My New Computer

[Lento]

Don't get strung up, Gamba! With Windows 8.1 you can boot directly into the desktop, which is pretty much like Windows 7. You don't need to use Microsoft applications if you don't like them. I like Google Chrome for its portable bookmarks, Mozilla Thunderbird for email and have tried Libre Office in the past. Don't forget that you can still use Wordpad, and that you can access the Microsoft Word web app online for free and store documents online with Onedrive if you so wish.

Linux is a lot of work, and you wouldn't be able to use an up-to-date version of iTunes on it. As has been suggested, trying to do it on a modern UEFI machine adds an extra level of complexity, I believe.

[Old Grumpy]

No - MS forced all PC manufacturers to pay a fixed amount for all PCs they manufacture whether or not a MS product is installed if they wished to install a MS O/S...

Thanks - very interesting, I didn't know that, or the Norton bit.

OG

[Old Grumpy]

Before you lash out paying IT persons, bear in mind that Windows 8 can be tamed fairly easily.

Classic Shell can be downloaded from here:

http://classicshell.net/

To disable the Charm Bar and Hot Corners:

Bring up the Charm Bar.
Click the bottom button - it looks like a toothed gear wheel
Click on the very bottom option "Change PC Settings"
Click on PC and Devices
Click on Corners and Edges
Adjust the settings to your requirements
Click in the extreme top right corner to escape

My Windows 8 laptop replaced an ageing XP computer. Once set up, Windows 8 seems to be
much more stable and reliable than XP.

Yay!

Seems to have done the trick - well so far at least. Thanks

OG

[David-G]

There are plenty of little used 64 bit Windows 7 laptops to be had relatively low outlay. I got a March 2011 manufactured Acer Aspire 4752 (2.53GHz M380 i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, keyboard and touchpad showing no signs of use) for £150 a couple of weeks ago. Works a treat. Mind you, there were literally a gross of Windows updates awaiting it when I first took in online, and I did have to clear Norton and a few other bits of dross off it, but that's par for the course with laptops that have been little used since the original purchase.

Where would you suggest looking for such things?

[Bryn]

Where would you suggest looking for such things?

I got mine via a chance look in the window of one of those used electronic entertainments goods bought and sold shops chains that seem to proliferate these days. I thought the price of £150 looked too good to be true, so went in and asked what the spec. was, expecting a Celeron processor. The sales assistant called the manager, who got it out of the window and handed it to me to check out. Its battery was fully charged, so I fired it up, and lo and behold it was the very pleasing specification I mentioned. Maybe I was just lucky, but these places seem to concentrate more on games consoles, digital cameras and the like. A 3 year old laptop, albeit in newly new condition, running Windows 7, was probably just not considered 'sexy' enough. Might well be worth checking out similar emporia. Oh, and it came with a 1 month guarantee. Even the charger was unblemished.

[richardfinegold]

This is worrying, because sooner or later I shall need a new computer. But I am quite happy to pay the local IT expert to sort it out, assuming she will charge me, since I shall probably get her to supply it.

I shall whisper in your ear...."buy a Mac..."

[richardfinegold]

I am grateful to you all for your kind & constructive suggestions. I really need a few days in which to unwind. This has been growing into a problem of some magnitude during the past week or so. It all seems so unnecessary. I'm sure age has something to do with my reaction !

I would be very foolish to leave our group. Besides, I don't think someone around the Sidcup area would allow me to do so.

With apologies for my outburst & good wishes to you all, gamba

Dont apologize gamba, I just came from a grueing day of work and your post was a good belly laugh. And I am not laughing at you, believe me, but at the notion that a computer is a "labor saving device" (or at least the notion that Windows 8 is an 'improvement'.).
Macs cost more, but are much more user friendly, and the support is much better. We taught my 90 year old father in law how to use an i pad, and all his offspring are amazed. Now he sends us daily emails with pictures, newspaper articles he copies on line, etc. We've created a monster.
Someone suggest Linux, and with due respect to the poster, for a non techie Senior I think dipping a toe in those waters would be like swimming with piranhas.
If you do go that route, once you get over the learning curve, it is clearly superior to Windows (IMO).

[Frances_iom]

We have been down this path a couple of times before - Ipads are probably the better option for 'non technical seniors' with plenty of money to spare (the Apple walled garden requires payment for most items) - the desktop Macs are somewhat better in being more open - however iTunes is a good example of their walled garden in operation in that Apple are doing their best to force all interaction via their paywall - Google are starting to follow the same path now tho in their case their primary interest at the moment is building up a detailed profile on all users so they can be 'personally' bombarded by adverts.

There is however a great amount of FUD around Linux - some from those who tried it maybe a decade ago, much spread by Microsoft who want to keep the very lucrative lockin they have with Office - if like Bryn you buy a year or two old machine a recent Linux distribution will with 99.99% probability load without any problems and take 30mins to automatically install - you can try before you buy with the CD version of such distribution (btw Bryn £150 for that Acer was low I would have expected nearer £180/£200 for a 3 yr old model but I've found ACER machines to be reasonably reliable) - the usual Linux problems arise with top end gaming machines where the video card manufacturer refuses to release enough info.

Re FF's BT home hub - the usual problem with BT is their support - usually they want to load a 'backdoor' program that gives them control of your PC as this makes life much easier for them - tho such are possible under Linux it would generally require turning off most security

[Nick Armstrong]

Macs cost more, but are much more user friendly, and the support is much better. We taught my 90 year old father in law how to use an i pad, and all his offspring are amazed.

Same experience with a marginally younger paternal, an avowed technophobe, to whom I passed an old Macbook - its simplicity has been crucial to getting him into email contact and surfing newspapers etc.

I find all things Windows send me into a similar fury to yours, gamba. At work there is a Windows system (7) but also a team of IT people who do all the tweaks, support etc. I can do what I need to on it for work. Nonetheless I frequently threaten to hurl it out into the street.

I am very much wedded to Apple as far as laptops are concerned, and my conversion was instant the first time I tried, about 10 years ago. I loved my iMac and now love my MacBook Pro.

[VodkaDilc]

I shall whisper in your ear...."buy a Mac..."

I have stopped myself from making this comment, since i know that it polarises opinion. However, I came to computers with no previous experience in my late 50s and was advised that Macs would remove the need for all this technical business. I have never looked back; most things are completely intuitive and my local Mac shop is on hand (in person or phone) for anything which defeats me.

[Quarky]

Had to renew my very old computer. Have acquired a HP with Windows 8.1

Have decided to give up - the alternative is to be ' taken away by the authorities. Am in a state of total bewilderment & anger.

Nothing appears to function in a reasonable way. It has gone berserk, NO! I have or am going berserk.

Showered with rubbish items so that I cannot see what I have just written. It appears to have a mind ( or half a mind ) of it's own.

And this is meant to be progress !!!!! The instructions ( for dummies ) are little more than gibberish.

Items leap about the page as if having a mind of their own.

Have had enough !!

Bye folks - nice knowing you.

gamba

Total sympathy with you Gamba. I have recently switched to Dell, because although previously I have owned many HP machines, their quality and functionality have gone right down the pan.

I am writing this post on a cheapo HP laptop with Windows 7. It works for basic operations such as Web surfing, but do something not in the script and unfamiliar to the machine, then there is nothing but a series of headaches.
A big fan of Linux O/S, but I think you will find a series of obstacles to installing it on your machine. The first is that you have to remove protection mechanisms for interfering with the basic O/S (BIOS or whatever), and secondly IT professionals won't help with Linux - it is freeware, and no money in it for them.

However I believe you have been given wise advice for retrieving at least some of your investment in your new machine.

[Nick Armstrong]

Had to renew my very old computer. Have acquired a HP with Windows 8.1

Have decided to give up - the alternative is to be ' taken away by the authorities. Am in a state of total bewilderment & anger.

Nothing appears to function in a reasonable way. It has gone berserk, NO! I have or am going berserk.

Nothing is worth this degree of irritation. My instinct would be to shoulder the financial dent, put it down to experience, sell what is clearly a nearly new machine, and find perhaps a reconditioned Macbook Pro. That's the way I started and it will transform your 'online' life!

Happy to give some pointers re acquiring the Mac, via PM, if that could assist.

[umslopogaas]

#21 richardfinegold, you are not the first to whisper that, I used to work with people who were Mac fanatics. At that time it wasnt so much the ease of use as the robustness that attracted them: my project manager worked part time and would turn up a couple of times a week with his Mac on the back seat of the car: doing that with an MS PC required much more care. However, these days MS PCs seem just as robust as Macs.

However, in the days when I had arguments with Mac users, it was undeniably the fact that whether or not Macs were superior, there were ten MS PC users for every one Mac user. Today, I'm not sure, but in truth I'm computer illiterate: I just turn the thing on and it does what I want because someone else has set it up for me. I'll probably stick to what I know. Also, and again this is going back a few years, in the UK Macs used to be much more expensive than MS machines.

And the day of decisions may never arrive, my current machine is quite new and may well outlast me ...

[richardfinegold]

#21 richardfinegold, you are not the first to whisper that, I used to work with people who were Mac fanatics. At that time it wasnt so much the ease of use as the robustness that attracted them: my project manager worked part time and would turn up a couple of times a week with his Mac on the back seat of the car: doing that with an MS PC required much more care. However, these days MS PCs seem just as robust as Macs.

However, in the days when I had arguments with Mac users, it was undeniably the fact that whether or not Macs were superior, there were ten MS PC users for every one Mac user. Today, I'm not sure, but in truth I'm computer illiterate: I just turn the thing on and it does what I want because someone else has set it up for me. I'll probably stick to what I know. Also, and again this is going back a few years, in the UK Macs used to be much more expensive than MS machines.

And the day of decisions may never arrive, my current machine is quite new and may well outlast me ...

Hopefully you will outlive your computer. These things are not known for their longevity .

[gurnemanz]

About four years ago I replaced an ageing PC (Evesham - good company, now defunct, I believe) with a laptop using Windows 7. All has worked very well ever since and it seems to be able to do everything the desktop could while taking up much less space. From what I hear, I hope I can leapfrog the dire Windows 8, when next replacing. I don't like touchscreen UI and use a wireless mouse.