New Desktop PC. What Software?

[NFG]

Hi,

 

Its a somewhat difficult choice, the recent offerings from Microsoft are such utter pigs to use, or thats how my (programmer analyst) daughter eloquently put it; namely the ribbon interface & as you state, the requirement to have an account with Microsoft, new ways to do familiar tasks (should be familiar ways ot do new tasks) I could go on...

 

At the budget end of the market, the hardware dosnt seem to last too well, MS software seems to beat the hell out of hard drives unless you have 16Gb of memory - borne out by the all too numerous HDD failures I replace with the "but Ive only had it 18 months or so" ringing in my ears on a regular basis.

 

Of the later versions of Windows, Win7 is perhaps the best - I really mean least bad. However, you can install 'Classic Shell' (Google it) which is quite nice as it provides a Windows desktop interface of your choice, including Win XP.

 

Annoyingly, theres bloatware of very limited ability to get rid of with a new PC, just hose the lot. The very useless McAfee antivirus is thankfully no more, but I suspect theres plenty of desktops heaving with it, best un-installed to stop the nags & AVG or ESET NOD32 used. Demo versions of Microsoft Office can easily be removed and replaced with Open Office or Star Office. Microsofts OOXML format is broken by design, to be honest I'd rather daub dung on the wall with a stick than use Word.

 

It may be an idea to at least try Ubuntu Linux as one poster suggested, its not bad & certainly much more secure than any PC based operating system.

 

You could try a Mac but will probably be put off my initial cost, but through life they work out more or less the same, certainly a lot less hassle, the later versions of OSx are somewhat 'commercialised' I prefer Snow Leopard as its lean and very fast.

 

Ive found Macs a lot more reliable through life, my first 2006 MacBook remains in daily use as does my 2006 Mac Pro which is still blisteringly fast & the software reads most MS file formats, docx etc. The only application I need XP for is Access as I program databases & wrote my company financials on it in '98 it so I run it in a Virtual Machine under VMWare Fusion which is pretty flawless.

 

As for "so that I can retain my autonomy from the all seeing eye of the MS network." you'll need some software that denies outgoing network connections, I use little snitch & a hardware firewall to deny connection to anything I dont approve of, including Microsoft & a host of others.

 

Good luck with your search & Im sure it will all be fixed in Windows 9 !

 

Just my thoughts

Edited January 12, 2014 by NFG

[jrose]

Is it easy to get to grips with? Im a win xp user and changed to win 8 when i bought a new lappy. without realising it had 8 on it. It is truly awful.

 

 

Sent using Arbtalk Mobile App

 

I haven't had any problems - I think it helps if you're slightly computer literate though, although the answers to most problems can be solved by a google search!

 

For general use I find it fine, and there are equivalent versions of most programs available for free (open source). It seems to be much more stable and never crashes, runs quite happily without slowing down over time (it's been on this laptop for a year, and still runs like the day I installed it, unlike Windows!).

 

If you really rely on one program and nothing else will do, you might be better off with Windows especially for gaming, this is one area where Ubunutu really falls down compared to Windows.

[Al Cormack]

Just a couple of points :

 

I thought windows 8.1 was released recently because it was more akin to the older windows systems, or could be configured that way, as users were not liking windows 8.

 

The support for Windows xp finishes in April this year, so there will be no more security updates, making it vulnerable to viruses etc.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/end-support-help

 

Al

[NFG]

Just a couple of points :

 

I thought windows 8.1 was released recently because it was more akin to the older windows systems, or could be configured that way, as users were not liking windows 8.

 

The support for Windows XP finishes in April this year, so there will be no more security updates, making it vulnerable to viruses etc.

Support is ending for Windows XP - Microsoft Windows

 

Al

 

Hi

 

8.1 returns the start button, IE11 as default browser whoops optional browser, Skydrive as default directory if you trust the cloud concept & a few other tweaks un-installing across multiple PC & so on GIYF. Win 8 & 8.1 is very different. Ive no desire to change from XP in a virtual machine as theres no benefit, if I had to upgrade it would be Win7.

 

As for end of XP support for updates, I wouldnt worry to much about that as most 3rd party applications will provide adequate security unless you use IE which is always a gaping hole.

 

For years, I installed Windows file servers & once we got everything up and running with Sophos AV installed I'd turn off updates & only apply critical ones once I knew they wouldnt murder the server, ran several 2003 installations for years no snags.

 

N

Edited January 12, 2014 by NFG

[openspaceman]

. Ive no desire to change from XP in a virtual machine as theres no benefit, if I had to upgrade it would be Win7.

 

 

Please explain, are you saying there is no advantage to running XP in a virtual machine or that you do run XP as a client in another host?

[NFG]

Please explain, are you saying there is no advantage to running XP in a virtual machine or that you do run XP as a client in another host?

 

Hi

 

I run XP under VMWare Fusion on my Mac because I program in Access. Windows just runs as another application which is great & writes data to a Mac volume with Time Machine instantly backing up changes.

 

If I break it, I can recover the VM in about a minute, I dont want to be messing around for hours unless some ones paying me!

 

I could use Windows 2000, as far as Im concerned theres no compelling reason to run later versions of Windows as there is zero benefit (to me) all it has to do is run MS Access 2003 (Ive no need for later versions which are, to be honest a bit clumsey & have that daft ribbon menu). I dont use any AV or security because the VM dosnt connect to the Internet.

 

Mac wise, I have a modified version of Firefox for web browsing & control inbound & outbound traffic, AV from Sophos is free & critical data resides on a Linux server only accessible from selected static IPs on local network.

 

N

Edited January 12, 2014 by NFG

[openspaceman]

Hi

 

I run XP under VMWare Fusion on my Mac because I program in Access.

 

 

OK thanks, thanks much what I am looking at.

 

I also want to move away from Access but am unsure which way to leap. I only need to collate timesheets against purchase orders etc.

 

Yes I dislike office 2007 over 2003 but am stuck with it because the firm is addicted to 2007 spreadsheets, I don't think they've ever stopped to consider the cost of licences across about 30 PCs.

[daltontrees]

I just got a new Acer laptop, with Windows 8. Every day new ways of hating it are thrust under my nose as I find needless changes to interfaces, incompatibilites, that annoying obligatory Microsoft membership and so forth. Within a few days I wanted to throw it out the window.The latest Word and Excel have changes for changes sake, and in general looks like an annoying regressive step.

 

The new Explorer is pants. I just change over to Firefox tonight and won't be going back. With some systematic and determined disabling of all the nonsense in WIdows 8 it can be rendered bearable, but I would gladly have Vista back (and it was annoying) or XP.

[NFG]

Hi,

 

Hmm, slightly tricky, speadsheets are rather limited, I suppose you could use a Mail merged Word document to a spreadsheet, depends what it is used for really.

 

A well optimised Access database is fast & reliable over a network, my own financials date from 1998 only 4.3 Mb holding a vast amount of data. People damm Access but often dont know how to build a database & correctly normalise & rationalise their tables efficiently.

 

The big problem with any other Db ie SQL server (expensive), MySQL is youve got to program it to your needs.

 

N

[Guest Robin@Arbortec]

Open Office is a very good alternative to MSOffice - it's interface is more like the older MSO ones. I find it much cleaner and less cluttered than MSO these days, and it can cope with Microsoft file types.

 

As for Windows 8 and 8.1, I agree the interface is very bad now Microsoft has decided that everyone in the world uses a tablet and are only interested in facebook and 'angry birds'.

 

But once I'd hit it with a stick to make it work more like a proper desktop interface, I did find windows 8 was running faster than win 7. So if you are going to jump from xp, it's probably better to bite the bullet and go for win 8.1, as long as you are comfortable with heavily customizing it. If not, trying to get hold of win 7 might be a better idea.