New computer but win 7 or 8

[Ken Blake]

Again.

Maybe, M$ might extend support for W7. (they did with XP.. right?)

Past the end of extended support for Windows 8?

I suppose that's remotely possible, but it's *highly* unlikely.

 

[gufus]

Past the end of extended support for Windows 8?

M$ might extind both..

VBG

 

[gufus]

EOS for Win7 SP1 is 2020. Which will be extended if there is
an SP2.

Exactly. I rest my case. -

So, I wouldn't worry about it. We will probably having
mandatory chips implanted in our brains by then.

Hehehe...

 

[Ken Springer]

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.

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.

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.

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.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.3
Firefox 20.0
Thunderbird 17.0.5
LibreOffice 4.0.1.2

 

[Mellowed]

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.

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

All the best with whatever way you go.

 

[Mellowed]

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.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

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

OK, *my* apologies. I was a too quick on the trigger, or whatever
metaphor I'm supposed to use

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.

Maybe you need to apologize again

I did not innocently or ignorantly decide that I can't move on.

I have three kinds of old computer programmable remote controls (for TV,
stereo, etc), from Philips and from Universal Remote Corp. These remotes
have room-to-room RF capability.

1. They require their own USB drivers not provided by Windows.

2. The two companies did not update the drivers for Vista and later
versions.

3. Both companies have decided that their remotes are to be programmed
by licensed installers, not by dumb consumers (many of whom are not
dumb, of course), which forces me to continue to use the old software.
This might be caused by lobbying by the professional installers, or
maybe by advice from the lawyers for Philips and URC.

4. To replace the remotes by newer ones from one or both of these
companies would cost in the neighborhood of $1500, maybe more. The new
ones *might* be supported, if I could get bootleg copies of the
software.

5. There are other brands, but experience and documentation of the
Harmony remotes and others indicate that it would be a frustrating, and
maybe ultimately unsuccessful, task to make them work the way I want.

One example (but this is based on older models; the current ones might
be different): AFAICT, the Harmony remotes with RF capability are paired
one remote to one remote receiver, but I want to have several remotes in
different rooms controlling one receiver. I also believe that they must
each be programmed individually, which can be an onerous task. Plus I
want four remotes at $250 or more each

And I'm not even talking about software problems I have had with
Harmony.

Currently, my solution is this (a link to Amazon):
http://tinyurl.com/bo8vmtz

Not easy, but doable. They don't use a computer at all, but once one
remote is fully programmed, you can clone it in its entirety to the
others by IR.

I still use the older remotes to convert commands available in hex
format to IR so I can then transfer them to the URC remotes by IR.

So - aren't you glad you asked?

 

[mick]

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]

SNIP

(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]

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.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Most likely to be Office 2010.

Office 2003 works fine on two Windows 7 PCs here.

 

[...winston]

"Mike Barnes" wrote in message

winston wrote

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)

 

[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

 

[...winston]

"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>

 

[Mellowed]

Office 2003 works fine on two Windows 7 PCs here.

Even Office 2000 works on my Win7.

 

[John Morrison]

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

That's an important consideration. In previous years I've used Ubuntu
and while I was comfortable with Ubuntu, but not being able to use my
favourite software was the reason I stopped using it.

I'm taking delivery of a new computer one day next week and while I was
wanting to run Win 7 on the new computer, I now realise that because I
will need to run two computers at the same time for a week or so.
I will be installing Win 8 on the new computer.

 

[John Morrison]

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>

 

[Mike Barnes]

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


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.

 

[Ken Blake]

Ken Blake <[email protected]>:

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.

 

[Ken Blake]

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>).