Want to downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on HP G7 2240is and can't?

I just got an HP Pavilion G7 2240us in and it has the dreaded Windows 8 on it. I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit to put on it, but my experience so far with trying to downgrade back to 7 on a few other brands of laptops has been bad so far. I tried this on a Samsung, installing a new 240GB SSHD into a brand new Samsung out of the box notebook, than when I powered it on it would go directly to the BIOS screen without me even pressing F2 and that's it. I could not change the boot settings in the BIOS to put from disc or anything. I thought I would ask on here before running into the same problem with this HP G7 2240us. I have a 480GB Solid state drive along with 8GB of ram to put into this laptop. HP's website has no drivers listed either for Windows 7. What a mess Microsoft has made with this whole "Everyone must love Windows 8" stuff...... Any help would be appreciated! Thanks for reading this over.

Jason.

 

Was the original OS win8 PRO?

 

I have the [sinking] feeling that the answer is: yes.

If it came with 8 from factory, then it most likely has the Windows 8 key already embedded in the BIOS. If that's the case, good luck trying to install Windows 7 (you can thank Microsoft's OA 3.0).

 

This Win8 disaster keeps getting better by the week. So, these guys are now selling PCs that I cannot install a different OS on? Nice going, forcing people to abandon PC hardware, or at least the hardware from manufacturers like that. I would never buy another HP product again, anyway...

 

And the answer to that is YES! It came with 8 on it, and I also cannot believe that they embedded Windows 8 into the BIOS and you can't downgrade. I have a HP technician calling me back here in a little bit because I freaked out on the sales lady. It's wrong that someone spends hard earned money on a new laptop and is forced to learn some stupid tiles I PHONE start screen looking OS. Yeah you can download a few different programs to make it look like Windows 7, but isn't the computer still using computing power and memory to run the stupid charms and tiles and apps screens?? Idk people, I'm glad I got my HP Probook 4450s i7 8GB ram dual 480GB SSHD's running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit before they forced everyone to buy ones with windows 8. I can't believe they have the BIOS all messed up so you can't install a different operating system. I'm seriously going to start learning more about Lion OS and check out that MacBook bootcamp because everyone's gonna just say F it and buy Macs. They are known to be wayyyyy more reliable than anything running Windows and the OS are simple to learn. And don't even get me started about not having to worry about virus's with a mac. Just glad I got my probook! LOL!

 

You have "downgrade" rights, but those only apply if you upgraded to 8 from 7. So a fresh install of Windows 7 on a Windows 8 machine is probably not going to happen.

Oh I won't. Especially since they [viruses for Macs] do exist, despite popular proclamations.

 

Well, as far as I know you can get any business-class laptop with Win7 installed. For Dell, which I know most about, all of their business-class machines are in fact configured with Windows 7 by default, and for good reason, I might add...

Consumer machines, on the other hand, are a different matter. For those, you're pretty much out of luck.

 

The same goes for Lenovo and HP's business laptops. If I recall correctly, Windows 7 should work if you cna disable secure boot fin the bios. Of course, not all laptops may offer that option. Not being able to downgrade to 7 should you want to is pretty ridiculous

 

Actually even if it has Windows 8 preinstalled by the OEM according to Microsoft you can still use your downgrade rights to install Windows 7 or even Vista if you request so...

Downgrades however are only available for the Business versions of Windows (i.e. Win 8 Pro). But an even bigger problem is that OEM's generally make it very difficult or try to wriggle themselves out of this scheme altogether as Microsoft points out:

... which is normally bad news for Consumer line notebooks as usually they get shafted on old OS support to make this option viable in the first place.

 

That's true. As you pointed out, there are stipulations to this though. It's too bad the end user has to got to the extent of purchasing another [eligible] copy of Windows - rather than being able to purchase any edition that simply fits their needs.

 

Someone needs to start a class action suit against M$ and the OEM's. Apparently the ever so slight a slap on the wrist M$ go from the anti-trust suit did nothing for M$ other than to teach them they can do as they please...............

 

Did you just try and format to Windows 7 to see if that works? If not then I reboot to factory specs and return and get my money back and tell them to take a hike. And go find another laptop that offers Windows instead or your left buying a used laptop that is new but you can install Windows7 on and live with it. If you gaming then you might have better chances of getting a Windows7 should you choose as for endusers you might end up with getting last year closeout model that still have windows 7 on them and use that as last year is still better then having no laptop at all nowdays.

 

Regardless of what you say or think about viruses, malware, spyware or any trojans on Mac, there are far less than 1/10th of 1% of what is out there for Windows so at this point Macs can still hold that claim pretty strongly about there not being viruses for OS X. Windows 8 isn't a good start to MS's new tech ventures, I know of this first hand, I have it installed. It's not good. It does give people a good reason to finally switch to Mac. Lack of viruses doesn't have to be the reason in this case.

 

I think that topic is a red herring if there ever was one, but that's beside the point anyway.

I agree.

 

Thinking about it if you did manage to install Windows 7 on the Pavilion G7-2240 then you could try using the Windows 7 drivers from a similar Pavilion model and see if they work out. Try these Windows 7 64 bit drivers taken from a Pavilion G7-2100.

 

I wouldn't dare of speculating otherwise. Hopefully Mac users and OS X developers do not become complacent with that though.

Reuters: Apple employee computers hacked, no evidence of stolen data

 

See you're link isn't really doing much here. I didn't say there were zero attacks against Macs, what I'm saying is, Windows users interested in switching to Macs (especially due to lack of interest in Windows 8) shouldn't be convinced (brainwashed) by others that Macs are just as much of a target as Windows, because it simply isn't true. Just as it's true that many more people run Windows, it's also true that many more hackers and attacks go towards Windows. Macs hardly hold a fraction of the amount of attacks and targets that go towards Windows and those same Windows attacks can't hurt Macs. And as far Mac users and OS X developers becoming complacent with that knowledge, that argument is extremely old now. Since 2003 when Macs started becoming popular people have said, "It's only a matter of time before Macs will be highly targeted". Well after 10 years Macs are in the households and businesses of many and they are still low on the totem pole in regards to attacks.

As far as the OP, it's either best to get an older Windows 7 machine or get a Windows workstation that most likely hasn't (or won't anytime soon hopefully) adopted Windows 8.

 

IMHO I agree as well and followed this advice. Once I saw where Windows 8 was going with the RTM I made a decision to get a new Windows 7 machines before the RTM was out. Originally the plan was to just continue to use my old machine for another 2-3 years. I am hoping if need be I’ll be good for another 6-8 years with this machine as I am not a gamer............

 

Yep, and you're not alone with this. This kind of scenario is playing out all over the Windows world, with people deciding to skip the disaster that is Windows 8 everywhere. Worse, as HLDan has suggested, people are indeed considering leaving Windows entirely. This is millions and millions of dollars of losses we are talking about here. And for what? For some morons deciding they could shove their hokey ideas of what "next generation Windows computing" should look like down people's throats. All of this ill will could have been avoided so easily, at exactly no cost whatsoever to Microsoft and the Windows franchise, by simply leaving the choice of using the traditional Windows interface in Windows 8. Like I said before, the team that made those decisions at Microsoft should be taken out and shot. Not that it would help much at this point, of course... Windows Blue, the refresh of Windows 8 seems to be scheduled for late this year, and we will see what that will bring. There's rumors that it will allow people to directly log in to the desktop as an option, and perhaps even bring back an optional Start Menu, although I doubt the latter will happen. In any case, it will be too little too late. The damage is done.

 

Last month I bought an Asus S200E sub-notebook in-store for $400USD. It's a 64-bit machine, and originally came with Windows 8 x64 pre-installed, together with all the usual crap. I was so underwhelmed by Windows 8 that I could hardly wait to rid myself of it and go back to Windows 7. The problem however was that this 64-bit machine would not accept the install of my licensed copy of Windows 7 x64 and so I was forced to install the regular 32 bit version of Windows 7. The next problem was the drivers for Windows 7, but I managed to get them all in the end, and the systems seems to be stable and fast. The sub-notebook only came with 2GB of DDR3 which is barely enough for Windows 7 under normal circumstances. I have gotten around the problem though by installing as little software as possible, and by using portable apps located on the second partition of my hdd wrapped up in the Pstart launcher. I also tweaked the OS to remove some unwanted features that only serve to chug the system. Perhaps on some notebooks it's not possible to downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8, but this proved to be not the case for me, thank God (pre-supposing of course that there is or ever was such a person).