Computer???

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

When things go bad they go bad. Have a computer ??? I am running an old outdated system on my computer Windows XP64. It is no longer supported. It is starting to do wonky things. So I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 10. If i understand that is the latest. I hear some bad things about it but would this be the system to go to?? How hard is it to do this?? What needs to be done?? Will I lose everything that is on my computer now like all the programs that I have such as Photo software as Picture it microsoft word and things like this?? Will I lose all my favorites bookmarked and all icons on my desktop?? I am using Chrome if that matters. 

I know nothing about computers so if something goes wrong I have no idea what to do next. If I were to have this done in a shop about what would it cost?? Is there a down side to doing this?? I am afraid when I get a new printer that my old system will not recognize the drivers and I will have problems installing. 

Any thoughts??? Thanks

[WayneMahler]

John

I looked into upgrading my old laptop to windows 10. Found out that certain drivers were not available so I just left it die. Newer computers are pretty inexpensive and can be found for a low price. You import some of the information from one to another but the 2 systems will not directly talk to each other. Then you have to sort it all out too. There are programs out the to assist with this. Sorry I can't help much but wanted to share my experience and what I learned when I went to do this. Maybe someone with a lot more computer savvy can help much better. Best of luck.

[meflick]

Hi John and I hate to be a bearer of bad news but if our old computer has started doing "wonky things" and you are looking to upgrade, you are probably going to have to upgrade to a new computer.  I don't believe that your old computer would be able to handle and use Windows 10 given the age of the computer.  Plus, you probably would not want it to even if it could because it would be very old and very very slow.  I believe that you may have to bite the bullet and buy a new computer. You will have to do some research to determine if all the programs that you have on your old computer will work with Windows 10 or not.  Unfortunately, it is possible that you will find that some won't.  There are ways to take things from one one computer to another including bookmarks from your browser of choice.  There are programs that you can get to do so as Wayne noted or you could have it done by a service but it will cost you some $ - probably more than the computer program to do it will run.  If you are not comfortable trying to do it, it may be worth hiring a service tech to help you with it.  I understand your pain,  I hate to update and change computers.  Sometimes You lose things like old programs because they are no longer updated to work with new OS unfortunately.

[Phantom Scroller]

I upgraded to windows 10 and after the third updates my computer jammed up completely couldn't boot it up and had no alternative but to go back to original so no windows 10 now and as it was a free upgrade I have no idea how to get it back without buying a new upgrade I don't think so. Roly 

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

1 hour ago, meflick said:

Hi John and I hate to be a bearer of bad news but if our old computer has started doing "wonky things" and you are looking to upgrade, you are probably going to have to upgrade to a new computer.  I don't believe that your old computer would be able to handle and use Windows 10 given the age of the computer.  Plus, you probably would not want it to even if it could because it would be very old and very very slow.  I believe that you may have to bite the bullet and buy a new computer. You will have to do some research to determine if all the programs that you have on your old computer will work with Windows 10 or not.  Unfortunately, it is possible that you will find that some won't.  There are ways to take things from one one computer to another including bookmarks from your browser of choice.  There are programs that you can get to do so as Wayne noted or you could have it done by a service but it will cost you some $ - probably more than the computer program to do it will run.  If you are not comfortable trying to do it, it may be worth hiring a service tech to help you with it.  I understand your pain,  I hate to update and change computers.  Sometimes You lose things like old programs because they are no longer updated to work with new OS unfortunately.

Talked to the Geeks at Best Buy today and they said exactly what you did so my first thing is buy a new printer and see if I can install and if so the computer thing gets put on hold for now. I still am able to come here and enjoy the forum. 

[Sycamore67]

Just a suggestion to you and everyone else.......BACK IT UP

A computer or hard drive can go anytime.  It seems that hard drives either go pretty early or after 3-5 years.  I back up my files about every 3-4 months with an external hard drive by just copying all the files. I am a bit of a nut so I have a couple of external drives and alternate which one I use.

It is so sad to hear someone lose all there pictures and such. My daughter lost her hardcore a couple of years ago and paid a company several hundred dollars to get the files back. 

Below is a screen shot of an article concerning hard drive failure rates.

Edited January 2, 2018 by Sycamore67

[kmmcrafts]

I also suggest a new computer.. something I'm in the process of doing myself.. I just ordered a new tower case, mother board, hard drive, power supply, ram, optic drive, graphics card processor.. etc etc.. Building my own from scratch as it's much cheaper than buying a ready made PC.. that they load with a bunch of garbage I don't need / want..  My new computer is supposed to arrive tomorrow.. then I'll have to put it together and load my programs etc..

As for windows 10.. I like it.. but most all my drawing software clashed with it and crashed my system a couple years ago.. loosing all my files and data I started over.. with windows 10 again.. but in doing so.. I had to update my printer because no drivers available for my old printer..

I suggest keeping everything as modern as you can and if you can't.. at a minimum at least back up your important files pictures etc to a external drive... Oh.. BTW... don't trust those too much either.. I had one of those crash before.. and I lost all my older patterns I picked up from the old days of the MSN groups etc.. so.. with that said.. maybe a little over board but.. I back up to a external+burn a disc+ a zip drive.. I had all kinds of pictures on that old drive that I took off my PC.. so when that was the only thing I had and it crashed.. lost everything..

I plan to take the crashed drive apart and take the disc out to install into another  ( same ) hard drive and see if I can get my files back..

  

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Kevin that is not true at all. They sell the basic computesr with just windows 10 and you add any programs you want. Just talked to the Geeks and for $450 I can get a decent computer with 8gs of ram . The computer I have now was built by a friend and when done it cost as much if I were to buy off the shelf. He did upgrade a few things but not the grafics card or memory. I had to have him add more memory. Today computers are really cheap.  The money is in the software. 

 

I have my hard drive backed up and every so often and in fact need to do this first of the year just plug in and it adds atomatically any new items. Works great. 

Edited January 3, 2018 by JTTHECLOCKMAN

[amazingkevin]

Not good news to hear.My computer guy was dead set against up grading to 10,And now its mandatory???

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

3 minutes ago, amazingkevin said:

Not good news to hear.My computer guy was dead set against up grading to 10,And now its mandatory???

Your basically being forced to do so and for different reasons. Each windows 10 has spyware in it that you can not disable unless you get the pro version so maybe something to look at for those looking. Every keystroke and web site is monitored. Supposedly according to the Geeks this is the last system they will introduce. They will continue to tweak it with upgrades but no windows 11 coming. But this stuff is nothing new. Every television is equiped to listen in and monitor your watch patterns. Each phone today ( not called smart phone for nothing) is being monitored so you are known where you have been and where you are. Calls are monitored. Cameras everywhere you go. If you think this is science fiction think again. It is the world we live in and the dependency on electronics for everything. Tracking chips are everywhere. 

[kmmcrafts]

8 hours ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

Your basically being forced to do so and for different reasons. Each windows 10 has spyware in it that you can not disable unless you get the pro version so maybe something to look at for those looking. Every keystroke and web site is monitored. Supposedly according to the Geeks this is the last system they will introduce. They will continue to tweak it with upgrades but no windows 11 coming. But this stuff is nothing new. Every television is equiped to listen in and monitor your watch patterns. Each phone today ( not called smart phone for nothing) is being monitored so you are known where you have been and where you are. Calls are monitored. Cameras everywhere you go. If you think this is science fiction think again. It is the world we live in and the dependency on electronics for everything. Tracking chips are everywhere. 

Yeah, they can if they wanted check you out through your own laptop, cell phone, cams.. etc.. really scary.. I know a lot of people that put tape over the camera lens on the laptops etc..    

[kmmcrafts]

8 hours ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

Kevin that is not true at all. They sell the basic computesr with just windows 10 and you add any programs you want. Just talked to the Geeks and for $450 I can get a decent computer with 8gs of ram . The computer I have now was built by a friend and when done it cost as much if I were to buy off the shelf. He did upgrade a few things but not the grafics card or memory. I had to have him add more memory. Today computers are really cheap.  The money is in the software. 

 

I have my hard drive backed up and every so often and in fact need to do this first of the year just plug in and it adds atomatically any new items. Works great. 

Very well could be.. doesn't matter too much I suppose.. as I'll have a lot of fun with my son whom wants to be one of those computer nerds LOL.. To be honest I don't even like desktops.. only went this route to give him some experience and confidence.. he has built a couple somewhat higher end gaming computers and has been repairing some for the school teachers etc.. and now they have been having him do some things with the schools computer system.. Not sure where the computer careers future really is.. but any kind of experience with electronics is probably going to be good for his interest.. I know a guy that makes a pretty darn good living just repairing cell phones.. mostly just cracked screens but does a little of everything..  

We've got a laptop now that we are repairing the power port on as a wire broke off and won't charge the battery.. powers on plugged in but only in low power mode.. power port is $4.99 ... repair geeks wanted $80 to repair it.. took all of about 8 minutes to pull it out... now waiting on the shipment of the power port so we can put it back together.. LOL

Really not sure who is teaching who.. I used to be the one doing the teaching of this stuff.. but I think he is now teaching me, LOL          

[OCtoolguy]

21 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

I also suggest a new computer.. something I'm in the process of doing myself.. I just ordered a new tower case, mother board, hard drive, power supply, ram, optic drive, graphics card processor.. etc etc.. Building my own from scratch as it's much cheaper than buying a ready made PC.. that they load with a bunch of garbage I don't need / want..  My new computer is supposed to arrive tomorrow.. then I'll have to put it together and load my programs etc..

As for windows 10.. I like it.. but most all my drawing software clashed with it and crashed my system a couple years ago.. loosing all my files and data I started over.. with windows 10 again.. but in doing so.. I had to update my printer because no drivers available for my old printer..

I suggest keeping everything as modern as you can and if you can't.. at a minimum at least back up your important files pictures etc to a external drive... Oh.. BTW... don't trust those too much either.. I had one of those crash before.. and I lost all my older patterns I picked up from the old days of the MSN groups etc.. so.. with that said.. maybe a little over board but.. I back up to a external+burn a disc+ a zip drive.. I had all kinds of pictures on that old drive that I took off my PC.. so when that was the only thing I had and it crashed.. lost everything..

I plan to take the crashed drive apart and take the disc out to install into another  ( same ) hard drive and see if I can get my files back..

  

When my neighbor upgraded her computer she gave me her old one minus the hard drive. I ordered two matching 1 TB drives from Amazon. I have all the programs on one drive and I store all my pictures, music and files on the 2nd drive. I have tons of free space. I'm running 16 gig of ram and that's the key to a speedy computer. The processor in mine is an Intel i-3 so it's not the fastest but, with the ultra fast internet we have here and this computer, I have never had a problem with speed or anything else. When I switched from Windows 7 I had no trouble with drivers of any kinds. On this new machine,  (I've had it running for about a year) from day one, I installed Windows 10 and never looked back. I have it networked to my i-7 laptop, my wife's Win 7 laptop and my Epson WP-3640 printer. Once you get everything clicking, it's easy to keep it all up and running well. I'm sort of a computer junkie but anybody can do it with youtube and just asking questions of those around you. Maybe Travis needs to add one more subject here for all the computer related questions.

Ray