New computer but win 7 or 8

On 4/12/13 3:45 PM, mick wrote:
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:58:12 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:44:59 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

On 12/04/2013 20:27, Ken Springer wrote:
Not so great if you can't run your favorite software on a new o/s!

How does this differ from not being able to use your favorite Windows
software in the Windows OS?

It doesn't differ at all, except perhaps in degree.

And I can't speak for everyone's experience, but *I* can continue to
run all my favorite software in Windows 8, and I also did in Windows
7, Windows Vista,Windows 2000, Windows XP, WFWG 3.11, Windows 3.1, and
Windows 3.0 (I skipped Windows Me, so I can't speak for that).

One reason I switched back to Windows from the Mac a few years ago was
that some of the Windows software I had been using was not available in
OS X, so I ran XP in a VM on the Mac.

SO I got a PC with Vista and discovered that some of the Windows
software I had been using was not compatible with Vista, so I ran XP in
a VM on the PC.

Good thing I can laugh at myself...

I have used Macs at work but never had that much interest to buy one
probably because there is just so much software available for windows
orientated PC's (and of course price). Having said that a few people
from work have bought into Mac's and then all they do is run windows on
them. :-?

I bought this Mac when my XP computer was trashed by a power supply failure.
I was frustrated with having to deal with viruses and updates all the time,
so went looking as I'd heard the rumor Macs couldn't be infected. When I
went to the Apple Store, the quality of the visual display was unlike
anything I'd seen on a Windows computer. The Windows units were simply
outclassed. Another thing I liked about this Mac was monitor aspect ratio is
16:10, not the more common 16:9. I learned early on in my computing life,
the more screen real estate plus high resolution, the better off you are.
It's hard to convince people of that extra vertical unit making much of a
difference, but it does.

The iMac with 21.5 screen I was using the other day is quality no doubt
but my usage of it is just for a database, emailing and organising a
few photographs. It is just a tool to do a few specific jobs on a few
occasions, probably no more than 2 hours a week.

For the Win 7/8 computer I'm building, I did get a 16:10 monitor, and the
onboard graphics card will match this monitor, 1920 X 1200 resolution. So,
it will be an interesting visual comparison.

I blow off all the price comparisons, since most who bring that up do not go
in depth far enough to have a truly valid comparison. I don't mean one is
500 GB hard drive and the other is 500 GB hard drive. I mean that one may
have a MTBF of 1 million, but the other has an MTBF of 5 million. I've seen
the occasion nigh on flame war over this, and when someone actually has taken
the time to research at that level, the hardware price is not that different.

Agreed, price maybe initially higher than a windows PC but looking back
I have spent a lot on, and discarded a lot of, PC hardware, whereas the
quality of Mac products do seem more robust and longer lasting. I was
asked last year to upgrade two Macs, from I guess about 2003. Easy,
just popped in a new processor and 2GB of memory and they are flying.

I ran a lot of MS software originally until I found Mac equivalents. And for
what I do currently, open source more than fills my needs. The only PC
software I use now is PSPad programming editor that I do my occasional ebay
ad with.

Open source software today is generally very good, maybe some of it
just lacks the polished interface of commercial stuff but underneath it
works very well.

I just like playing around with different software to see what it does
even if I am not interested in using it long term. To that end there
is just so much more available for the PC and I am always being asked
by friends and family how can I do this or that on 'my PC'

From the OS standpoint, I find things in both that I like and dislike.
Sometimes trying to create the same thing on one the other does out of the
box.

I've concluded the biggest thing to be concerned about is how comfortable a
person is with the OS. Hardware is secondary. I mentioned this aspect to
mick in an earlier post.

When I have more leisure time to spend at home I think will be
persuading myself that maybe I ought to get a Mac to sit alongside the
PC's at home, just to learn with of course, then I can impress family
and friends with that extra knowledge :-)
In fact it will not be long before my ageing laptop needs replacing,
with a MacBook Pro perhaps?

--
mick

On 4/12/2013 2:30 PM, mick wrote:
SNIP

Having listened to all the advice so far, the choice (for me) remains
between win 7 and win 8. Win 8 with the add ons as you mention seems to
be the best of both worlds.

(My computer was a Toshiba Laptop with Win7 upgraded to Win8 and reverted
back to Win7 after 5 months.)

Then you need to determine what software he wants to bring over to Win8.
For Example, I wanted to bring MS Office 2000. It won't run in Win8. I
went to Open Source Libre which is good, but their envelope and label
printing left a little to be desired. If I recall MS Streets and Maps also
didn't run. There might have been more but I just don't remember. The
growing bald spot is eroding some gray matter with it.

I was beginning to get used to the inconveniences, but I had one unique
problem to my computer in that 'Restart' would hang up. Software updates
turned into a PITA. Again that was probable only related to my computer.
However, I just recalled, that I found a thread I think on the Win8 newsgroup
that had a fix for the problem. (That means others also had the problem) I
implemented the fix and it totally killed the computer, DEAD!!! I happened
to have a Disk Image saved and via a recovery disk was able to load my image.

Little things kept on popping up that made Win8 just not worth it. I
reloaded my original Win7 and have been a happy camper ever since.

FWIW, If you go the Win8 route, be sure to save a Disk Image! ASAP.

When installing a new OS I always do all the updates, install the main
software, do updates again, clear out any unwanted temporary files,
internet files and other crud then do an image, and keep that one
forever. Then I do completely new images every few months depending on
the level of additional software or changes made. I always keep that
virgin image separate from all other images. Touch wood, all the years
I have been doing that I have never had to resort to that first ever
image. Subsequent ones I have used on occasions mainly due to me
trying rogue software that I was fairly certain would give me a problem
anyway, but I don't mind and I am aware of what I am doing.

BTW, Win8 did seem faster. I used START8 for the Win7 desktop and it was
excellent.

All the best with whatever way you go.

Thanks

--
mick

On 4/12/2013 2:29 PM, mick wrote:
On 4/11/2013 6:02 PM, mick wrote:


64 bit OS.

MS Office will be installed, so Outlook will be the email client of
choice with which he is familiar with.

Is it a new or old version? I know that Office 2000 will not run in Win8,
but does run in Win7.

Most likely to be Office 2010.

--
mick

On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:36:26 +0100, mick wrote:

On 4/12/2013 2:29 PM, mick wrote:
On 4/11/2013 6:02 PM, mick wrote:


64 bit OS.

MS Office will be installed, so Outlook will be the email client of
choice with which he is familiar with.

Is it a new or old version? I know that Office 2000 will not run in Win8,
but does run in Win7.

Most likely to be Office 2010.

Office 2003 works fine on two Windows 7 PCs here.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

"Mike Barnes" wrote in message ...

winston wrote
Win8 when run in 'Desktop mode' like Win 7 provides the Windows
Taskbar.
Win8 like Win7 requires one to 'add the Quick Launch Taskbar'
- 3rd party utilities are not necessary for either of the above items


Thanks, that's good. I so rarely use the Start menu, I couldn't care
less what it looks like. I do use True Launch Bar and a Windows 8
version is available.


Likewise, I've rarely used the Start Menu. Once the ability to pin to the Taskbar, Jump Lists, and/or add the Quick Launch bar and
in conjunction with the simple method of searching (another Taskbar shortcut that open 'Search without the need to first open
Explorer) the need to use the Start Menu for routine tasks became unnecessary. Lol...and no my desktop is not full of shortcuts
(it has 5 total icons - iTunes, Internet Explorer, SeaMonkey, my WordPress blog, and Computer)

--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps



--
Mike Barnes

mick wrote:

mick wrote:

I have a friend who is asking me to help him choose a new desktop
computer. He has an very old machine running win xp, he does not do
much other than email, internet, a bit of video editing and photograph
editing. He is also not that computer literate, I have to walk him
through most basic things much of the time.

Choosing a computer to suit his needs is not much trouble but I am
stuck on whether to advise win7 or win8. I know a lot about win7 and
can help him to easily get to grips with understanding it, but if I go
for win8 I know it will be more difficult, as I do not have that here
at home to play with when he asks the inevitable help questions over
the phone.

The new computer will be between 4 and 8gb, no gaming, no touch screen.
I don't want to appear selfish from my point of view and help him spend
his money by buying an already oldish win7 when the newer win8 is
widely advertised as the next best thing since sliced bread if you see
what I mean.

As to myself, I have three machines here with win7 and cannot ever see
me upgrading to win8 as all the reports I have read so far just don't
convince me it is better. I had vista on a couple of machines awhile
back and although it worked well(for me), win 7 just blew it out of the
water and that is what I will be sticking with for quite a long time.

Oh, what to do :-?

Have you considered just refurb'ing/rehab'ing the existing machine?
Whether that's a viable choice depends on why your friend thinks he
needs a new machine. For what he's doing, it doesn't seem he needs all
that much computing power. A thorough system cleaning and decrapifying,
and more RAM might be all that is required.

That was all I did for a client who complained his 7 or so
year old Pentium IV, 40GB HD, 512MB RAM, WXP SP2 was too slow, and he
needed a new one. He used it for business as well as personal. All I
did was decrapify it, up the RAM to 1.5GB, the maximum it would
take, and update it to SP3, etc. It was like a new machine. And that
was two years ago. Since that time, I've added a larger hard drive,
cloning the old 40 gigger as it was failing. It's still going strong.

FWIW, if your friend does decide on a new machine, whether W7 or W8, be
sure to check if his old XP software is compatible.

Stef

I did all that to it a couple of years ago Stef. I even reformatted
the hard drive and only installed the software that he needed. I have
got him running CCleaner once a week and then backing up to an external
drive. MS Office 2003 runs OK, Sony Vegas Pro 9 is slow but does work.
When he sees my machine which is nothing special, core2 quad Q6600
with 4GB he notices straight away the difference in performance and
this sways him to having a complete new machine.

If that's the case, then a new machine is the only
viable solution. Just get one that's at least a quad-core and 6GB RAM
minimum, and very upgradeable. After all, this is Windows we're
talking about here. I would go for a motherboard that's good up to 8 to
12 cores and 16GB RAM, separate graphics card, USB 3, and can handle
both SATA and IDE.

Software is not an issue, thanks for the reminder though.

OK. Then I would go with Windows 8 and Classic Shell. It'll look
and work just like XP, more or less. If he's doing video, I'd go with
64-bit W8. He'll need access to as much RAM as possible for
speediness. Also, be sure to get a CPU that can emulate 32-bit in
hardware, so he can run his old 32-bit apps under a 64-bit OS.

Stef

"Mike Barnes" wrote in message ...

That's all very encouraging (especially the bit about your desktop
not having my picture on it). I appreciate it, thanks.


Since this group is carried on publicly accessible servers....if desired, anyone on the planet could now have that same skier on
their desktop. g



--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 4/12/2013 6:20 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:36:26 +0100, mick wrote:

On 4/12/2013 2:29 PM, mick wrote:
On 4/11/2013 6:02 PM, mick wrote:


64 bit OS.

MS Office will be installed, so Outlook will be the email client of
choice with which he is familiar with.

Is it a new or old version? I know that Office 2000 will not run in Win8,
but does run in Win7.

Most likely to be Office 2010.

Office 2003 works fine on two Windows 7 PCs here.

Even Office 2000 works on my Win7.

Ken Blake :
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:27:12 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:10:30 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:


SO I got a PC with Vista and discovered that some of the Windows
software I had been using was not compatible with Vista, so I ran XP in
a VM on the PC.

If it were me, I would have just gotten a newer version of the
software in question.

I would have too.

I'm not as dumb as you're implying here,

I hope you said that tongue in cheek, but if you really felt that was
my implication, my apologies.

but the makers of the programs
are[1]. Nothing for Vista and later was or is available.

[1] OK, they might not be dumb, but they had lost interest in supporting
their products.

I can't remember any specific examples, but the few times that I ran
into a similar situation, I was always able to find a newer, very
similar (perhaps even better) program.

I would agree generally. But I still use my 1997 version of Quicken, and
nothing I can buy today comes remotely close. The old Quicken works
tolerably well, with 8.3 file names at least.

--
Mike Barnes

On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:52:59 +0100, Mike Barnes
wrote:

Ken Blake :

I can't remember any specific examples, but the few times that I ran
into a similar situation, I was always able to find a newer, very
similar (perhaps even better) program.

I would agree generally. But I still use my 1997 version of Quicken, and
nothing I can buy today comes remotely close. The old Quicken works
tolerably well, with 8.3 file names at least.


I've been using Quicken since about 1990, and I upgrade about every
other year. Upgrading isn't very expensive, and there are occasionally
improvements or new features that I like. I've never had a problem
with incompatibility between Quicken and whatever version of Windows I
was running.

On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 05:29:35 +0000, John Morrison
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:10:30 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:41:24 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:58:12 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:44:59 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

On 12/04/2013 20:27, Ken Springer wrote:

Not so great if you can't run your favorite software on a new o/s!

How does this differ from not being able to use your favorite Windows
software in the Windows OS?

It doesn't differ at all, except perhaps in degree.

And I can't speak for everyone's experience, but *I* can continue to
run all my favorite software in Windows 8, and I also did in Windows
7, Windows Vista,Windows 2000, Windows XP, WFWG 3.11, Windows 3.1, and
Windows 3.0 (I skipped Windows Me, so I can't speak for that).

One reason I switched back to Windows from the Mac a few years ago was
that some of the Windows software I had been using was not available in
OS X, so I ran XP in a VM on the Mac.


I know next to nothing about the Macnitosh, and can't say anything
about. I can't even spell it.

Forte Agent 6.00/32.1186 has a spell checker, just press F7. g,d&r


Leaving aside your joke in reply to my joke, I never press F7 for the
spell checker. I just click "Send Now" and the spell checking is done
automatically.

(and yes, it caught "Macnitosh," but I didn't let it correct it and
spoil my joke g).

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:14:12 -0700, Mellowed wrote:


Is it a new or old version? I know that Office 2000 will not run in
Win8, but does run in Win7.


*Will* run under Windows 7? Yes, but there are some incompatibilities,
and should probably be avoided.

On 4/13/2013 8:24 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:14:12 -0700, Mellowed wrote:


Is it a new or old version? I know that Office 2000 will not run in
Win8, but does run in Win7.


*Will* run under Windows 7? Yes, but there are some incompatibilities,
and should probably be avoided.

I haven't noted any incompatibilities in my usage and the later Office
software is difficult for me (read the 'ribbon').

BTW, What are the incompatibilities??

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:44:22 -0400, chicagofan wrote:
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
BTW, I was not happy with the Windows XP Mode. I wanted XP for a couple
of legacy programs, and they didn't both work OK with XP mode, so I went
back to VMware.

That's what worries me about all the alternatives I read about now. I
fear I'll go to all that trouble and some of my old programs still won't
work. However, I will do anything to avoid updating to Win8 in the
future.
bj
Think of it as being an experimenter. Then it's all fun even when it
doesn't work.

Actually, I sometimes do that. I have tried all three alternatives above
trying to run XP, and I used the VMware and Oracle VMs to install a
trial beta of Win 8.

For XP, I had the best luck on VMware, and IIRC, Oracle was better for
W8.

Thanks for the recommendation on VMware. It supports what I was told in
another forum and have been considering.
bj

Ken Blake :
On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:52:59 +0100, Mike Barnes
wrote:

Ken Blake :

I can't remember any specific examples, but the few times that I ran
into a similar situation, I was always able to find a newer, very
similar (perhaps even better) program.

I would agree generally. But I still use my 1997 version of Quicken, and
nothing I can buy today comes remotely close. The old Quicken works
tolerably well, with 8.3 file names at least.

I've been using Quicken since about 1990, and I upgrade about every
other year. Upgrading isn't very expensive, and there are occasionally
improvements or new features that I like. I've never had a problem
with incompatibility between Quicken and whatever version of Windows I
was running.

By your use of the present tense I deduce that you're talking about
American Quicken. I use British Quicken, a different product that is no
more.

--
Mike Barnes