Painfree upgrades please

Get someone else to do it
We have a good friend called Bob, who comes round to 'help' whenever we format or upgrade our pooter, and usually ends up doing most of it Bless him
We buy all our bits from CCL Online, who are based quite close to us. They are brilliant, do build-yourself, or ready built machines, and seem to have the answer to everything - you ring em up, tell em exactly what you want the machine to do & your budget and they tell you what to have to do the job. I would definately recommend them.

Buy a Mac. Plug it in. It works.

Download Neo office or open office, for Microsoft stuff.

Job done.

The best thing I ever did was get a Mac and not another PC. Saying that, I do own 3 other laptops - 2 of which run microsoft, 1 uses linux and open office. Mac wins handsdown every time.

I don't see how buying a Mac will help. Totally unfamiliar to a PC user [I'm not saying hard to use, I'm saying unfamiliar], and going to create all sorts of subtle compatibility problems with the existing data.

Moving to a new PC Operating system version is going to have its own learning curve of course ...

I think the biggest problem with upgrading is all the stuff that is installed on your PC that you have forgotten you use!

When I get a new PC I leave the old one around until I have not needed it for a good 3 months. I connect it, via the network, for remote access - so I can open a window on my new PC which is actually the screen of my old PC, so I can run any program on that if I find something that isn't on my new PC.

You also want to get all your data, preferences, cookies, favourites, plug-ins transferred to your new PC, and also all the applications that you use. Probably worth getting them upgraded at the same time as the old versions will increasingly be incompatibility with the rest of the world (not something I agree with, but that's what marketing folk force in order to generate sales).

I don't know if there is anything that will track what applications you use / open, but if there i running that for a few weeks would help produce a list for the installer-guy to work towards.

I would recommend getting two screens with your new PC, if you have enough desk space, or a wide-screen with the largest resolution you can afford.

And something to back up all your precious pictures and documents etc. Possibly consider an on-line backup agency?

No, really - get a Mac : I've been using them for 10+ years and they're just so intuitive, stable and (so far) virus and upgrade free. I have quite a short attention span, and anytime I have to use a PC, or see anyone else using one, they seem utterly hopeless, slow, demanding, confusing, security paranoid, annoying etc etc.
I bought a second hand Mac laptop for £50 recently too, so the expense argument doesn't hold.
Microsoft was invented to keep PC engineers in permanent employment ; )

"I've been using them for 10+ years and they're just so intuitive"

So is a PC after you've used it for 10 years!

I've nothing against Macs, but I do think the community is polarised into Mac users and PC users. For anyone planning to change then try the other one for a while and see how you get on. If it works better for you Great!

But I think because I use X that I should tell everyone else that they should change to using X too is naive. What works for one doesn't by any means mean that it will work for all.

Hi
From experience - I have used PCs forever - since before Word and Excel were available [I used to program soil engineering calculations using lotus 123]; and the MAC is just so easy to use - the unfamiliarity lasts about 10 minutes.

The great thing is they work from the moment you plug them in - no fussy software as the only thing you need that's not included is open office. Make a cuppa and download it and bob's your uncle.

As Piskie want an easy solution - it depends on what software she is wanting to use of course...but I'd personally now look for MAC solutions rather than continue with PC 'control alt delete' hell.

I still use both machines - mainly because the whole household here are always wanting to use the Mac...but the only thing I will now use the PC over the Mac for is particularly complicated excel functions. In fact that's the only reason I keep it going.

If you are using XP use the "Files and Setting tranfer Wizard" in System tools.

Have to agree with zazen999 since I switched to a mac i don't have to do anything like that ever really. plus i don't even have to use anti spyware or virus stuff.

Just whack more memory in your old one. Eighteen months is quite a short upgrade cycle. It depends what you're doing but if its getting slow its an instant fix with no hassle. Don't fortget the general tidy up untilities such as defrag either. Also don't forget to backup all your data to CD/DVD and portable hardisk. You never know when that might fail and its the cheapest way to recover your data.

Yeah, and we all know that Betamax was better than VHS!