Upgrade - New Pc & Windows 10

[BroadAmbition]

I have been overdosing this week on upgraded tech at our abode.

Last year I got word that Windows 7 was to become obsolete and no longer supported.  Plus my home PC tower has been here for ages and was getting slower and noisier too.

So, a new tower p/c system was researched and ordered (Bro did the research and I simply agreed with him, we bought a matching pair!) The new tower arrived, its a HP Pavilion 590-p0xxx intel cpu 3ghz ram 8gb 64 bit operating system with windows 10, Microsoft word  outlook etc.  I hope someone knows what that lot means as I have not much idea tbh.  All I know is it is working fine, after having transferred lots of info over from one to t'other.  Its so much quieter and notably faster.  I have now got to get used to windows 10.  This will not be an overnight process you understand

Then there was a phone upgrade form an iPhone 6 to an iPhone 7.  It's operational but there are some issues still to deal with. A few calls to EE help line for business users will sort those out I hope.

Now I need to open up the unit that has the hardrive on our home cctv security system, change that over as that packed up recently too

Oh, and the solar panels - inverter has developed a fault, a fault that can only be rectified by purchasing a new unit.   I'm told a replacement will cost about £700:00, a lot more if I want to upgrade the system with storage batteries for night time use

All this would be so much easier if I was  a teenager

Griff

[johnb]

Probably only if the teenager could go to the bank of mum and dad to pay for it all in the first place!!

[Minigem]

I have just purchased a Windows 10 laptop, there was a month's free subscription to the WP 365 on it which has now run out.

Not needing a massive WP facility and just typing a few letters a year I downloaded Libre Office from the Microsoft shop (shopping bag icon) which is free and does all I need. There are a few handy freebees in the shop and it is well worth looking at. 

[floydraser]

I've been using Apache Open Office for years with no problems.

[grendel]

I had to set up a windows 10 laptop for work (stand alone from our company network), and the worst thing was the necessity to bypass all of the security settings to actually get it to allow me to add google chrome, and the third party software to enable us to run the software required, once I had stripped out all of the built in security, I was able to get the software installed to allow us to connect to one of our suppliers for their live network data, this was the sticking point as our IT people would not allow us to link to the third party network as it would compromise our own network, despite the fact that the information obtained was of vital importance to us doing our jobs, this was why my manager went out and purchased the laptop so we could achieve this link.

[Mouldy]

We’d owned an iMac for about 8 years and it was becoming a bit slow.  Having checked out the price of a new Mac and being shocked at the cost, we went for the cheaper option of buying a Windows 10 laptop and monitor instead, but after about a year of trying to master the new operating system, it was back to the Apple store to buy another Mac. 
 

We now have Windows 10 pc’s at work and I still struggle to fathom more than the basics.  Not sure if it’s me and the fact that I’m too old, but I just don’t get it.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Other side of the coin here, I struggle with Apple and mac`s.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

1 hour ago, grendel said:

I had to set up a windows 10 laptop for work (stand alone from our company network), and the worst thing was the necessity to bypass all of the security settings to actually get it to allow me to add google chrome, and the third party software to enable us to run the software required, once I had stripped out all of the built in security, I was able to get the software installed to allow us to connect to one of our suppliers for their live network data, this was the sticking point as our IT people would not allow us to link to the third party network as it would compromise our own network, despite the fact that the information obtained was of vital importance to us doing our jobs, this was why my manager went out and purchased the laptop so we could achieve this link.

Google chrome should of been accepted straight away without bypassing anything however third party software without the required licences (or whatever they are called) would be a problem to install but  that is down to the supplier to get it cleared for use.

[Poppy]

1 hour ago, Minigem said:

I have just purchased a Windows 10 laptop, there was a month's free subscription to the WP 365 on it which has now run out.

Not needing a massive WP facility and just typing a few letters a year I downloaded Libre Office from the Microsoft shop (shopping bag icon) which is free and does all I need. There are a few handy freebees in the shop and it is well worth looking at. 

There are also free downloadable file openers (Filehorse is one that I use) that allow for quick opening of over 350 file types including pretty much all of the MS Office suite.

[Poppy]

11 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Other side of the coin here, I struggle with Apple and mac`s.

My wife has an iPad. Likewise I find it anything but intuitive as is the claim for the Aplle system.

[grendel]

7 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Google chrome should of been accepted straight away without bypassing anything however third party software without the required licences (or whatever they are called) would be a problem to install but  that is down to the supplier to get it cleared for use.

not in this instance, if it wasnt in microsoft store it wasnt having it, the main problem was that we needed to set this up to access the suppliers remote server directly to enable the software to work, this supplier hasnt the best track record of keeping up to date, one of their versions of software came out requiring silverlight, just weeks after chrome stopped supporting silverlight.

[HEM]

19 hours ago, floydraser said:

I've been using Apache Open Office for years with no problems.

Same here - also going back to when it was known as StarOffice & briefly Oracle OpenOffice.

[Smoggy]

+1 for open office, SWMBO has been swearing so much less doing her invoicing since I ditched MS office.

And thunderbird does emails plenty well enough.

[DAVIDH]

24 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

And thunderbird does emails plenty well enough.

Yes, I use Thunderbird, which as far as I can tell, is the only free email client which will bring all your different email addresses together to report new mail etc. 

[grendel]

I use emclient (the free for home use version) i believe at home for mail, for office type software i use libreoffice.

[unclemike]

which version of 10 have you got peter?

 

[grendel]

no idea, its whatever it upgraded itself to, the work machine was a latest all singing and dancing thing, it just told me with everything i tried to do that i could only do that if I turned off whatever security it was that it was running (which was hard enough to achieve for a non specific user)

[unclemike]

if its windows S it only allows microsoft store apps, as this did when i bought this yesterday,went into settings and removed the S , now allows what i want

[grendel]

that was it- windows s , a pain to disable without first having a microsoft account (which we did not wish to do)

[Regulo]

9 hours ago, DAVIDH said:

Yes, I use Thunderbird, which as far as I can tell, is the only free email client which will bring all your different email addresses together to report new mail etc

Windows live mail does it, and BlueMail on phones and tablets. They're the ones I use.

[DAVIDH]

4 hours ago, Regulo said:

Windows live mail does it, and BlueMail on phones and tablets. They're the ones I use.

I used to use Windows Live Mail, but was persuaded to stop using it as it was no longer updated for threats by Microsoft. Has someone reincarnated it? 

[Regulo]

Don't know about that, I've used it for years with no trouble. My cousin, on the other hand, has used the latest version of whatever comes with Win 10, and been hacked twice. Does the default Mail not allow multiple accounts? Seems a bit remiss of Microsoft not to allow that.

[DAVIDH]

 

10 hours ago, Regulo said:

Does the default Mail not allow multiple accounts?

No Regulo, Windows Mail (which comes with Windows 10) will only allow one account. That was the reason I trawled around looking for a free alternative. In fairness, Thunderbird is very similar to Windows Live Mail, so it didn't take long to get comfortable with it. 

[grendel]

i did manage to get windows mail to access more than one email address, the problem was it kept not connecting to one or other of them, so I ended up changing to the free version of em client.

[Smoggy]

It's worth pointing out in this thread that anyone wishing to upgrade to win10 can still it for free despite the official offer ending ages ago, you need to upgrade before doing a fresh install unless on a bulk licenced pc, you must have a win7/8 licence on it already.

It's best to do it to a cloned HDD just in case of problems and a perfect time to move to SSD.

I have done a couple of old dells from fresh install using the win7 key on the case label and they have activated fine, I don't hand money to microshaft unless I have to.