"More downgrading...." Topic

So we bought a new computer for the house 6 months ago with Vista and the newest versions of Office. My wife occasionally does work at home and this means she doesn't have to lug the laptop home.

We're ready to downgrade from Vista to XP and from Office 2007 to the older versions that don't require you to do every damn thing with the mouse.

I spent 10 years learning how to do everything in office via the keyboard and they go and change the entire interface to something that requires you to look where you're going with the mouse. It's so bloody slow, plus they completely changed how everything is organized.

Office's best feature was that new version had NO learning curve for me. i was a loyal customer for that reason alone (plus the fact I am at the very, very low end of users – my needs are very simple and everything on the market already does 10,000 more things than I need).

I think it's time to turn all this over to teh seven year old and let her deal with it…

funny, I had no down turn in productivity with Office 07. Most shortcut keys still work.

Vista I will not speak of, though it does loom on the horizon…

We lucked out. My wife had been wanting a laptop for a
while, and we were waiting for 7 to come out, avoiding
Vista.

Saw an ad for the local Comp USA. They had some
Lenovo G530's with XP Professional as the pre-load,
for only USD 599 ! Bought one, it works well !

I have successfully avoided Vista so far but the sysadmin at work says he's replacing my XP machine with a Vista machine sometime in June.

NOT looking forward to that.

Regards, the Gorb

I just bought an ASUS Eee 1000HE w/XP. It runs fine and I have no problems with it. My big honkin' desktop has Vista Ultimate on it. Again, I have no problems with it either.

That said, I am looking forward to Windows 7 ((which should be out this year). It is, from all accounts, what Vista should have been. It's lean and fast. It has been tested on low end processors like the Atom in my ASUS netbook. I will upgrade both computers to Windows 7 when the time comes.

As for Office 2007, I have no problem with it either. Most of the most common key chords have been retained. The visual IF has changed. I haven't had any problems--ok, not many problems--finding things. When all else fails, I use help. Since I have to use 2007 at work, it makes sense to use it at home as well. Since my computing needs at home are more modest, if I didn't have ready access to Office 2007 and use it at work, I could get allong perfectly well with Works 9.

In fact, that is my recommendation to neophytes who seem overwhelmed by high-end software complexity (and cost). Most people won't even make a dent in the potential capability in Works 9, or Photoshop Elements. In fact, I loaded the very modest Photostudio software that came with my Canon Xsi on the ASUS. The Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2 are on the desktop to do the heavy lifting.

The bottom line is that users should assess their needs and buy software (and hardware) that fulfills those needs. Why buy Office at $400 USD when you will only use a tenth of it's capability? Wouldn't you be better off spending $40 USD on Works 9 and spending your savings on miniatures?

Wouldn't you be better off spending $40 USD USD on Works 9 and spending your savings on miniatures?

Or downloading Open Office for free. It doesn't have the file compatibility problems Works has.

Regards, the Gorb

My wife loves Office 7 and hates my old version. She is very visual and is not a computer person at all.

I have to work on large documents. I have found that Office 7 handles large documents better -- it doesnt get tied up in formatting knots that the older office did.

@Gorb – see if your IT guy will wait for Windows 7 – as noted above it has good previews. I had an office computer last year running Vista and it did not impress me. We requested new computers to be loaded with XP Pro.

Also wasn't impressed with Office 2007, still run Open Office or 2003 on my other machines.

By the by, for those looking for higher end graphic capabilities try Gimp – free for download. I have my niece (college graphics major) using it – so far so good.