Need a little computer advice

[Hall]

Joe Novice here. Mozilla/FireFox is ending support for primitive Vista users such as myself. Seems a shame to bury a perfectly good working machine just to keep up with the Joneses, etc. 1. Do any other browser options exist ? Can I buy Windows 10 and download? Just looking for a little advice before I go out in the light. Thanks.

[kidblast]

you could try Chrome (Google's browser)

 

I think you can DL Windows 10 updates,, for a while they were doing XP to Win 10 updates for no charge, but that ended sometime ago.

 

I'm not sure there's a solid upgrade path tho for Vista to Win10. you could windup with a pretty f'd up PC.... some thing to be wary of...

[MichaelT]

Joe Novice here. Mozilla/FireFox is ending support for primitive Vista users such as myself. Seems a shame to bury a perfectly good working machine just to keep up with the Joneses, etc. 1. Do any other browser options exist ? Can I buy Windows 10 and download? Just looking for a little advice before I go out in the light. Thanks.

 

What they mean is that they will no longer support Vista because XP and Vista is end of life, according to Microsoft. That doesn't mean that they won't work. What it means is that they will no longer provide security or other upgrades for that platform. Google Chrome is another option but I'm fairly certain they have the same policy towards Vista.

 

The only other browser I'm aware of that provides updates for Vista is the Opera browser. http://www.opera.com/blogs/desktop/2016/08/security-update-windows-xp-vista-users/

 

As far as buying Windows 10 and installing it, that's a whole other experience. What you would have to do is back up your computer or get someone to back it up for you. Then purchase Windows 10 and do a clean install. But, if you're a novice computer user, I wouldn't recommend going that option because it's time consuming and if your computer is an older Core2Duo computer or older, with 2 GB of RAM, it will be painfully slow.

 

You may be able to get a gently used computer at a local family owned computer shop for a decent price. A lot of times they'll even help copy your data and programs onto the new PC (for a fee, usually).

 

I hope that's helpful and if you have further questions, feel free to send me a message here on the forums. I work in IT for a living and I'd be happy to assist as much as I can given we're on an internet forum.

[kidblast]

What they mean is that they will no longer support Vista because XP and Vista is end of life, according to Microsoft. That doesn't mean that they won't work. What it means is that they will no longer provide security or other upgrades for that platform. Google Chrome is another option but I'm fairly certain they have the same policy towards Vista.

 

The only other browser I'm aware of that provides updates for Vista is the Opera browser. http://www.opera.com/blogs/desktop/2016/08/security-update-windows-xp-vista-users/

 

As far as buying Windows 10 and installing it, that's a whole other experience. What you would have to do is back up your computer or get someone to back it up for you. Then purchase Windows 10 and do a clean install. But, if you're a novice computer user, I wouldn't recommend going that option because it's time consuming and if your computer is an older Core2Duo computer or older, with 2 GB of RAM, it will be painfully slow.

 

You may be able to get a gently used computer at a local family owned computer shop for a decent price. A lot of times they'll even help copy your data and programs onto the new PC (for a fee, usually).

 

I hope that's helpful and if you have further questions, feel free to send me a message here on the forums. I work in IT for a living and I'd be happy to assist as much as I can given we're on an internet forum.

 

 

yea..

 

 

what he said!

 

I'm an IT lifer too... sometimes, it's a curse beyond ones wildest imagination.

[Hall]

Thank you, Michael T and kidblast. I hear you then. Sounds like Windows 10 on my machine is a no go. There is a family shop near here that sells good used and will probably do as you have mentioned on copy and such. I was just hoping there was a shot at doing it myself from the chair without going the upheaval of complete take down and replace rout. The computer has been a plus and still meets my needs in full. Feels like extortion when you have to yield and replace in this manner.

 

MichaelT, I appreciate your offer to help and receive a contact message. May do so as I get deeper into this one. Thanks again.

[IanHenry]

Hall, did you not get the option to update to Windows 10 free? I thought every user of Windows 7 and Vista got the offer.

 

 

Ian

[Hall]

Hall, did you not get the option to update to Windows 10 free? I thought every user of Windows 7 and Vista got the offer.

 

 

Ian

 

Ian, no, I did not get such an offer.

 

Hall

[ChanMan]

You can get a nice laptop with good hardware for less than $500. I'd save up and get one.

 

http://www.bestbuy.c...dows%2010%20Pro

 

https://www.walmart....chProductResult

[jdgm]

I went to Win10 and have had immense, expensive problems with it.

As it finally turns out, many/most of these problems are instantly resolved by disabling and clearing 'Quick Access' (which IMO is completely unnecessary anyway).

Now (famous last words? :unsure:) Win10 is working fine.

Plus I replaced most of my PC last year - new motherboard, CPU, SSHD, new DDR4 mem sticks.

 

I should send Microsoft a bill for what they've put me through.

 

Also I disabled the Adobe Acrobat updater and a couple of other things in the Start Menu; did this using a very good free pgm called CCleaner.

Didn't disable Flash updater, or anything that looked important, complicated or necessary.

If you can formulate the right sort of question or description of the problem and then google that, there are many pages offering help and solutions.

 

And next I'm going to research then buy a new PC power supply. Quite similar to buying a psu for your guitar pedals, you get what you pay for. Think I will be going for a modular psu.

 

'Pooters' - how did we get by without them?

 

Best wishes.

[Kurt Vonnegut Fan]

I had a similar dilemma as my XP machine lost MS support. The machine was getting pretty long in the tooth, tech-wise.

 

My solution was Chromebooks. My wife and I have been absolutely thrilled with these things. They boot in seconds, update in seconds. They fully utilize thin client and cloud computing, sharing/synching resources with our Android devices. Each of our Chromebooks cost less than $150. I recommend you look into these, assuming you have WiFi.

 

Also, there are some new Windows 10 laptops starting at $200 that look quite nice.

[Hall]

Thanks, everyone. I just arrived very late to the age and don't have sufficient knowledge to recognize the dos and don'ts. It gets frustrating; that's for sure.

[jdgm]

When I switched off my PC after sending an email this afternoon, it told me updates would be installed when I next started...They were...until (at 98%) it said "can't complete update, undoing changes".....as it does. B'stards! Cold sweat, curses etc.

 

BUT......I tried running the whole process again...big update, needed restart. And (phew) it worked! I checked the process and it downloaded an even newer update. I got that ok too.

 

Then it gives me this message......

 

"Good News! Windows 10 Creators Update is coming soon!"

 

Oh.

 

[scared]

 

 

- EDIT - in fact the update did cause problems - a drive disappeared (huh?) and my BIOS was reset somehow. Final solution = uninstall 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' pgm which came on the m'board DVD of handy apps, doesn't work properly and which had 'removed' the drive and probably reset the BIOS too - Win10 update couldn't have done that. Now I realise it was the Intel pgm that did it before, which had caused me real stress. Sorting all this cr*p out has taken me hours which I could have spent playing my guitar.