Should I Be Concerned and Extra Cautious

baumgrenze said:

....[snip]....I also use 'legacy' software, e.g., Acrobat 8 Professional, Autosketch 9, and MS Office 2000 (MS Word 2000 & MS Excel (9.0.2720) for example, and have no desire to abandon them since I know how to use them efficiently. I've been reassured that Windows 10 is 'just like' Windows 7 (only better) so I trust that these programs will still run under the new OS.....[snip]....

thanks

baumgrenze

I worked on a system recently with O2000 - it was not good, and I recommend updating Office, or you may have problems.

baumgrenze said:

Thank you simrick,

Thanks for the reply. What was 'not good?' Was it vulnerability to attack or incompatibility with the OS?

It was problems with incompatibility; mostly how O2000 handles databases, is what I saw on this particular user's machine. I can't remember exactly, just put it in the back of my mind, that it's not a good idea to mix W10+O2000.

I have also found that old-format Office (Word) files have problems at the ends of the files. When you get them open, you can't modify the last line or two of the document without completely losing it. You have to re-type the last 2 lines, (above the original last two lines), and then delete the original last two lines, hopefully deleting the hidden formatting/coding that is causing the problem. It's something to do with end-of-document coding/formatting that has changed over the years, and is now incompatible. I discovered this with another user who was trying to update documents from Office XP files, if I remember correctly. So, I just know you're going to have problems of some sort or another.

baumgrenze said:

I have had LibreOffice on my machine for a few years and defaulted to it when MS Office could not open an 'old document.' In most cases, LibreOffice had no problems. It is 'just different enough' so that it has a significant learning curve. Learning about 'styles' is an example. It is probably no more daunting than the learning curve for a more recent MS Office. I certainly cannot get excited about the 'annual subscription' model version of MS Office my wife installed when the 'one year is free' version on her new Dell ran out.

LibreOffice is the best free, open-source office suite out there. It does not, however, auto-update. It only lets you know when an update is available. The current version is 5.1.4 for Windows. They also have a separate Help file download, so you can have that locally on the machine. LibreOffice is even able to open Publisher files now - something that no other free office suite can do.

baumgrenze said:

I am interested in a 'best place' to ask about a handful of features I use regularly in Word and Excel, i.e., 2 column pages with inserted images or spreadsheets with XY (scatter) charts viz. graphs. Any opinions on where to ask?

They have a user forum, and also IRC chat available to help you with questions. I have never used these, but I am sure any questions you have would be answered for you there.

baumgrenze said:

I had a frustrating experience with Adobe (registering Acrobat Professional 8.0) after I reinstalled it under Win7. I tried for a week and their servers were 'down' along with their entire line of products on the 'Cloud.' I do all of my work at my desktop. I can't find much to love about 'cloudy computing.'

If I remember correctly, Acrobat (7 and/or 8) was released to the public a few years ago, along with CS2, when Adobe retired their servers for those products. They don't "activate" any more at all; they just install and run. I am not a big fan of cloud computing either, and I certainly have no love for subscriptions as well, (although they do have their advantages), so I understand where you're coming from. :)

baumgrenze said:

At 76 years and counting I'd rather be using my software than learning how to use the 'new features.'

thanks,

baumgrenze

You're quite welcome! From the little bit I'd used of LibreOffice, it appeared to me that the interface was similar to the older versions of MSOffice, (i.e. O2003), and therefore easier for me to get around in, much more so than the new versions of MSOffice, which had quite a learning curve for me starting in O2007. I absolutely hated the ribbon feature.

Kudos to you for mastering the XP>W7 upgrade! Let's talk about the W10 upgrade upon which you're about to embark (see next post).

Cheers!

Here's what I would recommend as preparation for W10:

• Install Macrium Reflect Free and make an IMAGE of your entire hard drive as it is now, on an external drive. Make sure you have the verify option selected, so you know you have a good image. Be sure to create the rescue media it needs to boot your system from, should you have to restore the image. Then, make sure you can boot the system from the rescue media. Restoring an image will put everything back exactly as it was, including all programs and data.
• Go to your OEM's web support site and download all updates relevant to your system, especially BIOS and chipset updates.
• Use ShowkeyPlus to grab your current W7 keycode and write it down.
• Remove O2000 and install LibreOffice.
• Open an Admin Command Prompt and run sfc /scannow
• Install 7-zip
• Install Driver Magician Lite (free) - to back up your current drivers (in red) to an external hard drive.
• Scan your system with Malwarebytes Antimalware Free to verify it is clean.
• Update all software to current revs and delete any software that is not active/updated regularly or compatible with W10.
• Run Belarc Advisor and print out the system inventory it provides.
• Remove any 3rd-party anti-virus software, hard drive monitoring software, and Speccy if you have it.
• Run Ccleaner Free on the registry.
• Download the W10 ISO from MS TechBench
• Disconnect everything from the computer except, keyboard mouse and monitor. Do not have any drives besides the OS drive connected during the upgrade.

Read the tutorial and watch the video in the link below, and please ask any questions before you begin.

Watch the preparation part at the beginning of the video and then go to about 16:00 to view how to upgrade a W7 system using an ISO (this would be part #7 in the tutorial).
Windows 10 - Upgrade Installation - Windows 10 Forums

Doing this via an upgrade will retain your programs and data. Alternatively, you could clean install W10 on a bare hard drive, and use your W7 key to activate it before the 29th of this month. But, that would require installing all necessary programs and restoring your data - a lengthy process, but would yield a more stable system in the end.

Hope that helps!

simrick said:

Here's what I would recommend as preparation for W10:

• Install Macrium Reflect Free and make an IMAGE of your entire hard drive as it is now, on an external drive. Make sure you have the verify option selected, so you know you have a good image. Be sure to create the rescue media it needs to boot your system from, should you have to restore the image. Then, make sure you can boot the system from the rescue media. Restoring an image will put everything back exactly as it was, including all programs and data.
• Go to your OEM's web support site and download all updates relevant to your system, especially BIOS and chipset updates.
• Use ShowkeyPlus to grab your current W7 keycode and write it down.
• Remove O2000 and install LibreOffice.
• Open an Admin Command Prompt and run sfc /scannow
• Install 7-zip
• Install Driver Magician Lite (free) - to back up your current drivers (in red) to an external hard drive.
• Scan your system with Malwarebytes Antimalware Free to verify it is clean.
• Update all software to current revs and delete any software that is not active/updated regularly or compatible with W10.
• Run Belarc Advisor and print out the system inventory it provides.
• Remove any 3rd-party anti-virus software, hard drive monitoring software, and Speccy if you have it.
• Run Ccleaner Free on the registry.
• Download the W10 ISO from MS TechBench
• Disconnect everything from the computer except, keyboard mouse and monitor. Do not have any drives besides the OS drive connected during the upgrade.

Read the tutorial and watch the video in the link below, and please ask any questions before you begin.

Watch the preparation part at the beginning of the video and then go to about 16:00 to view how to upgrade a W7 system using an ISO (this would be part #7 in the tutorial).
Windows 10 - Upgrade Installation - Windows 10 Forums

Doing this via an upgrade will retain your programs and data. Alternatively, you could clean install W10 on a bare hard drive, and use your W7 key to activate it before the 29th of this month. But, that would require installing all necessary programs and restoring your data - a lengthy process, but would yield a more stable system in the end.

Hope that helps!

baumgrenze said:

Hello Cliff,

Do I understand correctly that the 5 "thumbs up smilies" are to tell me that you are in complete agreement with simrick or did a comment you intended to make somehow get lost in posting to the thread?

Besten Danke,

baumgrenze
Gen2 American - son of immigrant Sept 1929- father born in Stangenbach
(Die erste überlieferte Erwähnung einer Ortschaft im Gemeindegebiet ist 779 die Schenkung eines Besitzes in Stangenbach an das Kloster Fulda.) (Wikipedia – Die freie EnzyklopädieWüstenrot)

@baumgrenze (treeline in english)
Yes simrick covered all bases.
Specially her first point:

Install Macrium Reflect Free and make an IMAGE of your entire hard drive as it is now, on an external drive. Make sure you have the verify option selected, so you know you have a good image. Be sure to create the rescue media it needs to boot your system from, should you have to restore the image. Then, make sure you can boot the system from the rescue media. Restoring an image will put everything back exactly as it was, including all programs and data.

That way, if Win10 doesn't work out for you, or your software that you need has too many hiccups, instead of reinstalling everything, you just need to reimage and you're up and running again.

And, if after the 30 day revert period, you want to go back to your original OS, you can too.
The 30 days is NOT a set time limit, in the sense of permission/erlaubnis, it's just when Windows Automatic maintenance, runs Disk Cleanup as an Admin in the background, and cleans up the Windows.old folder and everything else to do with the upgrade, to give you back your disk space.
You can always go back, anytime, if you reimage or reinstall(too much work though:)).

I'm an american expat originally from New Hasmpshire, and have been living here since I was stationed here in Bamberg 27 years ago.:)

@baumgrenze @Cliff S
I've asked a moderator to move you to a new thread. Please see here:

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