Just a rant

Tom Baugues

Member
Messages
2,790
Location
Lafayette, Indiana
Last week I got a virus on my computer (and NO...I was not looking at porn). Anyway to make a long story not so long I ended up buying a new computer. I had been thinking of replacing my 7 year old machine anyway but the time just didnt seem quite right yet. My old one ran Windows XP and the new one runs Windows 7. It has been a total nightmare trying to learn a new operating system. I had many programs including a $699.00 Photoshop program that will not work now on Windows 7. My printer and scanner will also not work. I have Microsoft office files that I cannot read unless I buy the latest software.

I have 500 gig of personal family photos and videos on an external hard drive that is also non compatable with Windows 7.

To the makers of Microsoft....You are not making things easier to use by updating your operating system. Having to relearn how to do things all over again is not better or faster.

Ok...I'm done......if there are a lot of mis spelled words in this rant it is because I no longer have a spell checker installed. One more thing to do.
 
The Penguin is calling, the Penguin in calling!!!!:rofl::rofl::rofl:

(translation, Linux) yeah, not the easiest solution either, but....

Sorry to hear about the computer problems... I always thought computers were supposed to make out lives easier, not put us in the loony bin!:rofl::rofl:

Oh, and don't worry, just about the time you get it all figured out and new software bought, you'll need to upgrade again!

COMPUTERS!!:bang::bang:
 
tom speking out of turn sorta but can you put xp on the new box? sometimes you can and if so that would help solve some of your troubles..talk to brent dowel or darren on it..
 
tom speking out of turn sorta but can you put xp on the new box? sometimes you can and if so that would help solve some of your troubles..talk to brent dowel or darren on it..

Yup....that was what i was going to say. Put in a clean copy of xp......but just make sure your hardware will support xp first

Also..please buy an external hard drive.....they are about 50 bucks on newegg. Back up your system regularly. Then if it ever happens again....just load your back-up
 
I've gotten a lot of my older software to run under Win 7 using their compatibility engine; some just won't. I did go back to XP on my laptop. There were just too many drivers that I couldn't get.

XP's curse is that it was stable (for Windows that is) for so long. I've been running it since 2002 or so IIRC. It also started out as a horrible mess but, I gave it a year or so for the unsuspecting public to Beta test it for Microsoft and then moved onto it. I ran it up till just a few weeks ago on one machine; still run it on the other.

The Penguin carries its own little blue room as does MAC. There is no escape. Resistance is futile. Pick your poison and rock on.
 
I looked real close at getting a MAC but it occured to me that none of my software would run on it so I opted for another pc. I knew that Windows 7 might be different but never gave it a thought that all this software would be useless on it.
 
I'm really curious as to why your external drive won't work? I've got lot's of old drives and they all work fine. The only thing I've had so far that wasn't compatible was a web cam, and that's primarily because I went with the 64bit version of Win7.

Do you have access to an xp machine you could make sure your drive is actually still working?
 
Tom I feel your pain, I've had similar problems, and then you can add in the frustration of wanting a multi-lingual computer. We switched to Mac almost two years ago, the stress level in our house and business over them darn computers, has gone down so much, it is hard to remember what I used to get so frustrated at :thumb: Really, ask my wife! :rofl:

Is Mac perfect, no, of course not, but man it is so much better than what I had with Windows, YMMV.

Yes them windows machines are CHEAP :eek: but I know that in many cases the Mac machines seem to just keep on chugging away, while similar older win machines give up the ghost. Last year my daughter's MacBook had a HDD failure, we were within a week of the free one year warranty from running out. I'd bought the Apple care, but I forgot to register it :eek: :doh: Still one week to go, took it to the local apple certified shop (no "Apple Store in my hometown) and the guy looked up the serial number and user info an said "No problem have it back to you in a few days". Well a few days was a day and a half, they even loaded her OS for her on the MacBook, all for free, love that warranty! Then I registered the Apple Care and she has another two years of warranty, and that is an international warranty too.

I'm just sold on Mac, I'm not anti-windows, I'm just not going to willingly give them my money anymore.

I do feel your frustration on the Windows upgrading problems, been there done that, with the added frustration of older Japan only printers etc not wanting to work without "English" drivers :doh:

Hey, is this familiar........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpOvzGiheOM

...... trust me :D
 
Tom, with all you have invested in older software (like Photoshop and older versions of Office), my recommendation would be to wipe the drive and install XP on the new machine.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and really like it, but I had relatively new peripherals like printers and external drives so compatibility wasn't a problem. I did have to upgrade my version of Photoshop Elements, but I was running V4, so it was quite a few generations behind the times. I also upgraded my Office suite, but that was going to happen whether I upgraded the OS or not.

I've been running Windows NT-based machines since NT was in beta. (We were source code licensees with Microsoft back then, so we were doing our own builds.) Windows 7 is so far the best one yet. But XP is also a good, relatively stable OS, and having a lot invested in legacy software and peripherals would be a good reason (in my opinion) to stay with it instead of upgrading.
 
I'm running Win7 Pro, with the XP compatible module, and it recognized my Office Pro 2003, and also my ten year old Minolta and HP printers.

Once you get used to 7, it's actually a much nicer - and more stable - OS. I'm liking it a lot - this after a short period of initial frustration with it...
 
I also upgraded my Office suite, but that was going to happen whether I upgraded the OS or not.

Depending on how heavy of an Office user you are, It's worth taking a look at Open Office. I use it on my personal PC, and most of it does a pretty good job.

The one thing I missed was Visio, but I'm giving "Dia" a shot...
 
My external drive is a Maxtor drive. When I plug it in I get a notice that it will not work with this operating system. A quick search online confirmed that statement.
I hope to continue to work out the bugs and maybe I'll figure out a way to get my printer and other things to work but right now everything is frustrating me. I'm sure the more I use it the more I'll learn but some things. It's just that you get used to finding things in certain places then all of a sudden everything is missing and you have to go looking for it.

I do plan on wiping the old machine clean and reinstall XP on it and use it to hold more data.....it will be a offline only machine used just for business work and photo storage.
 
Wow, Yeah, I just did a search on Maxtor and it does seem as if some of those drives are not compatible.

I've moved away from using drives in external closures and have gone to just using bare drives in a dock.

Just ordered 2 more 1tb drives today for 54$ each from NewEgg.

I use an external dock like this Sata Drive External Dock

I know this isn't much help for you, but just thought I'd share...
 
Tom,

For your xp software, download VirtualBox and install XP as a new Virtual machine. You can then run all your old software in the virtual environment and share your USB, Printer, DVD drives and such with it from the host machine.

Also I think you can do installs of older software on the Windows 7 machine, but run in XP compatibility mode, may have to install it in that mode as well...haven't tried it though.
 
I also am a mac person, but have a PC laptop. Once the laptop dies, I will replace with a mac, just my personal preference as I work on macs in the graphics field. Tom even that it is some more money to spend, photoshop upgrades are $199.00 and at least for that great application you would be back in business:)
 
YEah, I'm working on getting the whole virtual box thing running... Seems like it'd be a good way to have multiple OS at the same time...
 
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