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I need an operating system for my desktop

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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Where or how can I get one for free or for relatively little money? Preferably windows 7, possibly Vista. My laptop came with 7 installed but, unsurprisingly, no disks.
Feb 1 2011 7:06PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
60 is not bad. It's about 100 + tax here. Dunno if they have a student deal in Canada.

Any other ideas?
Feb 1 2011 7:10PM
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no_steeze
Posts: 23992 - Karma: 4,267
i don't know if you have any kind of functional OS on your computer currently but i torrented windows 7 for parallels desktop on my mac and it works great
Feb 1 2011 7:13PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Nope, no OS on it at all.
Feb 1 2011 7:15PM
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Stankeyshecamel
Posts: 65 - Karma: 30
hackintosh with snow leopard os = premiere

http://lifehacker.com/348653/install-os-x-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required

Feb 1 2011 7:16PM
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Stankeyshecamel
Posts: 65 - Karma: 30
Heres the first step
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php
Feb 1 2011 7:17PM
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Balto
Posts: 25985 - Karma: 4,398
need to lay off buying nice suits to buy an OS
Feb 1 2011 7:17PM
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bryansbryan
Posts: 645 - Karma: 7
BUY AN IPAD! I HAVE ONE AND ITS LIKE A COMPUTER AND AN IPHONE MIXED! DID I MENTION THAT I'M AT AN INCREDIBLY UNDERGROUND LEVEL OF HIP???
Feb 1 2011 7:19PM
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Stankeyshecamel
Posts: 65 - Karma: 30
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5952553/Windows_7_Ultimate_%2832_Bit%29_x86_%28November_2010%29

ive installed windoes 7 on a pc and my friends mac form this ur gonna need utorrent    http://www.utorrent.com/
Feb 1 2011 7:22PM
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the.cheat
Posts: 2859 - Karma: 171
does this work on most/all systems? i was gonna dual boot my windows lappy but couldnt find much info about it. have you tried this?
Feb 1 2011 8:02PM
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[evan]
Posts: 5628 - Karma: 119
I downloaded a full version of Windows 7 Home-Premium off of The Pirate Bay.
Feb 1 2011 8:03PM
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icon1234
Posts: 3081 - Karma: 1,475
15 bucks for windows 7 ultimate at my school, plus pretty much any other program for the same amount of money.
Feb 1 2011 8:04PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
And how do you suggest I navigate to that site, download a torrent and load it on a torrent app without an operating system to do any of that?
Feb 1 2011 8:12PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Can you get me a copy??
Feb 1 2011 8:12PM
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the.cheat
Posts: 2859 - Karma: 171
you could have a friend do it for you and give them 5 dollars or something. didnt you say you have a laptop in the op?
Feb 1 2011 8:15PM
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Goobie
Posts: 615 - Karma: 30
get linux ubuntu its free http://www.ubuntu.com/
Feb 1 2011 8:17PM
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InFlamesWeTrust
Posts: 163 - Karma: 16
You could do this, or if you want more of a Windows feel, you could get Linux Mint. Both are completely free. Alternatively, you could torrent Windows 7 as mentioned (on another computer obviously)
Feb 1 2011 8:25PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Yes but... and this may reveal that I know less about computers than necessary... the OS file would then be on my laptop. I doubt burning the file to a disk would be enough to get it to load up and install on a blank slate. I literally have a tower that I put a processor, motherboard, ram, video card, power supply etc etc into and have not done anything else yet.
Feb 1 2011 8:29PM
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InFlamesWeTrust
Posts: 163 - Karma: 16
The motherboard will have a BIOS already installed, so burning the Windows .iso to disc should allow you to boot from it. Depending on your system, you may also be able to mount Windows on a usb stick and boot from that
Feb 1 2011 8:34PM
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Arabian.
Posts: 9632 - Karma: 54
Linux is free.

Or just pay the 50$ for 7 basic and pirate the hell out of the Dell and Adobe suites.
Feb 1 2011 8:34PM
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SteezyasPie
Posts: 1160 - Karma: 15
I keep a version of puppy linux that boots off a USB stick in case this happens. You could do that, then torrent whatever OS you wanted, burn the .iso images to a disk, and presto. New OS.

or install a linux distro as your main OS
Feb 1 2011 9:03PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Okay. I will try that. Given that I am using an AMD X4 965 black edition processor, and have 8gb of ram, I probably want the 64 bit version of windows - so this should work I'm guessing?

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6142778/%5BPiratebay%5DWindows_7_Professional_X64_Dell_OEM
Feb 1 2011 9:21PM
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[evan]
Posts: 5628 - Karma: 119
Damn you really went all out, what video card. I'd love if you could list the specs.
Feb 1 2011 9:27PM
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Chokolite
Posts: 1050 - Karma: 23
Okay I have one thing to add about the student edition, at least the one nugget is talking about. Usually the one you get from a school is an upgrade copy only. You can get the full version of the OS for a reduced price, but its like $129 I think. The upgrade copy won't work unless you have a previous version of windows or something


also about that torrent, i would not download that one. While windows 7 pro x64 is what you want, that specific torrent has only two seeders, and is relatively new. I would look for one that is from a premium member, has a lot of seeders, and most importantly a lot of positive comments. You will fuck up so badly if you don't read the comments.


Feb 1 2011 9:28PM
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Parrish
Posts: 8695 - Karma: 1,007
I am using ubuntu right now. really easy to get stuff going, comes with free open office, you can get chrome, you can get vlc, GIMP, Inkscape, and many other programs.
Feb 1 2011 9:30PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
-Amd phenom II X4 965 BE at 3.4ghz
-8gb of pretty good gskill ram
-sapphire radeon 5870 gpu
-western digi caviar black 1 terabyte 7200rpm drive
-I kind of want to go snag an SSD tomorrow or the next day and -just load the OS onto that for faster boot-up.
-coolermaster HAF tower
-bunch of big fans. case has good airflow, probably don't need cooling system but might get a gpu cooler.
-5.1 speaks
-28" monitor, hdmi

Iunno I can probably play some games I guess. It's not all out. I could've got a better mobo and another stick of ram I guess.
Feb 1 2011 9:35PM
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Deezy
Posts: 4580 - Karma: 1,004
10010101101101011001011010101101010001010101010100101011011010110010110101011010100010101010101001010110110101100101101010110101000101010101010010101101101011001011010101101010001010101010100101011011010110010110101011010100010101010101001010110110101100101101010110101000101010101010010101101101011001011010101101010001010101010

What OS?
Feb 1 2011 9:41PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Thanks, now on this tip

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5182426/Microsoft_Windows_7_Ultimate_Retail%28Final%29_x86_and_x64

Hopefully that'll work out. Also dl'ing this one -

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5952557/Windows_7_Ultimate_%2864_Bit%29_x64_%28November_2010%29
Feb 1 2011 9:41PM
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Arabian.
Posts: 9632 - Karma: 54
You're spending a ton of money on this, yet you have no knowledge of operating systems? I'm a bit skeptical... of both your computer knowledge AND your assembly knowledge now. Are you sure you can handle this?
Feb 1 2011 9:44PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
I've already assembled and installed everything, except the GPU which I just got, and if I want to add a SSD then that too I guess. Just need to pop an os on there. And no, I have no knowledge of how to install an OS onto a clean machine, but yes, I do have knowledge of the components as I did my research. Building a desktop is not a particularly challenging endeavour.
Feb 1 2011 9:48PM
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dreadyboy
Posts: 2306 - Karma: 34
I wouldn't risk it with that set up, just pay the 100 bucks for a legit disk. But if you're gonna download a torrent just make sure it has all good reviews
Feb 1 2011 10:06PM
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Arabian.
Posts: 9632 - Karma: 54
k. Just wouldn't want someone fucking up a perfectly good set of parts.
Feb 1 2011 10:45PM
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InFlamesWeTrust
Posts: 163 - Karma: 16
Actually, that bit about the upgrade version is a myth. You can actually do a full, fresh install of windows (or mac os x) with the upgrade discs. I had messed up my computer a few months ago (screwed up a partitioning scheme) and ended up needing to zero my hard drive. Anyway, you boot windows and install it as usual. With the upgrade this won't be activated as a legit copy since there was no prior installation. However, after its installed, if you boot from the windows disk again, you can run the installer again and it recognizes the first installation as the required previous installation and allows you to reinstall over it with full activation. Spark notes: with upgrade disk you can install windows 7 twice (once and once upon itself) to get full legit activation without purchasing the full-price boxed version This is what companies like Microsoft and Apple do to make money, and when I worked for Apple, policy was strict not to tell customers this. So when someone couldn't install itunes 10 and needed to upgrade from tiger to snow leopard, we had to make sure to tell them to buy the $300 version instead of the $30 upgrade or whatever.
Feb 1 2011 10:56PM
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InFlamesWeTrust
Posts: 163 - Karma: 16
That didn't format like I had planned from Opera, but hopefully some of you will find that information useful.
Feb 1 2011 10:57PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Here you go then.

Click for larger image

Given nothing is modular and I pretty much just scrapped it together I feel it's not too shabby lookin' in there.
Feb 1 2011 10:58PM
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geteducated
Posts: 6410 - Karma: 86
LOL AT STOCK HEAT SINK.

GET SERIOUS!
Feb 1 2011 11:01PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
If I was going to get an aftermarket cooling system on the cpu it would go on the other side anyway.
Feb 1 2011 11:04PM
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geteducated
Posts: 6410 - Karma: 86
i don't really care for your excuses.

once again.

STOCK HEAT SINK ON A BLACK EDITION PROCESSOR.

JESUS!
Feb 1 2011 11:08PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,141
Hahahaha.
Feb 1 2011 11:14PM
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1337
Posts: 31038 - Karma: 29,003
My future desktop has yours beat, shits gonna run OSX like a charm

Feb 1 2011 11:17PM
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MNS
Posts: 5386 - Karma: 3,241
just download a .iso and throw it on a dvd. then do a clean install. if you're absolutuly clueless i can help you out.

i just installed windows 7 ultimate on my gfs computer for free via torrents.
Feb 6 2011 4:39AM
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