HP highlights its Windows 7 machines, saying it’s “back by popular demand”. Ouch.

If you go to HP’s “Desktops and all-in-ones” page, you’ll notice something interesting:

They’re promoting computers with Windows 7 pre-installed, as opposed to computers with Windows 8. In fact, they’re even stating that Windows 7 is “back by popular demand”. The Verge has noticed this, pointing out that even in the section for all-in-one computers, the Android device is listed first (because the listing is by ascending price, and the Android device is the cheapest):

This harkens back to the days when Vista was the current operation system, and many people were stubbornly sticking to XP — so much that Paul Thurrott recently tweeted this observation:

“Can we call Windows 8 the new Vista? Not so fast, analyst says.” Call it what you want. That’s what they call it inside of Microsoft.

— Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) January 17, 2014

I would still recommend that if you get a new computer, get one with Windows 8.1, as it’s fixed a few of Windows 7’s speed problems, and run it in “pretend it’s Windows 7” mode by having it boot directly to the desktop.