I havdn't had a chance to get out recently as I was busy renovating/re decorating my daughters room, one of those jobs I hate as it always turns out to be more involved than expected. Thankfully the worst is over but at the same time my computer started crashing and I didn't have time to work on it. In the end I reluctantly bought a new tower, reluctantly as I was quite happy running Windows XP and didn't want to change to Windows 7.
Although I use my computer quite a bit I'm not a computer junkie, I don't want to know how it works, why it works or need to have multimedia capability or a home network to keep in touch with the other 2 members of my family so I expected to be frustrated by the latest offering from Microsoft and it turns out I was right.
In addition to the above we'd planned to go to Scotland for a week car camping and I've only just got home. I didn't expect to get much walking done although I did manage a walk around the Northern Corries in the Cairngorms and started out to do the Ring of Steall but turned back due to feeling a bit off on the day.
We got back late Thursday night and yesterday was spent sorting out kit and trying to get the new computer sorted. In the end I pulled the hard drive from the old computer and installed it in the new one as it was easier to transfer my files that way. Of course some documents won't display properly and I still have all my programs to re-install.
I'll get there in the end.
I definitely felt the same way about Vista but 7 has been a pleasant suprise. It doesnt use up a lot of RAM as Vista did, and you can use more than 3GB Ram compared to XP which limited you. I love the Aero desktop, and it's support for drivers and hardware is much, much better. No more trawling the net for that hard to find driver for an old bit of tech.
ReplyDeleteIt will take a while to get used to but I do think it's an improvement on XP. We won't mention how rubbish Vista was :)
Hi Gareth, definately better than Vista which I managed to avoid apart from it being on my wifes last laptop.
ReplyDeleteI've pretty much got 7 the way I want it, at least as far as it'll let me do things my way rather than the way Microsoft think I should.
Although I not a techie with computers, 7 is far the best product so from MS. By the way I am off with the family for a couple of weeks to Scotland. I will get some walking and kayaking in. I just hope the weather turns out to be a bit better than of late !!
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced to be honest, I don't see the 7 provides me with anything that I found lacking in XP, I guess it depends on what you're looking for.
ReplyDeleteSadly just when I thought I had pretty much sorted out my documnets and programs I now need to have the hard drive replaced, it was a bit noisy and when I phoned Dell they suggested having a new one fitted so I'm back to square 1 again.
Hope the weather is favourable for you in Scotland, we had really good weather at the start of last week but it hasn't stopped raining here since we got back, it's starting to piss me off to be honest.
Good luck - I've been having similar problems with my old XP set up with its almost full hard drive, but have delayed replacement in favour of a new 1Tb drive in the old computer. The shop is at this moment checking the data transfer (including all programs) to the new drve and is looking at other ways of speeding it all up. I hope this 'interim solution' will be worth the £100 investment. This laptop is another matter, though. I think it'll have to go
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm getting there but to be honest I wish I'd just tried backing up all my documents on a external drive and trying a clean install of XP on my old computer.
ReplyDeleteI really dislike Win 7 to the extent that I can't be bothered to use the pc for anything more than surfing the net.
That's a great shame. Our computer shop has a machine that has copied Everything, including all programs, set-ups, etc onto the new 1Tb hard disc, leaving the old one as a spare additional 250Gb. Apparently it had to be left for many hours to copy everything, but now (famous last words!?) I've handed over the £100 and brought the old machine home, and would you believe.....! It's quite a bit faster and everything seems to be working normally, so hopefully the 5 year old machine may last a bit longer.
ReplyDelete(Incidentally, everything was backed up onto an external hard drive, just in case!)
Hopefully you'll get a few more years out of it then, unless you need to use new software that won't work with XP you should be fine.
ReplyDeleteIronically I have an external drive but like the HDD on my old system it too was full. I should have bought a 2nd external drive, saved my documents and re-installed XP on my old system.
I still intend to do a full format and install of XP on my old pc which is about the same age as your's by the sound of it.
By the way, talking of using 'out of date' kit, I picked up a nice Phreerunner recently :-)
Congratulations on getting a Phreerunner, but they are rather heavy. Mine needs a little more sewing - the velcro keeping the cross-pole in place needs replacing, and it really is rather heavier than I would like something lighter, especially as I'm hoping for a smaller but more durable rucksack to replace the Golite Quest that has proved too fragile for my purposes.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a LiteHouse Solo...
I was starting to think this blog had been sadly mis-titled :)
ReplyDeleteIt was close to being death by Windows 7 to be honest, what with programs that wouldn't install, documents that wouldn't open and a general unfamiliar feel compared to XP I was pretty close to jacking it in, the crappy weather and blogger playing up didn't exactly encourage me either.
ReplyDelete