looking for an OS

[Noah3]

so i just got back from vacation and my freakin HDD took a crap with the click of death. my OS was Vista home premium 64 bit, i bought it at an estate sale and there were no recovery disk and i lost mine moving. anyways hp tells me they cant send me a recovery disc because they have none for my model.and i just got back from vacation so after i pay my bills im gonna be lucky yo get this
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=744346&CatId=2459#
its only 79 bucks with the coupon and free shipping

what im tryign to figure out is
is there a equal or close to equal hdd out there for less?
and is there a free operating system out there that would support my novice computer knowledge and what i do on a cp(pretty much play eq and surf the net)
and would the OS detect my drivers and install em , or should i use driver genius or soemthgin like that?

any help would be apreciated, thank you all so much ,

 

[Xeniaz]

so i just got back from vacation and my freakin HDD took a crap with the click of death. my OS was Vista home premium 64 bit, i bought it at an estate sale and there were no recovery disk and i lost mine moving. anyways hp tells me they cant send me a recovery disc because they have none for my model.and i just got back from vacation so after i pay my bills im gonna be lucky yo get this
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=744346&CatId=2459#
its only 79 bucks with the coupon and free shipping

what im tryign to figure out is
is there a equal or close to equal hdd out there for less?
and is there a free operating system out there that would support my novice computer knowledge and what i do on a cp(pretty much play eq and surf the net)
and would the OS detect my drivers and install em , or should i use driver genius or soemthgin like that?

any help would be apreciated, thank you all so much ,

There are free OSs available, but the drawback in your case is the need to use a program that was designed to run on a windows based OS. It is possible to run windows programs under linux, but would require a bit of work on your part to initially set it up. My suggestion, get a copy of windows 7 (64 bit if your computer has a 64 bit processor). Also, programs like "driver genius" are typically garbage and not needed. Win7 does a fantastic job finding drivers for you, so let it do the legwork for you.

 

[Noah3]

thank you

thats the route i was going to go if i had more funds, but till i get paid again in 2 weeks ill have to go with somethign free, unless... i have a broken laptop with windows 7 64 bit on it, do you think i could install asnd use that product key? since i wont be using it on that laptop?

 

[Noah3]

wow just seen this

wish i could get this, maybe i can hold off eq for 2 week, ive already done it for a month while i was away and get this, check it out
http://store.westerndigital.com/sto...d.13092500/catid.13094900/categoryID.13095100

 

[StaticX27]

i have a broken laptop with windows 7 64 bit on it, do you think i could install asnd use that product key? since i wont be using it on that laptop?

It's a bit tricky to use the recovery discs from your laptop to do it, and (don't quote me on this, it's been awhile), you can't use the laptop's cd key with an oem disc of windows; they have checks in there to stop that. It is doable if you're willing to futs around with it.

 

[dulak]

You can use the oem key on the laptop with an oem windows 7 disc. I've done it several times and it worked just fine.

 

[devestator]

You can use the oem key on the laptop with an oem windows 7 disc. I've done it several times and it worked just fine.

It's been a while since I did hardware support and messed with the OEM keys but it used to be that there were several different types of OEM keys, and usually the ones on the bottoms of laptops where keyed to a specific brand (like Dell, HP, etc). Those would only work with an OEM install disc for that brand Windows, during the install you would see logos for the branding. That was back in Windows XP days when I had to deal with that stuff though, it may have changed in 7.

I know the Windows 8 RTM keys do not appear to be brand specific, I've got those sitting in a text file on my computer, and a copy of Windows 8 RTM just in case I need to test anything in Windows 8 for a customer (do not plan to run that OS myself though).

 

[Noah3]

thanks a bunch for all the help

i just found somethign called open office, its microsoft office , but not cuz its free , atleast thats what im gathering from what im reading.
has anyone used it, is it good for eq and internet surfing?

 

[jodwop]

i just found somethign called open office, its microsoft office , but not cuz its free , atleast thats what im gathering from what im reading.
has anyone used it, is it good for eq and internet surfing?

Ok, you are like all over the place. Open Office is not MS office, they just do similar things. They are office (or collections of word processing type) programs, not an OS. They are like EQ as in needing an OS to run.

Natively Eq needs windows 98 or higher to run. It can be run in Linux, but it would be emulated.

 

[dulak]

You can use the oem key on the laptop with an oem windows 7 disc. I've done it several times and it worked just fine.

It's been a while since I did hardware support and messed with the OEM keys but it used to be that there were several different types of OEM keys, and usually the ones on the bottoms of laptops where keyed to a specific brand (like Dell, HP, etc). Those would only work with an OEM install disc for that brand Windows, during the install you would see logos for the branding. That was back in Windows XP days when I had to deal with that stuff though, it may have changed in 7.

I know the Windows 8 RTM keys do not appear to be brand specific, I've got those sitting in a text file on my computer, and a copy of Windows 8 RTM just in case I need to test anything in Windows 8 for a customer (do not plan to run that OS myself though).

You're right Dev, they are generally brand specific. But if you're gonna go thru the trouble of doing that, it's common practice to just torrent the oem dvd that you need. But in his situation, unless his laptop is functional, that may not be an option.

 

[Noah3]

yeah

yeah i know im all over the place, i really dont havea clue what im talking about, i actually just found out there was somethign other than iwindows 2 days ago.
i really do apreciate all you guys help though. im gonna try and figure out how to get th windows 7 fromt he laptop to work, if it doesnt i guess i ll just buy a copy, is there anywhere where its cheaper than everywhere else?

 

[dulak]

If you've got a student email address then you can get it on the cheap from microsuck themselves. It's a "student" edition so not sure what limitations it has. Other than that, I dunno. May check Amazon or ebay and looks for new copies only. Might get lucky and newegg have them cheap as well.

 

[Noah3]

alright

thanks a bunch.

 

[Crippie]

or you can try windows 8 for free...using it on my main pc



http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download/

 

[wired420]

If you install a cracked copies of Windows 7, once it gets detected they'll offer to sell you a windows 7 key for 32 or 64 ultimate for $80.

 

[dulak]

I dunno how anyone ever gets detected. I ran a pirated copy of 7 for 2 years before a friend gave me a legit key. And my pirated copy updated and everything. It was recognized as being legit lol

 

[Crippie]

I dunno how anyone ever gets detected. I ran a pirated copy of 7 for 2 years before a friend gave me a legit key. And my pirated copy updated and everything. It was recognized as being legit lol

I forgot which update it is that gets ya...maybe malicious software or WGA don't remember offhand

 

[devestator]

It's update 794xxx something if I remember correctly. However, there is a program called RemoveWAT that completely disables Windows 7 activation requirement. And you can still contact the update servers and update and everything.

 

[Rooster]

If you have the licence key from the old machine (on the sticker-COA)..

The way it works is the key is 'non-transferable'...except...

This is checked against the hardware configuration to some degree from first activation or some such. I don't know how it works exactly...

So if you use an old key and fail to activate it automatically, you can call for phone number to do activation that way. It is normally automated and if you do end up speaking to someone you just let them know there was a hardware failure and upon replacement you haven't been able to verify/activate it.

I did this A LOT with Windows XP transfering licence keys from old laptops/pc to newer ones since so many people did not want Vista and a lot of businesses couldn't run their software with vista etc.

All you need to do it get a hold of a copy of Vista to install in the first place, Im not sure on any downloads for it but I know technet subscriptions get it for you someone may have a torrent somewhere of a clean one to get you started.

Although I would reccomend the Windows 8 trial, i dare say it'd run a lot better and smoother event though it's trial then Vista... /shudder.

 

[Noah3]

awesome

again i want to thank you guys so much, im gonna look at the windows 8 too, but one way or another i think ill be playing eq again tommrow. thanks again everyone for all the help