah I still have lots of floppies, but nothing to read their content.
I found a floppy drive about half a year ago, only €1
YEah those aren't sold here anymore since years ago. If I want a floppy drive I would most likely have to seek online, and hope that it actually works.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 24, 2015, 02:36:06 PM
You could invite him to CW? :trollface:
Please no >.<
he would probably be the oldest member though :P
Well, we did have Ranman and SpiroH on Omnimaga, as well as a few others, and they were quite good contributors at some point for certain things. Of course it depends if you want him to see your online activity or not, though :P