Having taken the plunge and bought myself a new laptop – a Dell Studio, 17″ screen, preloaded with Vista but with a free upgrade to the next Windows creature in October, should I so desire – I’m left with my old Gateway, which would, I’m sure, be wildly amazing to the computer scientists of yore, but by today’s standards… well, let’s just say, it’s more functional than your average abacus, but somehow taking 20 minutes to boot up and at least five minutes to close any given program creates an unreasonable level of frustration for me.
The new toy has been working just fine, and I’m left uncertain about why I’m supposed to hate Windows Vista. I see some of the differences, sure, but nothing that causes immediate bleeding from the ears. Likewise with Office 2007; I can’t figure out why I didn’t upgrade sooner.
Which leaves the old one, lonely and bereft. After about a week, I’m reasonably confident that I’ve copied over any files I want, thus making it comparatively safe to wipe it down to the factory settings and see if I can make it operational enough for the kids to use. The earlier they start, the stronger their porn-surfing skillz will be, no?
Now all I need to do is build up the courage to click on that button that says “Factory Restore – Destructive Mode.” Couldn’t they have named it something a little gentler? I understand, it means my files and photos and such will be done, but they couldn’t have gone with something like “Amnesia Mode,” or “We Really Mean It?”
Nope, Destructive Mode it is. Here’s hoping it contains its damage within the computer itself…
One More Thing 
If it ends up breaking it beyond repair, check out gazelle.com. They pay you for sending them old electronics, which they either sell used to vendors, part out, or recycle if it can’t be used. I sent them an old laptop and an old digital camera and got a pretty penny for some fun money.
By: allimonster on August 16, 2009
at 12:12 am
Because I use an Apple computer, I found Vista to be a clunky knock-off of Mac OS X. A lot of Windows users didn’t like it because so many features are so different than in previous versions of Windows. Other people didn’t like it (I think) because of security issues (that would have definitely been fixed by now). Windows 7 is supposed to run harder, better, faster, stronger.
Office 2007 is fantastic, though. Apparently Office 2010 is supposed to be even better.
By: Diane on August 16, 2009
at 1:29 pm
The problem I’ve had with Vista (on the brother-who-didn’t-listen-to-me-but-still-used-me-for-tech-support’s computer) was that it didn’t play well with any other programs that didn’t come pre-loaded. Or hardware! I finally had to keep telling him if he wanted anything done, it was going to be done on my ancient machine because every time I tried doing it on his….we crashed.
By: Dot on August 16, 2009
at 6:37 pm