"Andy Burns" wrote

Bob Hobden wrote:

I know two people who bought new Laptops with Win 8 and because both were
non touchscreen devices they have both found them almost unusable. One
has
bought an iPad and uses that instead

Should have spent a couple of quid on Start8 which makes Win8 usable,
rather than a few hundred on a iThing ...


From what I read that does not remove the constant opening of bars and stuff
if you get the curser to close to the edge of the screen, it only gets you
back your Start menu which can and has been done on both with a free
program.
Why the manufacturers ever sold non-touch Win 8 machines goodness knows,
it's damaged their reputation, the reputation of Microsoft, and driven some
users elsewhere, I suspect permanently.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 12:12:39 +0100, Bob Hobden wrote:

Why the manufacturers ever sold non-touch Win 8 machines goodness knows,
it's damaged their reputation, the reputation of Microsoft, and driven
some users elsewhere, I suspect permanently.

The HW manufacturers are not Microsoft. They just sell kit, MS told them
they could sell non-touch versions so they did.

Start of rant:

As for MS, they don't care about you, they've got you (mostly because you
volunteer for it) by the gonads. As witnessed by this thread you'll
continue buying that "the next version will fix whatever." Because of
MS's near monopoly the herd instinct is very strong in the consumer PC
world. In the server and portable world, not so much: Linux is dominant
in servers (and very dominant in HPC), and of course Android is linux
derivative. (Apple's iOS IIRC is based on BSD, so similar but different.)

On the subject of Linux today, it has a number of slick user interfaces
available that are similar to Apple or Windows. It's easy to use. It's
also free. My wife and children are essentially computer illiterate.
They all use it without problems (we have a Mac too, it causes far more
problems, constantly). I don't administrate Linux for them, because
there's nothing to do. All the drag and drop stuff works find. It's
true that there are some obscure HW configurations that are hard for
Linux to deal with, the same is true of Windows and Mac also. I have an
Intel-made server card that Windows can't make sound run on. (BTW I was
working with MS who bought this computer, and their engineers were unable
to figure out the problem!) Our Mac has never figured out how to talk to
one of our printers, a major brand.

My daughter is going off to Uni this year and needs a new laptop. Based
on her own experiences -- believe me she would never dream of taking my
advice! -- she is only considering Linux laptops. In her words: it just
works, I don't have time to faf around with windows.

So if you love Windows and want to stay with it, by all means. If you've
got a killer app that is only supported on windows, by all means. But
lets not pretend that other alternates don't exist.

BTW if you'd like to try other operating systems it's quite easy to do
under Windows as virtual machine. Sounds complicated but isn't.
Curiously I found that applications running on a virtual Linux machine
under Win2008 server were faster than on the server itself...

End of rant.

-E

--
Gardening in Lower Normandy

Bob Hobden wrote:

"Andy Burns" wrote

Should have spent a couple of quid on Start8 which makes Win8 usable

From what I read that does not remove the constant opening of bars and stuff
if you get the curser to close to the edge of the screen,

It does allow you to disable the charms bar and the hot corners, you
still get a bar for Wired, WiFi and VPN connections.

it only gets you back your Start menu which can and has been done on
both with a free program.

It can, but ClassicShell is more geeky, which it sounds like your
friend(s) are not ...

On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 12:12:39 Bob Hobden wrote:

"Andy Burns" wrote

Bob Hobden wrote:

I know two people who bought new Laptops with Win 8 and because both were
non touchscreen devices they have both found them almost unusable.
One has
bought an iPad and uses that instead

Should have spent a couple of quid on Start8 which makes Win8 usable,
rather than a few hundred on a iThing ...


From what I read that does not remove the constant opening of bars and
stuff if you get the curser to close to the edge of the screen, it only
gets you back your Start menu which can and has been done on both with
a free program.

No, but those "bars" have been taken out of Windows 10.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

"Emery Davis" wrote

Bob Hobden wrote:

Why the manufacturers ever sold non-touch Win 8 machines goodness knows,
it's damaged their reputation, the reputation of Microsoft, and driven
some users elsewhere, I suspect permanently.

The HW manufacturers are not Microsoft. They just sell kit, MS told them
they could sell non-touch versions so they did.

Start of rant:

As for MS, they don't care about you, they've got you (mostly because you
volunteer for it) by the gonads. As witnessed by this thread you'll
continue buying that "the next version will fix whatever." Because of
MS's near monopoly the herd instinct is very strong in the consumer PC
world. In the server and portable world, not so much: Linux is dominant
in servers (and very dominant in HPC), and of course Android is linux
derivative. (Apple's iOS IIRC is based on BSD, so similar but different.)

On the subject of Linux today, it has a number of slick user interfaces
available that are similar to Apple or Windows. It's easy to use. It's
also free. My wife and children are essentially computer illiterate.
They all use it without problems (we have a Mac too, it causes far more
problems, constantly). I don't administrate Linux for them, because
there's nothing to do. All the drag and drop stuff works find. It's
true that there are some obscure HW configurations that are hard for
Linux to deal with, the same is true of Windows and Mac also. I have an
Intel-made server card that Windows can't make sound run on. (BTW I was
working with MS who bought this computer, and their engineers were unable
to figure out the problem!) Our Mac has never figured out how to talk to
one of our printers, a major brand.

My daughter is going off to Uni this year and needs a new laptop. Based
on her own experiences -- believe me she would never dream of taking my
advice! -- she is only considering Linux laptops. In her words: it just
works, I don't have time to faf around with windows.

So if you love Windows and want to stay with it, by all means. If you've
got a killer app that is only supported on windows, by all means. But
lets not pretend that other alternates don't exist.

BTW if you'd like to try other operating systems it's quite easy to do
under Windows as virtual machine. Sounds complicated but isn't.
Curiously I found that applications running on a virtual Linux machine
under Win2008 server were faster than on the server itself...

End of rant.


I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure I
want to change over everything especially as the printer of the newsletter I
publish insists on MS Word being used.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 16:33:23 +0100, Bob Hobden wrote:

End of rant.


I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure I
want to change over everything especially as the printer of the
newsletter I publish insists on MS Word being used.

You can easily use MS word on any linux, either under wine/crossover, or
if your version doesn't work very well on Windows in a VM. Google
vmplayer or virtualbox. I use the free version of the former to run
Finale, music composition SW that is pretty much a windows "killer app"
for me.



--
Gardening in Lower Normandy

In article ,
Emery Davis wrote:
On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 16:33:23 +0100, Bob Hobden wrote:

End of rant.

I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure I
want to change over everything especially as the printer of the
newsletter I publish insists on MS Word being used.

You can easily use MS word on any linux, either under wine/crossover, or
if your version doesn't work very well on Windows in a VM. Google
vmplayer or virtualbox. I use the free version of the former to run
Finale, music composition SW that is pretty much a windows "killer app"
for me.

It's quite easy to read, modify or create Microsoft Word documents
using OpenOffice or LibraOffice. Indeed, I have got several people
who were shafted by Microsoft Word (variation X) not reading a
Microsoft Word (variation Y) document by sanitising it in one of
those and giving it back to them.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 02/06/15 16:33, Bob Hobden wrote:

I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure I
want to change over everything especially as the printer of the newsletter I
publish insists on MS Word being used.

Just download LibreOffice (it's free) and save any documents in *.doc or
*.docx format. For simple docs it'll work fine. For complex docs you
might well see some layout differences.

--

Jeff

On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 18:21:24 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote:

On 02/06/15 16:33, Bob Hobden wrote:

I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure
I want to change over everything especially as the printer of the
newsletter I publish insists on MS Word being used.

Just download LibreOffice (it's free) and save any documents in *.doc or
*.docx format. For simple docs it'll work fine. For complex docs you
might well see some layout differences.

LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) is great and it's what I use. But it's true
that the layout differences between Word can be a deal killer for
professional publishing. My wife publishes a newsletter and these issues
basically ruled out LibreOffice although she did try it for a good long
time.

LibreOffice Impress (equivalent of Powerpoint) is even more problematic,
she was giving an important talk in Shanghai last month (with an Ubuntu
laptop) involving some fairly complicated graphics, and it crashed
several times during the presentation. Not ideal! None of that is a
Linux vs Windows operating system issue, of course.

There are only a few very specific situations where libreoffice doesn't
do the job and you would need to use a VM for Office.

-E

--
Gardening in Lower Normandy

In article ,
Emery Davis wrote:
On Tue, 02 Jun 2015 18:21:24 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote:

On 02/06/15 16:33, Bob Hobden wrote:

I put Ubuntu on an old Vista laptop and it works well but I'm not sure
I want to change over everything especially as the printer of the
newsletter I publish insists on MS Word being used.

Just download LibreOffice (it's free) and save any documents in *.doc or
*.docx format. For simple docs it'll work fine. For complex docs you
might well see some layout differences.

LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) is great and it's what I use. But it's true
that the layout differences between Word can be a deal killer for
professional publishing. My wife publishes a newsletter and these issues
basically ruled out LibreOffice although she did try it for a good long
time.

That is why such publishers demand a particular version of Microsoft
Word, run on a particular version of a particular operating system.
No, the same version of Microsoft Word is not enough - Apple and
Microsoft Windows often differ badly, and so do versions of Microsoft
Windows. And don't even THINK of using different versions of
Microsoft Word!

LibreOffice Impress (equivalent of Powerpoint) is even more problematic,
she was giving an important talk in Shanghai last month (with an Ubuntu
laptop) involving some fairly complicated graphics, and it crashed
several times during the presentation. Not ideal! None of that is a
Linux vs Windows operating system issue, of course.

That's not a problem - it's a feature - bug for bug compatibility.
When I have had a seriously problematic Microsoft file, I have often
tried it out on a real Microsoft system, and got EXACTLY the same
failure!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

The subject-change was due, and you may say, that is already too late do
do it, but as a follow-up, this should not disrupt the thread too much,
either.

All who depend on Microsoft®-Office faile-formats should take a look
at the current, and even earlier, versions of the SoftMaker Office
suite. They also let you have a “free� (meaning cost-free, not free
software) version of the package. All runs on a bunch of operating
systems, Android and Android HD inclusive.

As far as I know, and my experience includes OO and Libre Office,
AbiWord and Gnummeric, Excel and a lot of doc- and DocX-documents,
SoftMaker Office is more compatible with any MS-Office version than ...
Microsoft-Office itself.

But that is just my experience. “People are very open-minded about new
things, as long as they're exactly like the old ones.� - That was either
Kettering or Thoreau, I tend to mix them up.

Cheerio,

Michael
- --
Location: Lower Normandy (Orne), France
GnuPG/OpenPGP 4096R/3216CF02 2013-11-15 [expires: 2015-11-15]
sub 4096R/2751C550 2013-11-15 [expires: 2015-11-15]
[Next key will use elliptic-curve algorithm! :-) Get GnuPG!!]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

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On Wed, 3 Jun 2015 07:46:59 +0200,
Michael Uplawski wrote:

All who depend on Microsoft®-Office faile-formats should take a look

Have I written faile-formats? I am unable to invent puns in English. So
I am possibly sorry to have done it anyway. Or not.
--
Location: Lower Normandy (Orne), France
GnuPG/OpenPGP 4096R/3216CF02 2013-11-15 [expires: 2015-11-15]
sub 4096R/2751C550 2013-11-15 [expires: 2015-11-15]
[Next key will use elliptic-curve algorithm! :-) Get GnuPG!!]

In message , Bob Hobden
writes
"Martin" wrote

cotula wrote:

, Martin wrote:

Anybody using Win7 or Win8 can have a free upgrade top Win10 when it
is released
later this year. Release date isJuly/August 2015 according to rumours

Just this morning I had a message from Microsoft inviting me to
register to get a free upgrade to Win10.

A "Get Windows 10" icon has appeared on the toolbar of my Win7 PC. If
I click
the icon, I am invited to reserve a copy. When Win10 is released a 3GB
upgrade
will be installed.

Luckily I have a Windows tablet with 8.1 and will certainly update that
to Win 10 as soon as possible as I also will my phone. I will then see
how it works before deciding whether to "upgrade" my Win 7 desktop.
I know two people who bought new Laptops with Win 8 and because both
were non touchscreen devices they have both found them almost unusable.
One has bought an iPad and uses that instead and the other now only
uses her laptop about once a week (so emails to her are now next to
useless) and hates it with a passion.

Youngest daughter has a laptop with Win 8 (well now 8.1, which improved
things). Whilst it certainly has a few oddities with regard to the
interface I certainly don't think it is any sense unusable (as it
happens it does have a touch screen, but it is rarely used). She uses it
all the time and switches between it and the Win 7 desktop quite
happily. I sometimes use it and find it fine. (though I'd not upgrade
any of the win 7 machines to it).

I've tried Win 10 Preview a bit and it does seem to have sorted out the
interface issues
--
Chris French

On 05/06/2015 00:04, Chris French wrote:

Youngest daughter has a laptop with Win 8 (well now 8.1, which improved
things). Whilst it certainly has a few oddities with regard to the
interface I certainly don't think it is any sense unusable (as it
happens it does have a touch screen, but it is rarely used). She uses it
all the time and switches between it and the Win 7 desktop quite
happily. I sometimes use it and find it fine. (though I'd not upgrade
any of the win 7 machines to it).

I must admit to being puzzled by people having so many issues with W8.1

Apart from the start tile screen (which you can bypass if you want) the
interface is almost identical to W7. It might take a little practice to
get used to not having a start menu a la W7 but it is actually not
difficult. And if you really need it, then one of the paid or free
add-ons will work fine.

Start Menu Reviver, eg, is a free program that is *much* better than the
W7 Start Menu. http://www.reviversoft.com/start-menu-reviver/

That aside, W8.1 has better features than W7 and is inherently more
secure. I do have a touch screen but rarely use it.

I've tried Win 10 Preview a bit and it does seem to have sorted out the
interface issues

Yes - I like W10 a lot. Some very useful stuff in it.

--
regards andy