New computer, new Windows

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
My old XP machine died after 9 years and I had to wait till I paid the taxes to get a new one. To get one with Win7 I had to order online. Then I have been fighting to remember usernames and passwords. I had a bunch written down but not all of them. Still fighting to get programs installed on this new system. They hid a lot of stuff!:bonk::bonk::whistling:
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
Be glad you have Windows 7. Windows 8 is a little painful until you learn where to look for things.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
I, also, have Windows 7 in my home desktop, and I think that it's the best OS yet! My laptop has Vista.

Microsoft, I believe, has stopped supporting XP.

And yes, there STILL ARE some pc's out there online with Windows 7.

Windows 8 is a piece of junk! I make the stupid mistake of upgrading to it. I removed it from the computer. I don't like it, and a lot of people I know don't like it either! It's a good thing that Windows 7 was put on the hard drive at the factory when the computer was made!!

And yes, Buzz, everything on 8 has been moved around. Takes forever to find things!! Even when you want to log off shut down!! :yuk:
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
I, also, have Windows 7 in my home desktop, and I think that it's the best OS yet! My laptop has Vista.

Microsoft, I believe, has stopped supporting XP.

And yes, there STILL ARE some pc's out there online with Windows 7.

Windows 8 is a piece of junk! I make the stupid mistake of upgrading to it. I removed it from the computer. I don't like it, and a lot of people I know don't like it either! It's a good thing that Windows 7 was put on the hard drive at the factory when the computer was made!!

And yes, Buzz, everything on 8 has been moved around. Takes forever to find things!! Even when you want to log off shut down!! :yuk:

In Windows 8 I select the desk top mode as it makes things more familiar. Shutting down is easy:
Windows key + C > Settings > Power > Select
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
like every version of Windoze before it,,,,

Win8/8.1 has all the old features. just 'rearranged' as mentioned.

seems every version MicroSoft convenes a "panel" of people who have never used a computer, much less used Windows, to 'redesign' the interface to make it better.
whot a crock.
people who never used a computer can learn any which way to do anything.
people who previously used Windows really don't appreciate relearning where they put stuff, this time.

I remained a DOS user up through (business dictated as in "here's your computer") W2k - which failed miserably.
then WinNT - which failed even more miserably.
then XP.

moved later to Vista - writing software I had to support everything...

Vista was super-flakey.

now the desktop has Win8, my primary (notebook) machine Win7.

I'm with Buzz on Win8 - it boots, I dump the tiles and go to the desktop.
why MicroSoft issued a touch screen interface to be sold on non-touch screen hardware escapes me.
and the general public, so it seems.

the Win8.1 upgrade solves a few of the issues, not all.

btw, there's a number of (free) utilities that "restore" the XP type desktop functionality to Win8/8.1
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Even worst was Windows Millenium (Me)!

That operating system was horrible!! So bad!

It was so problematic that I had it removed from an older computer and had Windows 98SE installed into it.

Bill Gates had really dropped the ball on that one! :furious:
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
actually I had no big problem with WinME

everytime I booted the computer it reported (by beeps) a failed hard drive.

after the third "reconditioned" Dell hard drive I packed it up and sent it back to M. Dell at Round Rock, Texas.

sent Fedex, signature demanded.

Dell said they never got it; Fedex said they had a signature.

so I offered Dell and Fedex the opportunity to explain their positions to a Judge type Dude in black robes; suddenly Dell opted to decide they did get the machine back and refunded the purchase price. in credit, unless I demanded cash/check, which I did.

once upon a time Dell had the best reputation in the industry for quality products and customer support. this is no longer true.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
actually I had no big problem with WinME

everytime I booted the computer it reported (by beeps) a failed hard drive.

after the third "reconditioned" Dell hard drive I packed it up and sent it back to M. Dell at Round Rock, Texas.

sent Fedex, signature demanded.

Dell said they never got it; Fedex said they had a signature.

so I offered Dell and Fedex the opportunity to explain their positions to a Judge type Dude in black robes; suddenly Dell opted to decide they did get the machine back and refunded the purchase price. in credit, unless I demanded cash/check, which I did.

once upon a time Dell had the best reputation in the industry for quality products and customer support. this is no longer true.



Yeah my 2nd laptop was a Dell. They DID have the best reputation, service, quality and reliability, being beaten only by Apple back then. I never had an Apple computer, but I was always told that Apple was the very best.

Won't know that for sure because Apple is very astronomically expensive! Too fast for me! :ohmy:
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
I bought a couple Apples for my daughter, who was big time into graphics.

major hardware failures, total denial by Apple.
later saw lawsuits outcomes on same issues.

Apple controls the "approved" software very tightly.
but, Apple has no scruples for the consumer.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
So even THEY are not customer-friendly.

And it is just totally ridiculous how people go gaga over any & every new electronic item from them such as a game or the latest version of the i-phone is about to hit their stores, up to and including setting up camping to stay the night in close proximity to the stores just to be amongst the first ones in line when the store opens! And then, someone gets trampled on and seriously injured because of it! :ohmy:
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
A couple things that "may" make you Windows 8 / 8.1 experience more pleasant.

Create a new icon on your desktop use this code shutdown.exe /s /t 0
Label it "Power Down" when you click it, your computer shuts off.

Create a new icon on your desktop use this code shutdown.exe /r /t 0
Label it "Reboot" when you click it, your computer restarts.

You can drag either of them to the taskbar and they will be one click functions.

If you have 8.1, right click the taskbar, select the "Navagation" tab. Check the selection that says startup at the desktop indeed of the start screen "tiles"

If you want things more like they used to be. "POWER 8" is a free add-in that will make things more like they used to be.

Hope this helps.

If you really love your XP, you can keep it, the hackers would love if you do.
 

joec

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I started with the first Apple solder together kit my wife and kids bought me one Christmas think it was an Oscilloscope kit. I spent some time putting it together before actually learning how to use it for anything. I later went from there to the Radio Shack, Atari etc then got an NCR for my first DOS machine followed by a couple of home builds followed by about every manufactures computer today at one time or other.

When Windows first came out it was really limited and later when 3.1 came out it started to take off. From then on I've skipped ever other version for example moving from XP to Win 7 skipping Vista and now Win 8. I really don't care much for the difficulty in putting things where I like but have learned to live with it to a point. I also have some older programs such as Microsoft's Office Developer XP which most of my business software is written in so like Win 7 it was easy to install and run in Win 7 now. I've since moved over to the Open Office type systems but still run the business software in Office for XP as I dread having to do another 450K of lines of code again but hope to never have to at this point in my life. The only thing I've moved to since my trusty Lenovo lap top is the Kindle HDX 8.9 which I use about as much now with a ScanDisk WiFi 64 gig stick to store movies and such.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
The main problem that I had with Windows 8 is the apps and desktop icons just blasted wouldn't open.

To me, it is just not user friendly! If it weren't so freaking complicated, then I think that things would be a lot easier to do.
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
The main problem that I had with Windows 8 is the apps and desktop icons just blasted wouldn't open.

Sherm - the only time I ever saw that is with old programs not intended to run on 8. What were you running?

There are are a host of compatibility settings, even virtual machines available. Really no reason stuff won't work. Not all of it is out of the box. Look at it this way, you might change the oil in your car, you would not rebuild the engine.

The last tech manual I looked at was for win 95 and it was 6" thick. I probably could Not carry the one for win 8. User friendly is one thing, not all of it can be done by an end user.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Note that every other Windows operating system is no good.

Maybe, if possible, computer classes might have sessions on how to use Windows 8.

I'm just old school. When I began using Windows 7 on this computer, I really began liking it! It is almost like Vista, but better.

XP was ok as well. The most problematic one was Millenium though.
 

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
I haven't had any problems with ANY Windows version (and the first windows version I ever used was ME). ONCE you get used to the new stuff.

When you get a new car do you say it stinks because your old car had crank windows and the new one has power windows?
 

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
I have used earlier versions BUT hub and I got OUR first puter loaded with ME.
 

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
So, how do you get it to stop dimming the dang screen and asking if you really want to run a program? If I change the security setting it won't let me do much at all even though I am administrator.
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
So, how do you get it to stop dimming the dang screen and asking if you really want to run a program? If I change the security setting it won't let me do much at all even though I am administrator.

which version?

dimming? turning off? the screen -
Control Panel/power options
but which however name changes thru versions, check also Display Properties

>stop asking
highly highly version dependent, but in XP & Vista, Control Panel, turn off UAC (User Account Control)

yeah yeah yeah. UAC is the greatest thing since the completion of the pyramids, but regrets to say it is completely ineffective at stopping the bad guys. stops you, doesn't stop them.
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
So, how do you get it to stop dimming the dang screen and asking if you really want to run a program? If I change the security setting it won't let me do much at all even though I am administrator.

Mountain Man

For dimming the screen fo to the control Panel open power settings and you can set how longto wait to dim the screen or if it will dim at all.

For asking you if you want to run something go to the control panel > User accounts > manage User Account Control settings and move the slider to the lowest level.

Hope this helps.
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
Peep - Win 2.1 was before any of those

Chowder - Remember it well. Yes, it was a trip and a half. Of course, at that time, at least for me, windows was something I just launched if I was bored and wanted to crash and reboot. I could do everything I wanted in DOS.

While we are in memory lane, how about CPM and OS/2
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Well, you guys can all have your Windows 8. I'll wait and see what the next version will be like. I know that there are tons of people who don't like the OS.
 
Top