Microsoft announces "end of life" date for Windows XP

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

DW survived the win 8.1 transition this weekend. Got our records over and she can get her books down loaded from the library. Quicken 2015 was a little hassle since it wouldn't run right under admin. Had to set up another user with admin rights. That is a Quicken bit of stupid. Now why in the world wouldn't you let the admin have printer rights or be able to save a file anywhere. I'm still moving everything over to win 7 and to be honest I don't really see much difference between win 7 and 8.1.
We did use the guy we bought the computer from to decrap the win 8.1 machine.
@ Bill, looks like Toshiba has gotten as bad as Dell.

 

[funpilot]

I have Win 8.1 PRO and still think I am using Windows 7. I use this wonderful addon:

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Learning curve for DW was under 5 seconds.

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

I was setting up Thunderbird on the win 7 to access our email accts. Ran smack dab into the wizzin contest between the Mozzila group and Google.
Same e-mail client works fine of on XP. I guess Google figures people using XP aren't a threat to their security.

 

[Bill]

Thunderbird works fine for me on Windows 7. Like Firefox, T-bird seems to be updated weekly or more often, and I am now runnig V31.5.0. I'm not sure where Google comes into the mix. Is G-mail your email server? I haven't tried it, so I have no experience to offer.

Incidentally, I absolutely despise Windows 7 - or more accurately the ribbon interface. While I can deal with it in the OS, it has made Office (Word and PowerPoint especially) useless to me. I have actually installed both Office 2003 and Office 2010 on my machine, and to my surprise, they seem to co-exist well. But 2003 is my go-to installation. I use 2010 only when I have to. Like you, I was perfectly happy with Windows XP, and used it for its entire life cycle. But Bill Gates was not happy with me.

I would love to have a tutorial about modifying the ribbon interface, and making the changes stick, from anyone who knows how to do it.

[rant off]

Anyway, if I can help with Thunderbird, let me know. PM or email probably best.

Bill

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

Thunderbird works fine for me on Windows 7. Like Firefox, T-bird seems to be updated weekly or more often, and I am now runnig V31.5.0. I'm not sure where Google comes into the mix. Is G-mail your email server? I haven't tried it, so I have no experience to offer.

snip................
Bill

Google, gmail, wants e-mail clients to set imap as the default instead of pop3 and use Oauth2 for security access. Not a lot of difference between imap and pop3 other then imap maybe little more stable and sync is easier. I think Oauth2 is just another multi step log in procedure. Some where in mid 2014 Google switched log in methods for new accounts and wanted old accounts to switch from pop3 to imap for email client use. If you just use your browser to log in nothing changed. Those of us that use an email client to down load email we want to save are the ones bumping into this.
This isn't scheduled as a fix in T-bird until version 38 which may be out in May of this year.
In the mean time I just set the gmail acct to less secure apps and its happy with T-bird.

A note here the latest T-bird version for xp is 12.0.1 and I just down load some emails from a gmail acct no argument and with changing the acct security settings.

What ever happened to the KISS principle:new_all_c

 

[Padgett]

Heck I still use Eudora (OSE is Thunderbird based).

Must admit my personal desktop (this PC) is a cobbled together mess running Win7-64 with many peripherals, dual display, and wired ethernet (85.91 GB/s down) though I have several tabs & desktops running Win8, 8.1, 8.1 update, and 10 preview. Plus my old XP netbook & some even older stuff - what happens when you've been in the same home for 30+ years).

Latest is a 12" tablet/notebook & 8.1 update which is nice but not without issues.

BTW IMNSHO there is nothing wong with XP so long as you have a good current anti-virus/malware/spamware.

 

[wbmiller3]

It's been a while since I posted in this thread. After getting a look at the Windows 10 preview, I realized that my Windows days were over since I don't care for the path they are headed down. I've now converted totally over to Ubuntu Linux. I still retain the ability to boot into Windows for the very few Windows apps that I haven't been able to get to work with virtualization or emulation layers.

It was by no means an easy transition but so worth it to know that I'll never have to pay a dime for an operating system ever again. They also have a totally free office suite that supports the Windows office formats.

My family members are running out the clock on their current Windows PCs and I still have a Win 7 print and file server on the family LAN. But I'm never giving Microsoft or Apple another penny.

 

[Padgett]

Agree on free but I have a number of fanless tablets and the thermal/power management drivers for these do not seem to exist for Linux. Intel just released it for 64 bit Windows in November.

I also have a lot of third party apps that work only with Windows. May be forced over someday but have a number of Win 8 devices that will probably get a free upgrade to 10 which does work well so may stay there.

OTOH retirement is imminent and not sure what I'll be doing then except hoping to use the TM a lot more.

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

It's been a while since I posted in this thread. After getting a look at the Windows 10 preview, I realized that my Windows days were over since I don't care for the path they are headed down. I've now converted totally over to Ubuntu Linux. I still retain the ability to boot into Windows for the very few Windows apps that I haven't been able to get to work with virtualization or emulation layers.

It was by no means an easy transition but so worth it to know that I'll never have to pay a dime for an operating system ever again. They also have a totally free office suite that supports the Windows office formats.

My family members are running out the clock on their current Windows PCs and I still have a Win 7 print and file server on the family LAN. But I'm never giving Microsoft or Apple another penny.

This is a move I would like to make but we have to much software that isn't Linux supported. For example none of Garmin mapping software will run on it and I use this a lot for trip planning. There is some pushing of Garmin on the Garmin forums though. Won't do much good I think; their latest mapping software doesn't work well on windows and the Mac people aren't to happy either. There older stuff for XP runs very well on win 7, even has some features that didn't show up on my XP machine. One of the few pluses I've seem with the win 7 move.

 

[wbmiller3]

There are workarounds depending on how much time you want to spend. For example I run a complete legal copy of Windows 7 in a virtual machine on my Linux box, it runs just like any other app. That's how I run Turbotax for example, since it is not supported by Linux. The only things that don't work satisfactorialy in virtual machines for me are certain high end games.

Obviously you need a pretty powerful PC for that since you are essentially running 2 pcs worth of software on a single machine at the same time plus the overhead of virtualization for one of them. But powerful PCs are pretty cheap now.

Here's a screenshot of me running windows 7 in a virtual machine on my linux desktop.

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

Back to the

XP based machines.......the win 7 machine has died.......no wifi and the hdd runs constantly and the win 8.1 has no wifi either; won't even run a usb wifi stick anymore.

At this rate we'll be back to pencil and paper

 

[Padgett]

Can use the Win 7 license to upgrade to Win 10 on a new machine.

 

[wbmiller3]

Since we spoke last, I've converted DW to the righteous path of Linux. If anyone else is considering it, I learned that the Lubuntu distribution of Linux is a great choice for people moving from XP. It runs well on old PCs and it features a start button/menu based interface that was quite easy for DW to get used to. I also converted my print/file server, so only my son is holding out, at this writing.

 

[Bill]

Bill -

How well does the File Finder (Search) work on your new setup? The File Finder on XP was wonderful. I absolutely despise the File Finder on Win 7, mainly because I can't figure out how to make it do what a File Finder should do. Internet searches have revealed that many people share my problem, but I find no useful hints or fixes.

Second issue with Win 7? I use Word and Powerpoint on a daily basis, and I hate the ribbon interface in the 2010 version of these applications. I got around this problem by installing Word 2003 and Powerpoint 2003 right beside the 2010 versions. With this setup, I can use 2010 when I absolutely have to, but for all normal uses I fire up the 2003 versions. The "experts" say you can't do this, but I find it works well.

Bill

 

[Padgett]

I use Linux (and think you meant Ubuntu though I mostly use Fedora) and with the new graphical interfaces it can work well. For those needing Ofiice, Apache Open Office is a good alternative that can read most documents created by Microsoft Office and verse the vice.

It is a little different with a lot of dropdown selections but not hard to learn. It can be as simple as a smart phone.

Unix is the basis for Andriod, iOS, and OS/X so are many users but few go down to the code level.

 

[BrucePerens]

Libreoffice

Try Libreoffice, it works on Windows and Linux. Don't use OpenOffice, that project has fallen behind in development and LibreOffice is the replacement for it. It doesn't render everything exactly the same as Microsoft Office, but it's good enough and the price is right. I use it for all presentations and word processing of Algoram.com and LegalEngineering.com and it's never a problem.

I am not a good person to ask about file managers, as I've been using the command line shell since 1981. But Linux actually has many file managers, so you might find one you like more than the default one in Ubuntu.

Of course I am using Debian. Ubuntu is sort of commercial frosting on top of Debian, you might try Debian when you get good at it.

 

[wbmiller3]

Bruce, I've only been using Linux a year but that was long enough to have heard of you, so I yield to your judgement in all such matters! I'm open to trying other versions of Linux, Ubuntu was an easy intro.

Padgett, Lubuntu is correct, it's a light variant of Ubuntu that runs well on old hardware; coincidentally it features an XP-like user experience that was very easy for DW to transition to.

Bill, the file managers in both Ubuntu and Lubuntu work well for me when searching for files that you know all or part of the names. I actually prefer the file manager in Lubuntu because it seems more functional to me and less slick looking. If I need to search for something that's inside of a file whose name I do not know, I use command line tools, as Bruce mentioned. I am not very familiar with the dreaded "ribbon" because I started using the open source office suites before that (yes, you can use Libreoffice in windows, I did for years). I've attached a shot of the Writer interface so you can judge if it's a "ribbon" or not. You can download LibreOffice for windows at https://www.libreoffice.org/

 

[Padgett]

Interesting. Must admit for the last few years have been working mainly with ventless tablets and last I looked the thermal management drivers were a Windows-only thing.

Now that I'm retired, Windows is not as necessary but I have a few licenses so have no reason to change.

When I first got a PC, there was Wordstar, 1-2-3, and Harvard Graphics but that was a while ago. No GUIs yet.

So mainly working with tabs and smart phones/watches (have had a Sony since '12) now. Can connect to a 27" 1080 monitor in the TM though.

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

Bill -

How well does the File Finder (Search) work on your new setup? The File Finder on XP was wonderful. I absolutely despise the File Finder on Win 7, mainly because I can't figure out how to make it do what a File Finder should do. Internet searches have revealed that many people share my problem, but I find no useful hints or fixes.

Second issue with Win 7? I use Word and Powerpoint on a daily basis, and I hate the ribbon interface in the 2010 version of these applications. I got around this problem by installing Word 2003 and Powerpoint 2003 right beside the 2010 versions. With this setup, I can use 2010 when I absolutely have to, but for all normal uses I fire up the 2003 versions. The "experts" say you can't do this, but I find it works well.

Bill

For file management I use total commander. It's search works great. Has a built in decompression utility for zip files and you can add a few programs to it's menu bar and launch them directly. It works well with XP, Win 7 and 8.1. Haven't looked to see if the is a Linux version.

I agree on the 2010 Office interface.

Dropped off the win 7 machine with a friend to get a 2nd opinion of the hard drive. If its going bad I'll clone it to one of the new SSD's; accept the Win 10 upgrade and see what happens there. One thing that may be an issue with Win 10 is you may not be able to force all updates off which means a huge amount of data over the hot spot. Ran into this a bit with Win 7 until I got updates turned off still had one or two that were forced through unless they were quayed up before I got updates turned off.

 

[scrubjaysnest-TMO]

Win 10 upgrade

DW got the win 10 free upgrade yesterday and so far it works. She likes it better then 8.1. Got the notification for the win 7 machine but it won't down load it.