I have held on to my 10 -yr old computer for as long as I can-- questions re buying next one.

[ellenrr]

I am totally not computer literate, (69 years old - and altho I know people older than myself who are - I am not) and have no grand-kids to ask for help.

So some questions (and if you need more info, just ask. I may not be supplying enough info.)

1. My present, about to be ex, is a desk-top, dell, XP.
I have been very happy with it and would gladly keep it another 10 years, but as you can imagine-- it is able to do very little these days.

I want another desk-top.
I THINK I have no choice except to get Windows -10, is that right?
I am very fearful of learning something so different from XP.

2. What are the chances if I go into a store and just buy a desk-top which meets my $ requirements - that I will do OK?
Do I really have to do a lot of research?

I have a computer guy who has helped me a lot with this computer,
I have thought about asking him to help me buy a new one- but he charges $40.00/hour, and I'm not even sure what I'd be asking him.

any and all feed-back appreciated.

ellen

[Historic NY]

1. I have a dell desktop its a government contract I like it ....

they have pretty outstanding warranty and available help. I've use it twice for Windows 10 issues that crept up It was originally a Windows 8.1. If their IT people couldn't talk me through the problem a supervisor took over the computer and made the necessary corrections. But the new ones for home use probably don't have all the junk like encryption installed. Anyway this is my 2nd Dell desktop the old one was Windows XP an 11yr old model. I beginning to like 10 but read up on things to turn off etc, it makes it a bit more friendly.

[GeoSquared]

2. Computer Suggestions

Pretty much any fairly new computer will do you fine with Windows 10. My wife is very happy running it on her 8 year old Lenovo laptop. Mostly she uses her computer for surfing, email, and Farmville. This computer is good for small to medium sized spreadsheets, word processing, small cad projects, and drawing. Bigger projects like creating animation and editing videos, or recent computer games need more powerful computers with more RAM and drive space.

Now if you would like to revitalize you old computer, consider the Linux operating system. Linux Mint 18 is what is on my computer. The system requirements are: 512 Meg Ram minimum ( 1 GB recommended), 9 GBytes disk space ( 20 GBytes recommended) monitor resolution 1024 x 768 or better. With this is bundle pretty much all the software most people will need. Free Download.

Linux Mint not for you, find out about hundreds of Linux distributions that are available as free downloads at distrowatch.

[Ron Obvious]

3. If you do get Windows 10...

There are after-market start buttons available to return to a normal Windows start button.

I highly recommend doing so. The Win10 UI isn't as awful as the Windows 8 one, but I, for one, really hate my desktop or start button looking like the Yahoo start page.

The one I use is called StartIsBack, can be tried for free for a month, and is only $5 after that.

Since you're used to XP you won't be familiar with Gadgets, which is are the little clock, calendar and weather apps that came with Windows 7. I happen to like them (and I will NOT use any metro (cr)applets) so I installed them. Google "Windows 10 Gadgets" if you'd like them.

After these two steps your Windows 10 (or Windows 8) will look exactly like Windows 7 but will still have the under-the-cover improvements of Windows 8 or 10. Your learning curve should be a lot less, though.

[OxQQme]

4. My computer history started with Win 3.1

Have had all newer Windows since then except for Millenium.
I upped from 7 to 10 on my desktop six months ago and have had zero problems.
Kept all my games, apps, files and apps.
Four year old printer prints.
Wi-Fi networked to my laptop no problem.
Laptop purchased with Win 8 (ugh) and it has been upped to 10 also (ditto all the above).

A previous post here suggested turning off most of the 'phone home' doohickeys and I concur.
A web search will show you how to do that. This one's good, with plenty of tutorials --> http://www.tenforums.com/

You should save your music, pictures, personal stuff, etc onto a flash drive or external storage devices.
You would need, also, to make sure you have the installation discs for any programs you may have purchased
as this would be a 'clean install'.

From a 75 year old dude, I say go for it.
You're never too old. The best is yet to come.

I also have a Linux distro named UBUNTU (translates as Human Kindness) in a dual boot configuration.

[ucrdem]

5. You can get a nice basic desktop PC from Amazon for about $120.00, free shipping, 1 yr warranty

with or without Prime, if you don't mind a "certified refurbished" system. This one for example has a 3 Ghz dual-core Intel processor (ideal for MS Office and other Windows apps), 4 GB memory, a 250 GB hard drive, 8 USB ports, and Windows 7 Pro (x64). That's not a bad set up!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VSDJBEY/ref=psdc_565098_t2_B00VSC6NLO

About Windows 10: it's very nice, possibly a little faster than 7, but it has a big tiled start "screen" instead of a button, and it doesn't come with a DVD player, and the latest media player is full of ads, and the "apps" have super-basic controls and minimal help screens, meaning they're mostly decorative. so you'd need to download a start button, music/DVD player, PDF reader, gadget pack if you wanted to use them, etc. Not a deal breaker, but Win 7 Pro is better as far as functionality and help system.

Also: July 29th is past, so you don't have to worry about MS trying to sneak a 5 Gb operating system onto your harddrive and changing up your system on the sly. And if you DO want to try 10, you can just download the ISO file from MS, burn an installation DVD on your Win 7 burner, and install Win 10 in a 50 Gb partition on your hard drive. Voila, you will have a dual-boot system, with a graphical boot screen that Win 10 adds. And after the first big update, Win 10 let's you personalize everything, whether or not you activate, so you can nuke that fugly blue log-on screen!

[ellenrr]

8. dvd

i don't understand what you mean by "doesn't come with a DVD player".
I thought it was the body of your computer which determined whether or not one could play DVD's.
Are you saying users with W-10 cannot play dvd's on the computer?

[ucrdem]

10. It doesn't have native DVD-player software.

So even with the hardware you'd need to download a DVD player for $15.00 from the Windows "store," unless you were upgrading directly from Win 7 Pro or Win 8.1 with Media Center. At least that was the state of play when I made my Win 10 installation DVD last summer, so none of the PCs I've installed Win 10 on have a native DVD player. It's possible that newer versions have one, but I haven't bothered to make a new installation DVD because I never use the Win 8/10 media player anyway. For the last couple of years I've used a VLC media player which is free and plays DVDs:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Here's an article about Win 10's screwy DVD player policy from last August 5:

http://betanews.com/2015/08/05/microsoft-releases-windows-dvd-player-for-windows-10-free-for-some-but-not-for-others/

Weird, but as I say not a deal breaker as there are better alternatives available for free, as is the case for most other stuff missing from Win 10. But you have to find it, install it, and then fiddle with it if Win 10 tries to break it as it often will.

That reminds me: if you go with a Win 7 system be sure to download and install an anti-virus as soon as you go online (Windows Defenders is fine, also free) because it's not built in and Win 7 catches bugs like a hungry anteater. Here's Windows Defender:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14210/security-essentials-download

p.s. a system from Amazon may well have an anti-virus installed, but a fresh Win 7 installation won't.

[Egnever]

13. For DVD player software vlc media player is free and will play damn near anything

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Windows 10 despite all the nonsense surrounding it from Luddites is a nice operating system. For older folks I would argue it is way better than 7 just because of the search box on the task bar alone.

A question I would ask though is what do you do with the computer. If you simply do email and web surfing I would suggest taking a look at a chromebox.

They run chrome OS instead of windows but when it comes to just web surfing and email they are very hard to beat. You can get a brand new chromebox for around 180 and they have the added benefit of being nearly imune to viruses and if you do get one you can reset the machine in like ten minutes or less and sign back in and it will be mostly just like you left it. They are also lightning fast. You would have to spend a lot more money for a windows machine that performs similarly.

If you watch DVD's on your computer though they dont have DVD players in them.

[ellenrr]

14. thanks, my computer guys also said it is no big deal to be able

get the means to watch dvd's.
i'm glad you like windows-10. I was traumatized by Windows 8 - a friend got it and asked me to show him how to use it and i was so befuddled.
but my computer guy doesn't think I will have any trouble learning windows-10 and he knows I am not exactly a computer nerd.
thanks for the link.

[Sunlei]

6. Keep both computers up and use both. I found this referb. on amazon, a complete package $91

ready to use out of the box, with a monitor, keyboard and mouse and windows 7 install.

$91 and 7.50 shipping.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-Desktop-Professional-Keyboard/dp/B00JS96S0U/ref=sr_1_14?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1470582126&sr=1-14&refinements=p_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A12035945011%7C12566246011%7C5945862011%7C5945861011%7C2232492011%7C2232493011%7C2232495011%7C2232494011%7C5945864011%7C2232496011%7C562222011%2Cp_89%3ADell

use a USB flash drive to move anything you want from one computer to another.

[ellenrr]

7. windows 7

I didn't know I could still get W-7.
I would prefer that to 10.

but isn't it inevitable that MS will stop supporting W-7 and I will then be in the same position as I am now?

i figured if I got W-10, at least I wouldn't have to worry about changing for a couple of years.

[ucrdem]

11. Win 7 is scheduled for radio silence in January 2020

and Win 10 goes oblivious in 2025:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet

Meanwhile MS is still selling new Win7 Pro licenses to mfrs. Also Win 10 Pro licenses include rollback rights to earlier versions, going back to Windows 95:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/learn-more/brief-downgrade-rights.aspx

The thorny question is whether you can rollback a rollback when it hits end of support, or whether you forfeit the five extra years promised for 10, in which case you might as well just get 7 to start with? Dunno the answer.

[ellenrr]

9. refurbished

I looked at these 2 that were linked to and they look good, certainly are less expensive.
I will ask my computer guy to look at them, as all the numbers and letters mean naught to me.

thanks!

I had not even known this was an option.

[Sunlei]

12. I needed a pc for some wireless cameras, so I ordered one of those $91 complete packages.

Arrived yesterday, all in one box. 17' monitor and PC well bubble wrapped, keyboard, mouse, pair of speakers, it all looks like new. It has a new install of windows7 Pro. runs fine right out of the box.

A very good deal, this is fine for a student computer, light internet use or security camera set-up.

Only thing to add is the cable that runs from modem to computer to connect it to a 'wired internet' and/or a "wireless adapter" (plug a wireless adapter into the USB port)

I see several more refurbished packages listed under 'used' in the amazon link, I got the package that's $91 plus $7.50 shipping. Amazing how inexpensive refurbished are.