I did it! I bought a Lenovo G500 laptop with Windows 8 (I still have my old Pentium 3 desktop though). Well, the start screen isn't so horrible but I too prefer the desktop - with a bit of a start menu with access to the various programs. I retrieved the serial number with Read and Write Everything as it was proposed in one topic here. Yet I wonder if there is a way to see the normal BIOS messages when the computer starts instead of the Lenovo logo. I looked into the BIOS but didn't find anything relevant - or it has to do with the "secure boot"?