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Computer Advice Needed

Posted on 04/18/2011 8:37:42 AM PDT by Former Fetus

I need some computer advice, and I don't know of a better place than FR.

My desktop pc is warning me that it is ready for retirement: sound is off, sometimes does not allow me to type, keeps freezing... My problem is that I love Windows XP and both my husband and son have Vista and they do nothing but complain about it. Can anybody give me an objective opinion of Windows 7? What do you like/dislike about it? If you had a choice between Windows XP and Windows 7, which one would you choose? Thanks to everybody!


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: os; pc; windows
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To: gcraig

I can’t play my games on Linux.


61 posted on 04/18/2011 11:13:02 AM PDT by Jonty30
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To: Windflier
It could also be something simple as a bad driver or corrupt driver for the USB hooked up the the keyboard.
Another thing about the PSU ( power supply unit ) when they go bad ? the computer acts really fully and can actually shut down by it's self.
It won't hurt even if you get a new PSU with a few more watts than the old one... most of the time, the manufactures put lame PSU units in computer that just barely supplies power to the computer.
100 extra watts won't hurt, and your computer only uses that wattage when it needs it, lets say ? a 500 watt PSU ? it's not going to continually run at 500 watts max all the time.... now ? if you have a heavy use of multi-bluray drives, 2 GPUs a 6 core CPU, then yes, that 500 will be used most of the time.
62 posted on 04/18/2011 11:15:25 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist (The fool has said in his heart, " there is no GOD " ..)
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To: max americana

I hated Vista, and some features of Win 7 are nice, but I found WindowsXP to be much more User friendly.


63 posted on 04/18/2011 11:16:01 AM PDT by DLfromthedesert
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To: Windflier

Sorry for all the typos,, tired and my eyes are going bad.


64 posted on 04/18/2011 11:17:27 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist (The fool has said in his heart, " there is no GOD " ..)
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To: American Constitutionalist
Typo correction :

Another thing about the PSU ( power supply unit ) when they go bad ? the computer acts really funny and can actually shut down by it's self, or won't work at all.
65 posted on 04/18/2011 11:18:47 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist (The fool has said in his heart, " there is no GOD " ..)
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To: Jonty30

Yep, I guess that’s the drawback. For me I don’t care about games so it’s a bit easier..


66 posted on 04/18/2011 12:09:35 PM PDT by gcraig (Freedom isn't free)
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To: gcraig

You need a good dosage of games to round out your life.

Otherwise you just won’t be any fun. :(


67 posted on 04/18/2011 12:19:47 PM PDT by Jonty30
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To: oh8eleven; RowdyFFC

I run XP Pro and have no experience with 7, but I turn off indexing on all my drives and instead use a little freeware utility called Everything.

This provides searches in *realtime* (files are listed/narrowed down as you type in the query). It’s sooo much faster than any native Windows search utility I’ve ever seen from Win 95 through XP it makes Microsoft look like idiots. Give it a try, you might like it as well. And if you don’t, just remove it without any pain.


68 posted on 04/18/2011 12:34:21 PM PDT by Moltke (Always retaliate first.)
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To: Moltke
freeware utility called Everything
Thx - will try.
69 posted on 04/18/2011 1:03:19 PM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: All
Thanks for your imput, you have given me a lot to think about, and plenty of suggestions to keep me going for the time being.

Let me ask one more question, and it will show you how computer-challenged I am. I bought some time ago an external hard drive for all the family pics, but I soon got tired to move them one at a time. Is there any way I could copy EVERYTHING into the external hard drive, before I lose the pics, and then organize and/or delete at my leisure? Thanks again for everybody's help!

70 posted on 04/18/2011 1:29:58 PM PDT by Former Fetus
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To: Former Fetus

You should be able to copy over the entire folder with all your pictures and just organize them whenever. It may take a bit of time depending on how large your photo folder is.Basically you can drag over entire folders to the external and it’ll work on it’s own. Hope this helps.


71 posted on 04/18/2011 1:32:52 PM PDT by Txngal
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To: CaliforniaCon

“Can I just ignore them if they ‘fail?’ “

Most often it’s one of the plethora of .net updates that fail and endlessly cycle. For any update, you can go into the updating system and right click on it and mark it hidden so it won’t update again.

To actually fix .net update problems, MS tells you to go to add/remove and remove all .net stuff and start over to fix those update problems. If you don’t have an app that needs .net them it doesn’t really matter. As for any other updates, hard to say how critical they are.


72 posted on 04/18/2011 2:04:49 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Made from the right stuff! "Anybody but Obama in 2012!")
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To: DLfromthedesert

My buddy is a web designer and couldn’t take the irritation of running the beta versions on Win 7.


73 posted on 04/18/2011 2:13:31 PM PDT by max americana (FUBO)
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To: max americana

max: “...call me a dinosaur and I;m not even 30 years old.”

Nah, *I* am a dinosaur. Heck, I had a BITNET:: address...

Posting from this O.S.

bellman(peter) 17:29% uname -a
FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE #0: Mon Jul 19 02:55:53 UTC 2010 root@almeida.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
bellman(peter) 17:29%

Favorite O.S. quote: Two things of note have come out of Berkeley: UNIX and LSD. This is not a coincidence.

Peet (Former BOFH and Sysadmin: CDC-NOS, CDC-NOS/VE, DEC Ultrix, DEC OSF1, DEC D-UNIX, SunOS, Solaris, and so on. Dain bramage optional.)

This post is a total waste of time because I am TOTALLY unqualified to comment on windows ANYthing... But what the hey — I had fun!


74 posted on 04/18/2011 2:51:31 PM PDT by Peet (Leftists think personal liberty is so important it must be carefully rationed.)
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To: American Constitutionalist
I was told by some computer tech guy that the last or latest version can only be upgraded to Windows 7.

Hmmm. I have no idea what version of XP I have. I bought it in 2004. It's probably not the latest version, owing to the age.

Upthread, I was informed that Fry's has offered Windows 7 in a three pack for just under $100 a couple of times recently. That would probably be the way to go for me, provided my old 'puter meets the requirements.

75 posted on 04/18/2011 3:40:56 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: American Constitutionalist
You would have to go to Microsoft website and download the compatibility software and see if that version of Windows XP is compatible with Windows 7.

Thanks, AC. I'll do that before I shell out the big bucks for Windows 7 :-)

76 posted on 04/18/2011 3:42:34 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Scythian

“Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft ever put out, if you like XP you’ll love Windows 7. Really, it is fantastic.”

Except that, like Vista, it needs about twice as much memory and video resources as XP does. Personally, when I can no longer get the five OEM copies of XP I have to work, I will switch to Ubuntu Linux, unless something better comes along.

I would happily switch back to MS-DOS if it would recognize the larger drives and USB, etc. Visicalc is still available, now for free, and it still runs under XP. Never bothered to try it on the one Vista machine in our house, and won’t ever buy another. Or Windows 7.


77 posted on 04/18/2011 3:44:04 PM PDT by Old Student
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To: American Constitutionalist
Sorry for all the typos,, tired and my eyes are going bad.

No prob, I was able to read your post just fine. I'm not having any serious issues with my old box. I just don't have the license key for the Windows XP OS that's in it.

I bought it used for $150, and totally forgot to ask for the original disk and the license key, but oh well. It's time for me to get a new box anyway.

78 posted on 04/18/2011 3:46:35 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Former Fetus
I run XP Pro on my (Old Clunker) and my wife runs Win 7 on her laptop.
Win 7 looks great after nearly a year of use.
From power on to ready to use = 12 seconds.
She is running a Toshiba X505-880 with an Intel Core i7-720QM quad core processor, 6 Gigs of Ram and a 64 Gig SSD primary drive (C) with a 500 Gig secondary hard drive.
I will say that I wouldn't even attempt to put Win 7 on an older machine.
You need the processing speed and 6 to 8 Gigs of Ram.
79 posted on 04/18/2011 4:05:12 PM PDT by The Cajun (Palin, Bachmann, Free Republic, Mark Levin, Rush, Hannity......Nuff said.)
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To: Jonty30

My 7 yr old keeps me going with games like trampoline tae kwondo ha ha now that’s way more fun than any computer game I’ve ever run across :-)


80 posted on 04/18/2011 5:25:06 PM PDT by gcraig (Freedom isn't free)
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