New Desktop Computer

[lvcabbie]

After 8 years, my Compaq HP desktop gave me so much trouble I decided to go out and buy a new one. It's a Dell Inspiron w/Windows 8 and all the memory I need.[And it actually fits on top of my desk] Problem is that I dislike the Win8 start panel but found something called Classic Shell that gives me the Win7 start menu.

My biggest problem has been figuring out how things work and downloading a word processor that Dell doesn't include in their packages.

It took me several days to figure out how to transfer my photos from my flash drive to the system. And then, I went to the Dell Support Forum to get help in transferring my music - so far, not a single helpful answer. I haven't figured out how to transfer from the flash drive but did guess that by clicking the C port in the My Computer window would open the drive so I could rip tunes from the CDs I have. Missing a lot of music but will see if I can figure out the rest.

Now to try to recover the hundreds of urls I had to helpful and important websites. [Having one heck of a time getting used to this new keyboard]

[samfloor]

Dell support is not very helpful. We paid $1500 for a gaming desktop for our son two years ago. Before we bought it, we were assured that a xbox controller could be plugged in and used. Well, it didn't work. My wife spent 6 hours on the phone with their tech support and they couldn't get it to work. They finally gave up.
We were ready to send it back when our 19 year old autistic son asked if he could try. Within 10 minutes, it was working.
They will also try to sell you an extended warranty and they won't honor it. Be careful. Dell computers have a history of harddrive failures after a couple years. We have had two fail this year that we bought right after we bought the gaming computer. We bought the extended warranty on both and they won't honor it on either one.
One of our local computer guys says that he gets Dells all the time that have hard drive failure.

[oldognewtrick]

Our desk top took a dump recently too, I've been looking for an HP with windows 7..heard to many negatives about 8.

[Eddie_T]

Something I read when considering the move to a new desktop said to just drag files into a folder on the new pc. I still haven't made the move and this raises a new concern about doing so. Eventually I will have to do it.

[samfloor]

I have a small laptop for school that has W8. I don't like that OS at all.

[havasu]

I have w-7 and love it. My poor laptop is 5 years old now, and getting long in the tooth. I am currently shopping for something better, but I can assure everyone that the new laptop will not be a w-8.

[lvcabbie]

Originally Posted by oldognewtrick

Our desk top took a dump recently too, I've been looking for an HP with windows 7..heard to many negatives about 8.

Like I said, I'm not too thrilled with the Win8 start page but the Classic Shell makes it a whole lot easier to use.

[lvcabbie]

Originally Posted by Eddie_T

Something I read when considering the move to a new desktop said to just drag files into a folder on the new pc. I still haven't made the move and this raises a new concern about doing so. Eventually I will have to do it.

My 16GB flash drive cost about $20 and easily accepted all my personal files and is so easy to back up. There are some that are basically a 2nd HD for under $100.

I back up my files every time I make major changes.

[lvcabbie]

Originally Posted by samfloor

I have a small laptop for school that has W8. I don't like that OS at all.

This is where I downloaded the Win7 Classic Shell from and it's safe according to Malwarebytes and McAfee -- http://www.classicshell.net

[lvcabbie]

One more aside - solving the problem of playing the music I saved from my old PC - insert the flash drive and connect to Windows Media Play and IT PLAYS EVERYTHING on it!!!