Thursday 6 August 2015

I smell a rat

The Luddite (that's me) has finally come to terms with the idea of upgrading my operating system. If it were up to me I'd still be using Windows for Workgroups, and if you know what that is, it means I'm not really the oldest person in the world.

   Regardless, after denying the existence of XP for over two years  I finally moved on from windows Millenium, which I thought was the best M/Soft had ever come up with. After a while I began to enjoy it. So much in fact that I ignored Vista, which even I could see was rubbish, and just as I prepared to take a jack hammer to the old wallet for Win 7, they came along with Windows 8. Where do they get these ideas from? A half-hearted attempt to rescue themselves from the attack of Android upstarts.

    But now, just as I'm preparing to dig up my wallet from the back garden I discover that Word 2007 is incompatible with Win 10. I smell the suspiciously rank aroma of a scam. Surely a docx is a docx is a docx? But now they want us to shell out another £80 for Word 10. 

    Not this boy. I've been practising with Libre Office for months and quite like it. I've also been playing with Softmaker for just as long. Both of them have good points. Libre Office is stronger, Softmaker is easier. But both are free. If they'd even consider handing out a compatibility patch for those of us who actually bought a legal version of Word I'd be happy. But they haven't, and apparently won't. So finally, after religiously buying Word since Ver 2, I'm saying goodbye. Its the free ones from now on.


    If anyone has news that I'm wrong I'll bow low and apologise. 

4 comments:

  1. That's why I've resisted the free upgrade from 7 to 10. I like my programs and have no desire to buy new ones! That said, does 10 have some way to run as an older system? 7 has this ability...

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  2. I discovered yesterday that 10 is not an evolution of 8 but an in-between OS using the best bits of 7 & 8. And whilst in my local computer shop I played with a new version which the salesman had changed to look and run just like XP with no downloads needed. That's enough for me. I haven't looked yet but I'll bet it has a Compatibility Mode just like all the other versions before it. direct x 10 is the same so it shouldn't interfere with any graphic. It just annoys me that we have to buy a new Word package. I've discounted Libre Office and Open Office and now plan to use either WPS, which has just gone monthly fee (which I hate) or Softmaker which is about £45 over here.

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  3. So like Windows, but I love my Windows 10 and my Word 8. I've heard Libre Office is great.

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  4. It is and it handles Docx files, but seems to mess about with the formatting of a Word file. I'm going to play a little bit longer with WPS and Softmaker before I make up my mind.

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