Wdw8 down to Wdw7 in laptop

monkey44 wrote:
First maybe someone can explain what is different in the laptop once the HD is wiped clean and a complete new OS is installed from the Wdw7 Disks - which I purchased for my last laptop.

Where does this other stuff (drivers etc) live, if not on the HD? I'm thinking memory or other activities (like Word and Photoshop are separate programs and we add it, and it lives on the HD too.

SO, one, I'm curious about this stuff so I like to investigate and understand it, and two, am upset that a company continuously builds a new product that forces you to also buy new programs when the laptop or PC fails.

As far as 'modifying' the Wdw8 program, it is still going to act and respond through the Wdw8 OS, so it will only "look different' not act different. And, I'm betting even when it looks different, it will still 'fudge' my transfer documents.

For eample: When the editor emailed my word doc in MSWord form (same form I sent her) it transferred my word document into the new word format automatically, even though I do not have that program. SO, now, in order to open this word document, I have to buy the new one. NOTE: In fact, I manipulated the download and finally opened it with wordpad - but I lose formatting and it creates an extra editing step to fix it - but I shouldn't have to do the every time.

The real issue here for me - is not so much buying a new PC, it's buying everything new to go with it, or I can't operate effectively. That's the real burn here. I own a program, it should not be invalidated because I bought a new PC. And each time I try to use it (or even learn it) the pages keep taking me to places I don't want to go, and to sales pitches for items I don't want or need. And, when you try to back out, it's always two or three steps or even four to get back to where I just was, so I can continue.

SO, what I'd like to do is simply go back to Wdw7 on this laptop, so all my units are the same OS. I'm dreaming...

You can go back and install Win 7. The drivers are independent programs some are not supplied by windows although they do insert some more popular drivers that operate your hardware. For instance, if you have brand X video card windows may insert within the OS the driver for it but if you have Brand Z video card windows may not and that driver must be downloaded either from the manufacture or from the builder of the computer. You will find them under support/driver download on the computer manufacture page. Some drivers are Vista/win 7/ win 8 compliant. Some are only for the specified OS.

The drivers are stored within the windows OS and will be deleted upon reformatting the hard drive. If you install a duel OS the drivers will be retained. Win 8 sucks, as did Vista.

The problem with receiving "docs" is windows again. Doc is and extender of Office Word. A couple versions ago Word went from DOC to DOCX. If you have a newer version of Word it will have saved all documents as DOCX. Newer versions are backwards compatible. If you have an older version of Word it will not read newer versions of Word thus probably your problem. I think that is the problem with your documents not the OS. With that said tell your senders to save the DOCUMENT as DOC not DOCX which the program will do.

Im not sure but I understand a freebie program called open Word will work with all word docs. check into it.. Windows sucks but were pretty much stuck with it unless you want the learning curve of Linux or Apple.