If only W10 worked...

[cruiser2]

I am on W10.
I probably haven't used all the programmes. It does what I want so will not try all the gimmicks.
Have now got a laptop so I can show mrs.e things such as emails without her having to come upstairs.
When I got this computer it was built by a local computer shop. hey transferred all the files and programmes from the old one. Also gave me the old hard drive which I destroyed. Big hammer broke it into pieces before taking it to the tip

[Diflower]

Wm he might do part exchange, I don't have the energy for faffing about. He's a good bloke.

[Workingman]

Di, he sounds like a decent bloke and if he will part-exchange then why not? Just make sure that once he has transferred your files he does a clean install of Vista, which will wipe the HDD.

[Suff]

Suff left work on the 3rd March, went to a ball in Kirkcaldy on the 4th, drove to Lincolnshire on the 5th, exited his apartment on the 6th/7th, drove to France on the 9th and found that Mrs S had booked for the 16th so we didn't get a cabin, drove home on the 10th, shattered and Mrs S, with Suff as a helper, hosted a curry night dinner party, mainly French, on the 11th.

Sadly he's not had much time to respond.

But, yes, you get the gist. Suff is not a Mac fan. Witness his close techie friend who, when faced with an total failure of his Mac at a presentation in a key event, spent the next 3 weeks defending it because it was "so easy" for everything else.

Mac owners forgive the failures because they are protected from many other things. They spend huge sums of money on Mac specific stuff and are hugely at risk of invasion because of the Apple attitude to AV suites.

I have no love of Apple. But, for some, it is a very easy life.

For me, Windows does much more than Apple ever does for my friends. I put the effort into making it work for me and I reap the benefits.

Some people suggested that slaves had a good life, food, accommodation, all the work they could ever want. Just lacking a bit of freedom.

Sadly, in my computing world, I am all about freedom. Apple is all about slaves.

[Suff]

Di, I'd say that it's time to change the machine. Changes in memory architecture mean you can get much more for your money.

That memory I gave you was already old and non mainstream, it got you going and made Vista work better, but would now cost a lot to buy any more upgrades. Whereas you could probably buy 4* the modern memory for half the price.

Because of Vista and W7, entry level graphics capabilities have gone through the roof and overall system ability is greater with even a basic new machine.

You are also running up towards hardware issues. My 7 year old machines are all starting to die now. Power supplies failing, frying motherboards and graphics cards. A fresh machine will allow you to avoid that.

On the file transfer, I have started taking a different track than transferring files or even spending the time to ferret them all out. Today, when I change a machine, I clone the drive and run it as a virtual machine. As I keep the entire machine, all I need to do is run up the "virtual" machine and go search for the files.

VirtualBox is free, drive sizes are so large now, compared to the days of Vista, that you can easily fit the old machine on your new drive. I would ask your guy which would be cheaper, clone the drive to VirtualBox and make it available as a VM (Virtual Machine), or copy all the files, with the obvious risk that you had something saved somewhere which you did not know about.

It's a thought. Personally I'd also go for 16GB of RAM if you can get it for a reasonable price. Most capable systems will come with 8gb, 16 is future proofing.

[Diflower]

Thanks Suff, will bear all that in mind.

[Gal]

I opted to refurb my 7 year old laptop with a very trusted guy who has built me desktops in the past (I've known him a long time!)

He came to my house on Tuesday to pick it up, rang me in the evening to explain what needed to be done, gave me a quote (£65!) and delivered it back to me this morning. He has put W10 on, transferred all my documents and photos, put a new hard drive in with a bigger memory and faster, installed avast! and several MS programmes (he gave me the HD back as it still works) And drove 25+ miles each way to do this!

All I had to do was plug it in, connect to the internet and away - I'm very happy!

(PS we use W10 at work so I'm not brand new to it, it's fine!)

[Diflower]

Wish I could do that Gal, Vista can't be upgraded to windows 10.
Sounds like a really good deal

[Workingman]

And that, Gal, is why we say that if you find one of these gems you hang on to them. Good deal - good service.

Di, he hasn't upgraded, he has put in a clean HDD and installed an OEM W10 version then transferred the files.

It is, sort of, what I was suggesting way back.

[Suff]

Gal,

It's quite possible that the RAM was second hand (I have some 40GB sitting in a drawer behind me), also the HDD could have been the result of an upgrade to a SSD where the owner didn't want the drive back.

Both of which are good value for you. The cheapest Laptop drive I could find was £41, the cheapest possible memory upgrade £16. Which would leave £8 for travel and labour.

It' good to have someone with this ability to recycle older parts into upgrades for you. I'm about to mail a good friend who's Laptop I took a look at when we were up in Scotland for the Ball. She has two slots and one 4gb memory stick. I have two kits of 8gb, 2x4, sitting in the drawer behind me. It is slightly slower than what she has but massively faster than running out of RAM.