Good Morning, PA Bear,
I've actually not made any decision on what to do. I'm still mulling over
my alternatives.
My XP based computer is old and slow. At least 6 years old. And over the
years, I've tried enough pieces of legitimate software that there's lots of
"leftovers" scattered about that really seem to have had a negative
cumulative effect.
One thing I don't like about the restore/reinstall disks on the XP computer
is they are simply a disk image or back up files of the original machine. So
it's going to install the drivers for hardware that no longer exists in the
machine (modem and hard drive come to mind at the moment), as well as
software I don't want. One advantage of this type of system is it's good for
the less knowledgeable user who finds himself/herself needing to start from
scratch.
At the moment, I've just got this list of alternatives:
1. The good old "do nothing" alternative, and just live with the way it is
in order to avoid the work. LOL
2. Reinstall the original software and try to get things removed that I
don't want. I've never been able to remove all the stuff associated with the
original modem. It continues to show up in the add/remove control panel even
though the modem went to the landfill many years ago. But this issue may be
associated with the new modem and the vendor forgot to change a word or two
in the coding for the current modem. The software disk for the current modem
contains file references to the name of the original modem.
3. Buy a stand alone copy of XP, if I can still find one, and install it.
I'd probably buy XP Pro. I've got Outlook 2007 installed now (I've got a
cell phone with Windows Mobile 6 and I sync the phone to the computer) and
Outlook 2007 spends so much time being pretty it takes forever to display new
screens. And I've not found a single feature in it that didn't exist in
Outlook 2000. In fact, there's one feature in 2000 I used but can't find in
2007. I bought Outlook 2007 because Active Sync occasionally would complain
about Outlook 2000. Hasn't been a good buy, IMO.
If I do buy XP Pro, I'd also look for Office 2003 Professional, and
basically start from scratch.
4. Buy and install one of the Linux OS's out there. At least the software
is reasonably priced. And from what I've learned so far, a lot of the Linux
software has the ability to read and write MS file formats as well as being
almost as powerful as current Windows stuff. Still a lot to learn here.
5. Buy a new off the shelf computer. My inclination here is, it would be a
Mac. As posted earlier, I'll only buy a new off the shelf Windows computer
if I need one for a job.
6. Take the existing computer, make it a dual boot computer and play with
XP Black as a separate installation.
7. For no more computer needs than I have now, and the lessened interest in
computers due to the Windows issues of software with useless features for me,
continuing growth of program and filesizes that require more horsepower,
viruses, spam, spyware, I may just blow off XP and go back to Win98 on my 400
mhz Pentium II Dell. For what I do now, it gets the job done a lot faster.
I will stipulate that if I reinstall XP and install all the updates, the XP
computer will probably run my older MS software faster. But........ I don't
think most of the virus writers out there are targeting Win98.
There
are some antivirus program available that still support Win98 where the "big
boys" won't give you the time of day.
And possibly some variation of any of the above.
At the moment, my preferred alternative is to buy a Mac.
So I've made no decision as yet.
Ken
