A new PC for Windows 7

[rgifford]

My current PC is dying. It has been reluctant to start up for a little while and I have suspected the power switch and power supply. Having taken the cover off there was a colossal build up of dust in the CPU fan, which I've now cleared, so there may have been some overheating there. An so on. Basically I don't know what the problem is and what to replace.

The simplest solution, I thought, would be to buy a new base level PC, move my disks across (yes I know the may be the culprit but I'm assuming not) and re-licence/re-install Win7 Pro. I have no desire to move to Win10.

What I have discovered is that current processors aren't supported by Windows 7 so I'm a bit stuck what to buy.

I'm happy to do the assembly myself from components if I have to do that but buying an assembled PC means I get a matched set which have been assembled correctly, removing the risk of me getting one of those wrong.

I'm planning to move two 5.5" hard drives and a DVD drive across if my replacement doesn't have them already.

Any help appreciated

[Redmires]

Have you considered a refurb unit ? I've recently bought 3 refurbished Windows 7 laptops from Valu Computers who have a good range of Dell & HP laptops & desktops (no connection, just a satisfied customer). I'm not fully convinced with Win 10 yet as I do have one existing Dell on Win 10 which gives me more issues than all the Win 7 machines combined. I'm not sure what to do when Win 7 reaches end of life.

[Infrasonic]

I'd second the refurb route.
My local independent PC shed does plenty of W7 pro refurb boxes, pretty good specs although the hardware is often four or five years old.
£150 up to about £450 which will get you Xeons at the upper end.

Bear in mind that official MS support for W7 is due to finish in 2020 unless you have a volume licensing deal, so biting the W10 bullet may become inevitable.
I like W10, but moved from XP, so never grew an attachment to W7.

[dionaeamuscipula]

Certainly until very recently you could still upgrade to Win 10 for free, the link is on here somewhere.

Win 10 is generally stable. At work (where we are very conservative) we are fully Win 10.

Everyone has converted without needing training.

DM

[rgifford]

Certainly until very recently you could still upgrade to Win 10 for free, the link is on here somewhere.

Cost isn't the reason for not upgrading but I will look for how to upgrade for free nevertheless.

The new Microsoft model appears to be similar to the Facebook/Google model where collecting and selling data about their users is their product. If I can avoid making that collection easier, I will do that.

We have 5 PCs which i prefer to all be running the same OS so that is another consideration. One is for work where the software I need runs with Win7. It probably runs with Win10 too but is a risk I don't need to take just yet.

[Infrasonic]

You could run dual/multi boot W7/W10 or run W7 in a VM on top of W10.

[rgifford]

You could run dual/multi boot W7/W10 or run W7 in a VM on top of W10.

I could, but that is probably the worst of both worlds. I currently run a Ubuntu VM under Win7 and sometimes have strange issues. I'd prefer not to have that type of problem.

If I choose to go Win10 I would do that. One of my PCs is dual boot with Win7 and XP. I did that as a bit of an insurance policy at the time I went to Win7 in case some software didn't work. I booted into XP recently but that has been the first time for a very long time.

I may do a dual boot Win7/Win10 at some point but I would do it that way rather than a VM.

[Infrasonic]

I currently run a Ubuntu VM under Win7 and sometimes have strange issues.

Yeah I'm running Linux Mint via Virtualbox on W10 and it gets a bit quirky sometimes. Dual boot is definitely more stable.

[superFoolish]

The new Microsoft model appears to be similar to the Facebook/Google model where collecting and selling data about their users is their product. If I can avoid making that collection easier, I will do that.

It takes a bit of effort, but you can disable Windows 10 telemetry. Also, contrary to popular belief, you do not need a Microsoft account to log in to Windows 10; you can log in the 'old fashioned' if you wish.

There are many articles about this kind of thing; here's a fairly comprehensive one that I found with a quick search: https://www.bestvpn.com/guides/how-to-d ... ollection/

I put off switching to Win 10 until around mid-2018; I like it, and if you're used to Windows 7, you shouldn't have any trouble.

I have a couple of very old PCs (7+ years-old) that run too slowly with Win 10. I have reinstalled Windows 7 on one of them (it's our 'TV Box' running Plex, so we don't even touch the Windows interface), and the other (a laptop) is going to have Linux on it.

[Infrasonic]

The simplest solution to minimise W10's phoning home is to switch it to metered connection in conjunction with the minimal telemetry reporting option.
That way you get to decide when you download/install Windows Updates and also when and if MS apps like Onedrive sync.
Helps speed up boot times too.

[rgifford]

It takes a bit of effort, but you can disable Windows 10 telemetry.

I remember the options/discussions in the early days of Windows 10 where it was hard enough to stop Windows 7 updates automatically 'upgrading' to it. Microsoft kept adding a new update to turn the disabled options back on, with a slightly different name of course.

In theory you can turn of most telemetry with Facebook and Google as well. I don't believe/trust any of them in that respect.

[rgifford]

Another post to close off this thread. Thanks for all of the suggestions and help.

I have investigated refurbs and haven't found one that I'm happy with. Most are a step down from what I'm replacing or have some other minor problem which matters to me, usually case size. My tendency when replacing a PC is to have the system drive from the old PC installed so that i can easily find old files without having to install or reload everything. I know that I can do that from backups but having the drive there and move files to the current system makes things easier for me. I also have another drive full of photos and wanting to install those two limits me a lot.

I have decided to self build a replacement which will also be a bit future proof in terms of power as well as being Windows 7 compatible. I have found this site https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ which is a search engine and compatibility tester to make sure that I buy a set of components which go together, always a worry with self build. It seems to be funded purely by click through advertising and it is primarily this site that this post is about.

Ordering through Amazon seems to yield pretty well the best prices and their customer service is good so that is probably where I will order.