Microsoft addiction.

[Davidc]

I've finally taken the plunge.

It's taken a long time, over 15 years.

No withdrawal symptoms yet, but there's a worry. A feeling that my world may suddenly end. Premonitions of catastrophe.

Yes - I did it. I double clicked on control panel, double clicked on add and remove programs, and I've removed the Microsoft Office suite - except for Access - from my computer.

I've been using Open Office for a while now, with all the Microsoft file extensions set to open up OO, but MS Office has still been there, ready in case I needed it. I put Thunderbird on and transferred my emails to it today.

I'm still a bit like the addict quitting Heroin, Tobacco or Cocaine though. Before I did the deed I did an incremental backup image of the C drive, so I can restore everything to 11 o'clock this morning if I feel the need to. I still have the original discs as well. I took another image when I'd done the deed though, with the Microsoft software gone, and that's a full one.

I'll know I'm really cured when I delete those old images and put the Office software discs in the shredder. Once I've recovered the data from a couple of databases I can delete Access as well.

One day I'll find a way to get rid of Windows too, to make my life and my computer totally Microsoft free, but I can't quite see how yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually.

Will I recover? Will the feelings of insecurity pass? Will having avoided spending horribly large sums updating from MS Office 2003 help?

Only time will tell - but if I never buy another piece of software from Microsoft, never help their balance sheet to show a profit again, then I'll be more than content with my hours efforts today.

 

[ASC1951]

I've finally taken the plunge.
....


Only time will tell - but if I never buy another piece of software from Microsoft, never help their balance sheet to show a profit again, then I'll be more than content with my hours efforts today.

I don't know why people get themselves so worked up about Microsoft. OK, there are niche products around which work better; and free products which work reasonably well if you don't mind spending hours adapting them or cobbling together. But I bought Office 2000 for about the cost of a tank of diesel and after 11 years of untroubled use I've upgraded to Office 2010 Pro for the price of another tank of diesel. That's not expensive, in my book.

And what's the problem with Microsoft making a profit? You wouldn't expect to get all your groceries for free, so what is different about software? Google isn't exactly run by Franciscan Monks, you know.

 

[Crackle]

Am going cautiously down the same route. Use Thunderbird now and am about to swop to Open Office but only on my laptop. I prefer Thunderbird, it lacks Notes but the rest is pretty good.

 

[LabRatt]

I'd go LibreOffice rather than OpenOffice - it's basically a new project that split from OpenOffice when Oracle took over, but its compatibility with MS documents is much better than OO.o. Thunderbird's brilliant though.

Unfortunately, if databases is your thing then there's not really an alternative to Access, at least if you build forms with it. You might not be ready yet, but if you think you'll want to lose Windows then there are loads of Linux distributions you can run from a CD or USB stick try them out without installing anything.

(oops, showed my colours there)

 

[JamesAC]

My windows o/s hard disk finally gave up the ghost a few weeks ago.

I'd been running dual-boot Window$/Linux for a couple of years, and mostly used Linux (Debian).

When the M$ disk crashed, I bought a new (vast capacity) disk from Amazon, and installed a different flavour of Linux (Ubuntu) on that. So I've still got a dual-boot machine, but two Linuxes.

I use Libre Office for my wp and ss applications, and the Ubuntu repository has 1000's of applications to suit (almost) all requirements: you just point and click, and it gets installed. I've got a rail simulation, a finance package and a genealogy program, for instance.

Reasons for not using M$ Windows

• it costs money (Linux is free)
• it's resource hungry (my linux uses .5 gig flat out)
• despite upgrade after upgrade, and security patch after security patch, Windows and IE are inherently insecure (Linux isn't)

As someone has suggested, try Linux from a Linux Live CD or usb key. It will run rather slowly, but it won't do anything to your hard disk (unless you choose to save files to it), and it will give you an idea of what Linux is all about.

(Ooh err .. I've just had a call, as I type this from a chap to tell me that my computer is infected with malware. When I told him I run Linux, he rang off. That's another reason for not running Windows!

 

[ian turner]

(Ooh err .. I've just had a call, as I type this from a chap to tell me that my computer is infected with malware. When I told him I run Linux, he rang off. That's another reason for not running Windows!

Don't need a different OS to recognise a telephone scammer.
Just caller ID to recognise a call that needs ignoring.

 

[JamesAC]

Don't need a different OS to recognise a telephone scammer.
Just caller ID to recognise a call that needs ignoring.

Lucky you.

My friend's 14 yo daughter had such a call, and being young and naive, fell hook line and sinker for the scam. Result: her parents had to re-format their hard disk, and re-install their (non-Linux) os.

 

[Jezston]

Open Office is bloody awful.

My old company had an IT department and management full of Linux geeks. I recall regularly having to save out Calc spreadsheets into .xls format for a colleague running Office 97 to 'fix' for me.

Yeah, it's free. But then so is dog dirt, and I wouldn't want any of that on my computer either.

 

[LabRatt]

Depends what you want to do with it. It's all Microsoft at work, with Office 2010 (ribbon bar - bleurgh), but I often have to use Calc instead of Excel 'cos of the things it does properly, like conditional formatting for example. Macros and scripts you'd need to relearn if you use them, though Novell/SuSE have their own version with full VBA compatibility.

 

[Jezston]

When I used calc, it would regularly get sums wrong. That makes it a major liability in my book and to be avoided at all cost.

 

[LabRatt]

I understand that used to happen when numbers were formatted as text and thus wrongly interpreted as text, though it never happened to me. Make sure it's adding up numbers and you're fine. But if you're happy with Excel then that's fine.

 

[Jezston]

It was more that when you'd have an equation in a cell, then you'd drag that cell down so it repeated the equation but mofiying the content to make up for the changes (eg. =A1+B1, drag down a cell it becomes =A2+B2 etc), and you then copy that over a very large area, SOME would go wrong for some inexplicable reason, and you had no way of knowing until you started to wonder why some of the results you were getting just didn't seem right for some reason.

 

[JamesAC]

Open Office is bloody awful.

My old company had an IT department and management full of Linux geeks. I recall regularly having to save out Calc spreadsheets into .xls format for a colleague running Office 97 to 'fix' for me.

Yeah, it's free. But then so is dog dirt, and I wouldn't want any of that on my computer either.

That's not my experience. I use the OO WP and SS applications extensively, and haven't found them wanting. I did once manage to rescue an MS .xls SS that excel wouldn't open, but OO Calc handled ok.

Yes, your VB macros won't port across to Calc, but then, MS excel won't cope with OO Calc macros, either.

Unlike dog dirt, MS Windows and its apps does cost money: quite a good reason for not having it on your computer. And you don't have to be a Linux geek: OO runs on Windows.

 

[Davidc]

I've been away so not on here, but have used calc and writer.

They're a bit slow opening MS xls and doc files, but once running seem to work faster and more smoothly than office 2003 or 2007. I've checked the files (new and modified) saved in MS xls and doc format are readable in the MS programs, which they are.

The database (base) application imports data OK from Access, but forms will need to be rewritten, so some work there or I can just go on using Access for existing ones.

LabRatt - I have a copy of LibreOffice but haven't tried it yet - I may do, but probably only if I have problems with OO.

ASC1951 asks why people object to Microsoft and their prices. I can't answer for anyone but me, but I've objected for years to the way they've worked to gain a virtual monopoly and then exploit it by charging excessive prices. If Microsoft charged a reasonable price for MS Office 2010 I'd have bought it. As it's more than the £25 I'd be prepared to pay they've lost the business.

 

[ASC1951]

If Microsoft charged a reasonable price for MS Office 2010 I'd have bought it. As it's more than the £25 I'd be prepared to pay they've lost the business.

There's only one person being unreasonable there, Davidc.