Computer problems and/or advice-2015 to 2017

[Peter Maguire]

Martin,
It's interesting to learn that Microsoft Money does not work in Windows 10. I had serious difficulty getting it to work with Windows 7 when I upgraded from an XP machine several years ago, eventually downloading a patch I discovered on the the Internet. Unfortunately there does not seem to be suitable (and simple!) alternative to the long discontinued MS Money which I find helpful for generating reports from bank statements for end-of-year accounts. Any suggestions gratefully received!

[Anthony Darby]

I'm needing to upgrade my Office package. Had to use an old version as I removed my new computer from its packaging to bring it to NZ, not realising the Key to Office 2010 was on the box!  Here it's $99/year or $250 for the life of the computer!

[Alan_b]

There is a rental version of Office called 'Office 365'.
The most recent retail version of Office is 'Office 2013'.
You can preview 'Office 2016' (a free trial lasting a few months) https://products.office.com/en-GB/office-2016-preview
 

[David Nicholson]

http://www.moneymanagerex.org/

Is this worth a look?

[Alan_b]

I have tried Windows 10 myself and have heard a few reports from others.  In my opinion, unless you are adventurous, adept with computers and have time on your hands then it's too soon to upgrade to Windows 10.  There are still too many bugs and Microsoft is creating more in its haste to fix them.  I'm sure Windows 10 will settle down after a while but, unless you want to be a guinea pig, wait until that happens.   

[Anthony Darby]

A friend of mine in Dunblane has been a guinea pig for Windows 10 for the last 6 months or so and thinks it's better than Windows 8. He has no complaints.

[Martinr]

Thanks David, I think I'll give that one a try and report back.

Alan, looks like I should stick to the plan and have 10 on one machine and 7 on the other!

[Alan_b]

A friend of mine in Dunblane has been a guinea pig for Windows 10 for the last 6 months or so and thinks it's better than Windows 8. He has no complaints.

If you volunteer to be a guinea pig you can hardly complain.

I'm running two copies of Windows 10 which are nominally the same and which run on the same computer!  One I installed from scratch as your friend would have done.  The other is an upgrade from Windows 8.1.  I have had problems with both but far more problems with the upgrade because of inherited baggage from the previous version of Windows.   

[Anthony Darby]

I don't think he volunteered. It would be a 'perk' of his job.

[johnralphcarpenter]

What happened to Windows 9?

[Anthony Darby]

I think they tried that in Germany, but if failed to catch on.

[JohnLonsdale]

I've installed Windows 10 as an upgrade on 3 machines - 2 desktops and a virtual machine on a Mac Book Air.  All the installs went very smoothly and I haven't had any issues apart from a couple of minor drivers to update manually on one of the PCs.  In all 3 cases it is definitely superior to Windows 7.  I had expected to have to follow up the upgrade with a clean install on at least one of the machines but it has proved to be very stable, so no need yet. I haven't found any applications that don't work just fine in W10.  I have turned off all off all of the privacy options and also completely uninstalled all of the Modern/Metro apps.  Doing the latter made a very significant improvement in performance and I won't miss them at all in a desktop environment.

[johnstephen29]

I had heard that Microsoft wanted to put some distance between them and the disaster that was windows 8 so they went straight to 10. I signed up for the insider programme Microsoft was running to test windows 10, that was ok, the full software is even better. If you download it in the first year it's free so that's not bad is it?

[Martinr]

John L, what are the Modern/Metro Apps you refer to?

[JohnLonsdale]

Martin, Windows 10, like 8, comes bundled with a lot of Microsoft apps - called Metro Apps in 8, I think they have changed the name to Modern Apps now.  They are not apps you install, they come with the OS.  There are a ton of them, and they are installed automatically - you will see the tiles in the start menu - things like Microsoft's own version of a mail client, calendar, calculator, photos, movies and TV, camera, music, news, weather, sports etc.  While some folks might like some of them I have my own preferences for other programs and the Modern/Metro apps are completely superfluous and certainly take up a big chunk of system resources, as well as screen real estate.  They and many more are accessible through the Microsoft Store (another app). You can't uninstall them like you would a regular program but you can get rid of them by running Windows Powershell (have to 'run as an administrator) from the search tool.  See http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-remove-all-bundled-apps-in-windows-10/ for how to do this.  It is really straightforward and the performance gain is very significant once you have got rid of them.  You can put them, including the uninstalled Store, back later if you really want them.  For anyone with a prior version of Windows I would recommend upgrading to W10.  It is great.