O/T I finally gave up.........

Goose

Well-known Member
Ya'll might remember from prior threads, about six weeks ago I bought two new Gateway "all in one" 23" computers, on Windows 7, one for my wife and one for myself. We'd both been on Windows XP since it came out.

My wife's was flawless right from the start, and works great for her purposes, mostly email and surfing the 'Net.

Mine had so many bugs in it, Best Buy took it back and gave me another. The second one didn't have the bugs the first one did, but I use mine for business purposes, doing real estate inspections for insurance companies. As an independent contractor, I work for two companies who contract with numerous insurance companies to do the inspections.

Things started to go downhill when I began accessing the websites and secure pages of the companies I work for. Seems everything took twice as many steps on Windows 7 as on XP, anything you did there were more hoops to jump though, etc. Some functions wouldn't even work. I could diagram houses with one company's software, but the computer wouldn't let me label the different sections of the house. When I emailed the company's techies, they responded that everyone running 7 had the same problem and no one could figure it out. To get around it, I would have to add comments in the comment section as to the different areas of the house.

Same with resizing photos. One company wants the photos shot at a high resolution and resized to VGA on the report, saying if someone zooms a part of the photo you get a clearer picture. On Windows 7, there were about three ways to resize photos, but only one was compatible with the company software, and that was more complicated a process than on XP. Even basically downloading photos from my camera to the hard drive on my computer became much more complicated.

And on and on and on..... It was taking me twice as long to get my reports done after I'd done the inspections.

My old computer is actually only 3-4 years old and the new one wasn't any faster, so speed wasn't an issue.

I finally said, "Screw it", bought a new 23" monitor for my old computer, and went back to that old gal. Life is once again back to normal, or something that passes for normal.

Haven't decided yet what to do with the new computer, Can't return it 'cause there's nothing wrong with it. I told the salesman whoever designed Windows 7 must think all anyone who owns a computer does is play video games, watch movies, and listen to music because is seems like that's all Windows 7 is aimed at.

Whatever became of the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
 
We just bought 2 new computers with Windows 8 and so far have had no problems except for the new Quick Books software not being ready for Windows 8 yet. I was using Quick Books 2004 on my old computer with Windows XP and Intuit no longer supports any version older than 2010. The old computer is working better with all of our stuff off of it except Quick Books but we were told it is only a matter of time before it goes down. In the mean time I call Intuit every week to see when Quick Books 2013 will be ready for Windows 8. Every time I get the same reply. "We are working on it and it will be out soon. No sense spending $200 on software that won't work yet. I just backup my work every time and hope the old computer keeps working.
 
7 seemed like a fairly painless upgrade, both XP and 7 have pretty good records. I'm surprised you had so much trouble.

Be glad you didn't get 8, that is really different!

Paul
 
Just wait till you upgrade to Windows 8 I did and found out my old programs won't run in 64 bit and I can't find out how to reset it to 32 bit. My printer won't work and there isn't an update for it and I love my printer best one I have ever owned cost $500. BUMMER SOMETIMES YOU JUST CAN WIN. what ever happened to Windows 3.1 it always worked on everything.
Walt
 
I'm still using my XP to download & size photos, Apex Medina V-4 to do diagrams and upload insurance reports. I bought an external hard drive that backs up automaticaly in case this dies.
 
External (USB) HDDs with terabyte sized capacity is a good cheap auto backup plan. A new internal 250gig HDD could be setup as a new drive easily, then copied with all programs to make a more reliable system out of the old one. Jim
 
That's another issue. I always run my printer set on "fast draft" 'cause for most of the forms, etc., I print speed and conserving ink usage is more important than quality.

Windows 7 wouldn't let me set the printer on fast draft, it was stuck on "Normal", which obviously made it run slower and use more ink.
 
I thought about checking that out. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable amount to have Windows 7 uninstalled and XP Professional installed.
 
Goose, Window 7 can take some getting used to, that's for sure,
but I like it now that I've had it a while.
I doubt you will find Windows XP drivers for that new of a machine.
Its kind of a trade agreement between vendors.
Microsoft has a new OS, the vendors sell the new OS, and don't make drivers for the old one.
On the other hand, google Windows 7 XP mode.
This is a virtual machine running inside you Windows 7 machine that runs XP.
Like having two machines in one.
I find it a bit of a pain, but it will run all your old programs etc if you need them.
 
Did your Windows 7 computer have Java installed? Windows 7 doesn't come with Java installed and some secure web sites require it to work properly. I found this out when setting up a computer for a marine dealer.
 
Hey Goose.

The sad fact is that the software industry is all about promoting new software because it makes them money.

If you think that they have your interests in mind when the promote the next 'windows' you are mistaken.

The 'new' versions of windows really don't do anything different than they did 20 years ago except taking massive amounts of memory making your current machine 'obsolete'.

If you have a machine that you like and it is running XP just have the maximum memory (that is RAM) installed and it will run faster than when it was new.

An older version of Photoshop can be had for usually under $50.00 and will do far more to manipulate jpgs and other types of files than you will probably ever use.

Good luck,

Brad
 
I feel your pain. Never buy from Gateway, Toshiba, or Sony. I spent about $3600 for a Gateway that was supposed to do anything including gaming back in 2001. Piece of crap spent as much time in Denver at the shop as it did at home. It never worked right and they could never fix it. Wouldn't give me another one. So I bought an e-Machine, too late I found out that Gateway had bought them out. Well, it hasn't worked right either and the shop can't seem to fix it either. Then I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop. That thing worked for about three weeks before it had problems. Then I bought an expensive Sony gaming machine on time, supposedly interest free. Sorry so and so's ended up charging me a couple thousand dollars in interest by the time I got it paid for. Had it for several years but been afraid to take it out of the box because I bet it don't work either.
 
We're still using the first Gateway we bought back in 97. At least the kids are. The games still play and that keeps them happy. It hasn't been able to connect tot he internet in several years, just not enough guts in it to handle the DSL stuff. Sure was built good.

I was very happy with Windows 98 and reasonably happy with XP. Now I've got Vista and it's okay, but I liked XP better. THey keep changing things and making it worse. It's like Ebay. THey made another change recently and now it takes me twice as long to cruise through the section I want to look at or run a search for a part. Leave well enough alone!
 
Wait till you have to use Windows 8.
We got a new laptop three weeks ago with
windows 8.
To me it's geared toward 3yr olds.

It's actually designed for phones and touch screen computers.

The engineers designing these computers now days has never known a life with out a computer.
 
They have to keep changing to so they can force you to buy it.

I used to be able to email invoices from Quickbooks, but after about 2 yrs, QB stopped "supporting" that function and if I wanted to email directly from QB, I would need to purchase the new version.

Really have a beef with companies that try to hold you hostage and force you to buy a newer version.
 
I wondered about that, I bought this desktop and got one of those $14.95 offers to upgrade it from Windows 7, to Windows 8, all I keep hearing is to NOT do it.
 
I have NOTHING but emachines for the last 10+ years, not one issue. I still have all of them, ALL work fine, and never had to do anything to them. One here, one in my spare bedroom, one in my garage, and a laptop in the living room.
 
70 years old and had a lap top with windows xp bought a new one with windows 7 had just got going with it when they said hey you have new windows 8 free. Took it in and had it installed.
Biggest mistake I ever made. Been to three one hr sessions on 8 and still hate the thing. My advise to anyone is skip the free upgrade to 8 unless you are young and real sharp on these things.
 

You never said what edition of 7 you have, whether its 'Home' or 'Professional'.

I haven't tried it, but I've been told by a friend who runs a canoe rental business here, if you upgrade to 'Professional 7' from 'Home premium 7', it fix's all the little bugs. 'THEY' are going to get your money, one way or another! :shock:
 
Different strokes for different folks but Win 7 is a good system & it will run anything XP did. You can use virtual windows or set a program to automaticly run in XP mode when installing it.
 
I'm thinking...if you were selling firewood for $30 bucks a pick up load, and say, the guy you sold it too, comes back and says, "Some of the wood you sold me burns too fast and some of it won't hardly burn at all"... and you say..."You didn't tell me you want the good stuff. I can upgrade you too some real nice, dry, hardwood here for $45 a load"

The County would probably shut you down faster then you can say " I wanna call my attorney"

It is amazing how things have changed and we wind up pay'n for other peoples mistakes and its called "Big Business" :roll:
 
A lot of the problem is not with the companies but with the geeks who write reviews on the stuff. They always think there is something better out there so once a program is a couple of years old they start writing bad reviews. So the company is forced to come up with something new. Take Windows 98XP as an example. Ran great, few if any complaints. The reviewers started to really knock MicroSoft over how old and antiquated it was so MS rush to get out a new OS.......Millennium :( what a joke. Because MS had it's hand forced they again were forced to go to Vista to fix the ME release. So in some cases the companies have no choice. When a new OS comes out some other software may become obsolete becuase it's incompatable with the new OS. So somethings like Quick Books can patch it to run on the new OS or put out a new version. Most often they will come up with a new version because that in fact makes them more money.

My #2 son, BA cumputer info systems, CCNA certs who works in IT told me yesterday not to up grade to Win 8. He is putting in about 65 hours a week right now because of Win8 problems.

Rick
 
I just cruise along here on my little iPad 2. Don"t feel I"ve missed much from my pc, printer works from wyfi if needed. Anything else I might need can get from wife"s laptop or my pc in my office. Actually wouldn"t trade this for any of them, fits my needs.
 
(quoted from post at 13:27:40 12/06/12) A lot of the problem is not with the companies but with the geeks who write reviews on the stuff. They always think there is something better out there so once a program is a couple of years old they start writing bad reviews. So the company is forced to come up with something new. Take Windows 98XP as an example. Ran great, few if any complaints. The reviewers started to really knock MicroSoft over how old and antiquated it was so MS rush to get out a new OS.......Millennium :( what a joke. Because MS had it's hand forced they again were forced to go to Vista to fix the ME release. So in some cases the companies have no choice. When a new OS comes out some other software may become obsolete becuase it's incompatable with the new OS. So somethings like Quick Books can patch it to run on the new OS or put out a new version. Most often they will come up with a new version because that in fact makes them more money.

My #2 son, BA cumputer info systems, CCNA certs who works in IT told me yesterday not to up grade to Win 8. He is putting in about 65 hours a week right now because of Win8 problems.

Rick

You may have a few editions mixed around here Rick, but I agree
with your sentiment.
Haste makes mistakes, and after MS was years behind on releasing
the year-dated OS's they finally changed to a different naming scheme.
Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been. Stable, reliable.
All of the businesses I have worked at/for skipped Vista.
Very few that I know of are even considering Windows 8.
We are however testing the 2012 server version in the lab.
 

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