Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then and
the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough machine -
but gawd I hate Vista.
'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork. I built my own desktop so
bought a copy of XP - and that of course came with the key.

--
*I got a sweater for Christmas. I really wanted a screamer or a moaner*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

You remind me to check on thinkpad t61 (intel graphics, balance of 3yr
warranty)... unfortunately most on Ebay are also Vista meaning a copy
of XP would be required also.

If the laptop has a gloss screen and you don't like it, 3M do anti-
reflective films (not that they probably know, they seem to be getting
ready to do an IBM-1990s along with most big western companies).

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then and
the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough machine -
but gawd I hate Vista.

Don't you get the automatic Win7 upgrade ?


'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork. I built my own desktop so
bought a copy of XP - and that of course came with the key.


--
geoff

In article ,
geoff wrote:
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then
and the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough
machine - but gawd I hate Vista.

Don't you get the automatic Win7 upgrade ?

I'm hoping so. But they'll likely need the product code too?

--
*If tennis elbow is painful, imagine suffering with tennis balls *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then
and the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough
machine - but gawd I hate Vista.

Take it back immediately and replace it with a Vista Business machine
that comes with XP "downgrade" installation software. This should get
you a proper Vista with the vital bits eg a proper backup program in,
and at the moment you should be covered for free upgrade to Win 7.

All this ought to ensure that you will be able to get drivers for
whatever OS turns out to be least worst in future.

What on earth in these days of Open Office do you want Works for?
--
Bill

In article ,
Bill wrote:
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then
and the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough
machine - but gawd I hate Vista.

Take it back immediately and replace it with a Vista Business machine
that comes with XP "downgrade" installation software. This should get
you a proper Vista with the vital bits eg a proper backup program in,
and at the moment you should be covered for free upgrade to Win 7.

I've already spent more than I wanted to. Not worried about backup - it
won't be used for anything important. But in any case I'll wait till I try
Win7. If the worst comes to the worst I can always load in my copy of XP.

All this ought to ensure that you will be able to get drivers for
whatever OS turns out to be least worst in future.

What on earth in these days of Open Office do you want Works for?

I do have Open Office - but was just curious.

--
*Cover me. I'm changing lanes.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Bill wrote:
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then
and the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough
machine - but gawd I hate Vista.

Take it back immediately and replace it with a Vista Business machine
that comes with XP "downgrade" installation software. This should get
you a proper Vista with the vital bits eg a proper backup program in,
and at the moment you should be covered for free upgrade to Win 7.

I've already spent more than I wanted to. Not worried about backup - it
won't be used for anything important. But in any case I'll wait till I try
Win7. If the worst comes to the worst I can always load in my copy of XP.


I still think that the question of drivers for XP might be worth
checking on.

I don't know about a 5536, but some Acers I've got or had needed
specific Acer bodged drivers to allow things like a volume control to
work properly.

That's the other thing about the decent MS backup program. It lets you
take a complete image to DVD's before you revert to XP and discover
something missing.
--
Bill

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork.

I feel a fool. It's on a sticker on the back. ;-)

--
*Real men don't waste their hormones growing hair

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:48:59 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork.

I feel a fool. It's on a sticker on the back. ;-)

Works is horrible unless it comes with a full blown copy of Word -
albeit normally an older version.
Have you considered Open Office?
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/softw...4/openoffice-3

Similar to a complete Office suite but open source and therefore
completely free. I use it on a couple of my Linux machines and it does
the job.
--

blackbat /\x/\

In article ,
blackbat wrote:
On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:48:59 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork.

I feel a fool. It's on a sticker on the back. ;-)

Works is horrible unless it comes with a full blown copy of Word -
albeit normally an older version.
Have you considered Open Office?
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/softw...4/openoffice-3

Similar to a complete Office suite but open source and therefore
completely free. I use it on a couple of my Linux machines and it does
the job.

I'll not use it much if at all. I use Publisher Plus on my Acorn for any
documents I need. If I have to send anything electronically I do it using
an open file standard. Like PDF.

--
*Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:13:51 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Works is horrible unless it comes with a full blown copy of Word -
albeit normally an older version.
Have you considered Open Office?
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/softw...4/openoffice-3

Similar to a complete Office suite but open source and therefore
completely free. I use it on a couple of my Linux machines and it does
the job.

I'll not use it much if at all. I use Publisher Plus on my Acorn for any
documents I need. If I have to send anything electronically I do it
using an open file standard. Like PDF.

FWIW Open Office uses ISO26300 for its WP files, a format that can be
read & written by a number of other word processors (Abiword, Lotus
Symphony, MS Office, Softmaker, WordPerfect...).

Ironically MS Office 2k7 SP2 offers support for ISO26300... MS do not
even support their own XML based ISO standard in spite of the effort they
put into pushing through the approval process.

BW

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Bought a laptop from PC World the other day - wanted it there and then and
the post is so slow these days. It's an Acer 5536. Nice enough machine -
but gawd I hate Vista.
'Works' asked for the product key to be entered - but I don't seem to
have that on any of the (minimal) paperwork. I built my own desktop so
bought a copy of XP - and that of course came with the key.

Open Office is good, it can save in PDF,
also you could save in RTF
but saving as HTMNL webpage whould be the most portable.

http://www.openoffice.org/

With a new laptop I'd wait 13 days then download and install
the new version of Ubuntu as a dual boot,
use ubuntu for 99% of everything,
the graphics are promised to be speedier than before.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

[g]

"george (dicegeorge)" wrote in message
...


With a new laptop I'd wait 13 days then download and install
the new version of Ubuntu as a dual boot,
use ubuntu for 99% of everything,
the graphics are promised to be speedier than before.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

I wouldn't having tried Ubuntu 9.04 and mint (9.04 based) on my Toshiba M30X
notebook.
For some reason it just doesn't like the touch pad.
the touchpad moves the pointer but it ignores the buttons unless I have a
USB mouse plugged in, then the touchpad buttons work perfectly.

Then there is the video problem on my shuttle with an ATI hd4350 card in it,
just why it decides to overscan on a flat panel display connected by HDMI.
You would think they had sorted the maths out by now so that you could
actually see the menus and the desktop icons.

If it can't get old stuff like this to work (it did on 8.04 BTW) then what
hope is there?