Help me successfully get my Windows 8 laptop onto Windows 7

first thing I bought was a mouse with my Windows 8 laptop. The only time I've used touch instead of mouse is after I downloaded Opera and Firefox touch to see if it worked. I use a mouse in Metro, to bring up the charms, to drag app and windows off the screen to close them and to switch between tasks in the upper left part of the screen. I never use the start menu in XP or Windows 7. I find it easier to get to programs through shortcuts on the desktop and not searching through all the menu items.

I dont get touch screen. WHy would anyone want to get fingerprints all over the screen of their computer when the real interface between human and machine is visual, especially when you get older, and suffer from CSFS?
Touching the screen is more work than moving a mouse, it definately increases the chance of zapping your screen with static electricity, and your screed would never be clean. WIn 8 is going backwards. It is fine for tablets, but it sucks for real computers, admit it.

Oh, and thanks for your service, Semper Fi from an old flyboy.

Dont you feel that this "solution" is absolutely pathetic? I dont use win 8 and I will not go there as long as win 7 is better, but when a company like MS actually takes several steps backward, that is pathetic.

And how exactly is it "several steps backward"? No gotchas or anything like that, it's a serious question. It's one thing to say it, but what objective evidence do you have to back it up, because I don't see anything in your post.

What makes Windows 7 "better" than Windows 8? Does Windows 7 offer some feature that is not available in Windows 8? If so, what? A start menu perhaps? From a UI design standpoint, the start menu is an absolute mess. Back when Microsoft first introduced it with Windows 95 it took over for the old (and arguably better) program groups from the Windows 3.1 Program Manager. Over time the Start menu became more and more convoluted and took more and more time to find anything on it. If you think of the Metro interface as an attempt at a rethinking of the start menu in a way that makes much more sense for the way we use computers now... Few would argue that the execution is severely wanting, but if you're honest, I think you'd agree the concept is sound and with a little work could be quite impressive. For example, imagine embedding a cell phone sized display into a keyboard which shows the metro interface and serves as a launcher. You scroll through a list of available programs and select the one you wish to execute. You also have a convenient place to show your status updates such as email.

But what else does Windows 7 objectively do better than Windows 8? Does it have better backwards compatibility with older programs? Everything I've seen would indicate that programs which don't run, or don't run well, with Windows 7 actually work well with Windows 8. Windows 8 boots faster and more of the GUI functions are handled by the GPU instead of the CPU which allows for better overall responsiveness and reduced battery drain on laptops. Windows 8 has native support for USB 3.0 while Windows 7 does not since it was released well before USB 3.0 existed, just like XP was created before SATA and so had no native SATA support.

When I run down the list of objective differences between Windows 7 and Windows 8, I can't come up with anything that Windows 7 clearly does better as you claim. So maybe you can fill us all in on what I am apparently missing. All I have ever seen is a bunch of people grousing about the Metro UI, which admittedly has the feel of being bolted on with no real thought given as to how it would work with the traditional desktop UI. However, that's not really something you can say Windows 7 does better. So please do share with the group what objective measure I am overlooking when I compare Windows 7 and 8.

...how computer manufacturers and stores are still shipping-selling 7 machines. 8 may be great for some....but Windows is for the masses. And the masses need 9. Buh bye 8.

No, I'm not. That is a business decision, it has nothing at all to do with the technical merits of Windows 7 over Windows 8. If customers started flooding in wanting Linux on computers, manufacturers and stores would respond to that in exactly the same way. Just because stores are selling something doesn't, in and of itself, prove any kind of technical superiority of a product.

...but also sort of support mine as well. 8 is better.
I think how you mentioned Metro being "bolted on" was a perfect description. I'm going to use that!
This migration to touch screen tech seems to have caused MS some frustration and they mashed out a Frankenstein OS. That's why I love your "bolted on" words. They'll get it right... next time, which I've read is feverishly in the works and will appear sooner than most MS offerings have.
We're not helping the OP out much here. My advice would be similar to what I think you are trying to say - just work with 8.
But here's the thing...if you were like many people and went from 98 to XP to 7...you always had fun doing the change. You looked forward to booting up. You skipped ME or Vista frustrations.
This change is frustrating users.

I do not have a touch screen, and do most of my work in
Firefox and in programs. My Windows 7 Toshiba started running hot on New Year's
Day. It died in mid-February. I teach online, and every day without a new
computer meant I was not earning a living, and I could not pay rent, utilities,
etc. I got a new laptop with the specifications I needed, and bought a new
computer. I did not like many of the Windows 8/8/1 apps, so I upgraded from 8
to 8.1 and installed Classic Shell. As mentioned previously, I look up
shortcuts and other needs on the Web, and I use the computer much as I did my
own Windows 7 computer. Installing Classic Shell helped, and I tracked down a
driver conflict that was causing daily BSOD. This could be a problem for you if
you attempt to "downgrade" as it were back to Windows 7. You may put
Windows 7 on your computer and find that it does not start up at all, or you
may find many things don't work.

Using Classic Shell and looking up Windows
8/8.1 tweaks, tips, and tricks, helped immensely. It allowed me to keep Windows
8.1 and take advantage of the aforementioned faster startup, boot up, and
better performance.

I also found some faster disk imaging software by Aeomi along the way and back
up daily. Windows 8 is faster and more efficient, so now I can do daily backups
in a fraction of the time. With Windows 7, I did weekly because they took so
long, and used so many resources on my 2 GHz, 6 GB RAM Toshiba, that my
computer was basically down for hours per day to run scans and run maintenance,
Windows 8 runs these in a fraction of the time, giving me more time to work
when I want, including in the middle of the night when I cannot sleep. I also
have more time to read and watch movies because my Windows 8 computer is up
more and has fewer issues than Windows 7. It needs updates less often, and
installs things more quickly. I can essentially set tasks like maintenance to
run on schedule, and it does. It truly is set it, and forget it. With the
Windows 8 colander apps, I am reminded of friends birthdays, even when not in
my browser. I can take Skype calls in the Windows 8 app or the Windows 7 style,
desktop program. I can do likewise with the Kindle app/desktop program.

I have
a free Microsoft account and it is linked to my email, and no I am not tracked except
my WeatherBug knows my city and zip code. I can easily change anything, and
have fewer maintenance apps because they work better, faster, and all the time
in Windows 8.

I am not an early adopter; I did not buy a Windows 8 computer until my Windows
7 computer died. I muddled through it because I didn't have a choice. I started
at the end of February, and it took very little time. I found Windows 8 doesn't
make Restore Points as often, so I found a free "Restore Point
Creator," which automatically creates daily restore points at the time I
set. The program also makes restore points when I install or update or
uninstall. I can also make manual restore points more easily than I did in
Windows 7. I even found a one button shutdown icon for my desktop, as well as a
one button restart and Switch User. Windows 8.1 and Classic Shell easily allow
you to customize almost anything and everything on your computer, even many
things Windows 7 did not, or you can leave things on their default. I
considered what you are doing, and I found it very difficult to navigate and
find clear answers as to what drivers were required for what functions. As I
researched it, I still had to navigate my new computer, and I learned Windows 8
as I did so.

Classic Shell made things much easier, and unlike in Windows 7 where I can
search the web or my folders. I can search my settings from one place in
Windows 8. I can also search my entire computer from the same place, including
all my partitions and backup drives .It is very fast. I use "boot tuner" to and
Navigation options to boot into desktop, not Metro, and to restore the Windows
7 advanced boot up menu. Last Know Good Configuration is gone, but Restore
Points and new advanced recovery options have replaced it. I haven't had to use
any of them, and I have my disk image, so I can just restore to that and not
even have to reinstall my programs. I backup my personal files (documents,
music, videos, and pictures) every other day, and on the other alternate days,
I back up my full system disk image. I hope others do not have to go through
what I went through, having their computer die one day, but Windows 8 has been
out for going on two years plus, and is on most new computers (consumer).
Windows 8.1 has been out for over six months. Most incompatibility issues have
been dealt with, but downgrading has not been fully dealt with by nearly as
many users now that it is getting harder to get Windows 7. From one non-techie
to another, install Classic Shell and make some simple tweaks with "62
Windows 8 tips, tricks and secrets | News | TechRadar"
(http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/50-windows-8-tips-tricks-and-secrets-1028220/5).
It helped so much, and you don't have to do the ones you don't want to....

Question, why didn't you just blow the dust out of the intake on the old one, or put in a new fan and silver heat paste on the processor and be done with it before you fried it?

I was blowing the dust out of my laptop everyday. It was still running hot. It being a laptop, and not being a tachie or having the tools to open it up, I could not replace the fan myself, and sending it in to the company would leave me without a computer for 2-3 weeks. As for silver heat pasting, i am not a technician. I am an English teacher,. I have no idea how to do that. I was simply telling why I had to replace my computer and trying to identify with the man who asked the original question above....

Too bad. It is really quite simple, almost foolproof. You can do it yourself, very easily, and what the heck, nothing ventured nothing gained, right? If you still have it, and want it for a backup let me know and I will walk you through it. It really is easy, really.

Keep to the one you know ? Is that a reson ? W7 works well, why change if you dont need anything apart from time, about 20 hours to study something you dont need !

A few reasons. First among them is that fixing "what ain't broke" is a little thing we like to call progress. Hunting and gathering worked just fine for early humans, so why spend all that time perfecting basic agriculture? Walking worked just fine, so why spend all that time domesticating horses to carry us around? Riding horses worked just fine for a couple hundred years, what do we need cars for? Cars and boats work just fine, what do we need planes for? You wouldn't be able to whine about Windows 8 like this if a whole series of people before you hadn't fixed something that wasn't broken because they saw an opportunity to improve upon it.

Another good reason is based on research into neuroplasticity. When people tell you that the brain is a muscle and it will atrophy if not used, they aren't just being all folksy. All research into how the brain ages shows that the more actively you use it, the slower the decline in later life. Spending 20 hours, to use your figure, learning Windows 8 could be viewed as an investment in making sure you keep your wits about you well into old age. Your brain is an amazing bit of bioengineering, which can literally rewire itself. Every time you learn something new, you create and reinforce various neural pathways in the brain. When you forget something, it's because you didn't use some set of neural pathways for a long period of time and they atrophied until the brain did away with them. The people in retirement homes who are lost in a kind of geriatric fog and don't have alzheimers or some other brain wasting disease, are likely the people who spent their entire life thinking like you do. Why bother learning something new when what I have now works fine? I think the answer pretty much speaks for itself.

Change is inevitable: You can either embrace it and maintain some level of control or you can fight it, lose, and be swept away by the current; your choice.

Using Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell, everything I've run on Windows 7 that I run on Windows 8.1 works fine. Is there an issue with some important software that doesn't run that Windows 7 is needed instead of 8.1 with Classic Shell?

Nice way to fix a small problem and get the best this OS has to offer.

I can only think those that dis you haven't tried 8 for long with the noted items.
Bob

I was looking at the Start is Back Plus homepage and I honestly don't see anything different then Classic Shell except that Start is Back Plus costs and Classic Shell is free. So what is different?

Lenovo hav drivers for W7 so no problem, I did the same with desktops 8 pcs all happy no W8. Deskto from Medion OEM from Lenovo. HP offer still W7 on their PC, few firms want W8 in their PCs.

Recently, a neighbor who has been struggling for a year with Windows 8 (despite my adding Classic Shell start menu for her) brought me her HP Pavilion g6 laptop and a Windows 7 OEM disk. The first step needed was to go into BIOS and change both boot and "Legacy Boot" to CD/DVD. Installation went as normal, but as expected, several drivers were missing - chipset, wireless, ethernet, USB 3.0 and card reader. Instead of finding drivers on my own computer and bringing them over via USB drive (the single USB 2.0 port worked ok), I installed a USB wireless dongle via CD and got connected.
The card reader installed ok with Device Manager. Then I made my way to "driver hell". HP support/forums seemed to have good leads, as people have written in about this subject before, but the leads and links fizzled out or were dead. For instance, the link given for AMD chipset brought me to graphics driver update/install, but no chipset driver. Yes, Device Manager will give hardware ID names, but it would help if it spelled out the component mfg. I figured out the wireless controller was Realtec, so although the exact driver ID name wasn't found, I must have been close enough. It worked.
Very reluctantly, I visited (or should I say was re-directed to) one of those "driver websites". I installed it's scanner (later found by Malwarebytes to be, well, malware) and it "found" the chipset driver! When it went to install, it said it was "about to install Synaptics Touch Pad Driver". No thanks. Credibility was just lost. Back to the HP provided AMD link; after installing their scanner I think I was redirected to something else. It found all 3 of the remaining drivers I needed (eth, chipset, USB 3.0). Great. Just PAY $30. No thanks. Who knows if they were correct?
Next, I found and installed the ethernet driver, although I can't remember how! Things were getting quite frustrating and tense. Next, I was back at AMD looking for the chipset driver when for some reason it went right; the chipset driver and USB 3.0 both installed at the same time. Success, after 2 days of frustrations.
Windows 7 is up and working fine, but I don't know if I'd like to go through that again.

What was it about Classic Shell that your neighbor could not deal with?

She still didn't like Windows 8 despite Classic Shell.

It makes no sense. Classic Shell looks and feels just like Windows 7. It's not worth the hassle of trying to retrofit Windows 7 over Windows 8 when we have Classic Shell. I'm using both Windows 7 and Windows 8 and Classic Shell is a blessing. It makes Windows 8 very usable.

Sorry but your advice is not good. 1) Apple is not an OS that can be purchased for existing hardware. Are you suggesting that the person asking the question just throw away their new PC? 2) Apple products are not as universally friendly as some users think. One of the most common questions I see in many forums is "Is it Apple compatible?" and many times the answer is "no". 3) We use PC's where I work and I am the person that has to teach new employees. I can tell which people are Apple users by watching the way they use the PC (when I see what I believe to be the Apple user traits, I ask "Do you normally use an Apple computer?" and so far I have been right 100%!) and most of them have trouble getting the PC to work the way they would like to. Some people may be adept at using both PC's and Apple's but I have not seen any.

To your credit, you are right about Apple's ease of use and no radically new OS, but that doesn't make it the perfect solution, especially since the question indicates the person is happy with and familiar with win 7. Your solution would mean buying a new computer at over $1000, buying a copy of Win 7 would be under $200, and my favorite solution listed is free: Classic Shell.

I used Amigas from 1986 until 2000. Since Commodore went bust, I switched to a Dell because my database program wasn't available for Macs, it still isn't! I made the mistake of upgrading from 98SE to Millennium (or whatever it was called, I've been to seep since then:-)). Then I got XP, much better. I gave up on dedicated Windows machines in 2004. I use an emulator to run Windows 7 on my Macs. Some programs like Quicken work better for Windows and TurboTax for Business is Windows only. I happen to use VMWare's Fusion. The best thing about emulating an OS is the ability to backup everything automatically every 30 minutes in "Snapshots." If I have a problem, I can go back in time and start the computer from an earlier time. VMWare makes Windows emulators that run on Windows. You can run multiple "computers" on your computer. You do have to "own" each iteration as if it was a complete computer. You could then run Win 8 on one and Win 7 on others.

I feel much safer on the Web with my Mac, and I can switch to Windows and back at will. I keep all my data files on the Macs' drives and back them up via Dropbox and CrashPlan.

I hope Apple adds a touch screen computer soon, but since I'm not in the market right now, I might have missed that they already do! It's annoying to use tablets/phones for a while and then touch the computer and go @#$%)%.

BTW, all this has come a LONG way from a 1967 NCR Century 100 with 16k of memory! It was TWICE the size of the IBM and ONLY cost $250,000! I was lucky, I never dropped my programs on the floor! I've seen pictures of people crying because their punch cards got out of order.

Are you kidding? Look back at Mac OS 9 and compare it to Mac OS X 10.9 today. You have any idea how much howling, gnashing of teeth and everything else there was when Mac OS X came along? Not to mention it had no backwards compatibility with OS 9/Classic apps, Apple's solution was to set up a dual boot until they decided they didn't want to do that anymore. Then there was the switch from PPC to x86, which at least they handled a bit better than earlier when they switched from m68K to PPC and just kicked users and developers both in the teeth with absolutely no way to avoid having to rework your code as a developer and wait/hope the developer would bother as a user. Mac OS X was a pretty significant departure from the OS Classic way of doing things.

You could even look at more recent history and compare Mac OS X 10.6 to 10.7 and later with the increasing "iOS-ization" of Mac OS X. You get an iMac today, it's basically like a giant iPad but without a touch screen and you can't carry it around with you. One of the most annoying things about 10.7 was that Apple decided to set the default behavior for scroll wheels on mice to be inverted. So down scrolled the page up and up scrolled the page down. It would make sense if you were using a touch screen, but it went contrary to several years of collective muscle memory and unless you had an Apple corded mouse, which triggered an option to appear in the mouse preferences, there was no official means of changing this behavior; you'd have to manually edit a plist file. Not a big deal if you know your way around the Unix side of OS X, but for the average Apple user, forget it. You can also ask Final Cut Pro users what their opinion is about Final Cut Pro X or go look it up for yourself. Then if you want to get into very recent history, how about iOS7, which was a pretty significant break from older versions of iOS, including various transitions and color schemes that were literally making people sick.

Apple fans, more than probably any other group I can think of, are both the most resistant to even the tiniest of changes, but also have the absolute shortest of memories. They will put the brattiest toddler you've ever met to complete and utter shame over the absolute stupidest things. If Apple decided to start arranging icons on the left side of the screen instead of the right, there would be an absolute torrent of people whining about it. Then six months later, after they've gotten used to it, they'll have completely forgotten all about how upset they were and will go on and on about how, if anything, Apple should have done it sooner. It's the "Jobsian Distortion Field" as some call it. Take some piece of crap software or hardware, slap the Apple logo on it, and suddenly it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Then we get to the issues Cool_Daddy mentions. The person already bought some hardware, so unless you're suggesting an illegal Hackintosh, it's basically a non-starter. Then if the person wants to run Windows software they need something like Parallels, which costs extra, and a separate Windows license, which also costs extra. This is all on top of the premium attached to Apple hardware if they were to take their computer back and get an Apple branded one and we haven't even covered the culture shock that would come from someone trying to switch from Windows to Mac OS X.

Apple is always trying to figure out new ways to squeeze out the independent computer repair people as well. Repairing iOS devices is next to impossible with needing special screwdrivers, parts that are nearly impossible to source, and plenty of components are glued together. Repairing their laptops and desktops is getting harder and harder for the little guy as well, with Apple slowly removing the ability for independent repair shops to order parts for repairs. The idea is to funnel everyone into Apple's own stores, which is significantly more monopolistic a practice than Microsoft was up to during the 90s. Microsoft was never a vertical supplier like Apple is and didn't have an iron grip on an app store which is the primary gateway for most people to get software for their Apple devices/computers. Apple is literally colluding with Flextronics (who runs their repair depot in the US) to carve up the market for repair of Apple hardware between them. Something that is absolutely 100% illegal under US law. The whole ebook price fixing conviction is plenty of proof that Apple's not above screwing over its customers to make a buck, not to mention that they've been colluding with the music industry since iTunes came along to fix the prices on music tracks.

In the future, please have something more intelligent to offer than a bunch of selective and revisionist history. Don't be like the annoying college Freshman who can't shut up about how drunk they are. Have all the irrational emotional attachments you want to Apple and its products. Put on the rose tinted glasses, close your eyes, cover your ears and hum real loud when Apple uses slave labor to build that phone/tablet/computer you're using before charging you a premium for it, when Apple is colluding to rip you off by fixing prices or carving up the market with a partner company. I don't care as long as you do one simple thing: Keep your opinions to yourself unless explicitly asked or they are actually relevant to the topic at hand.

Don't sugar coat it.

Digger

Brilliant! I wish I'd had your supporting info and writing ability so I could have written these comments myself. And, no, Apple fanbois, I'm not being sarcastic. Thank you Jimmy Greystone for telling it like it is.

Now, as to the question at hand, I use a free program from IOBit called Start8. Some of my clients have insisted that I must have downgraded their computers to Win7. They honestly could not tell from the interface that they are using Win8(.1).