Oh, the Joys of a New Computer
Two warnings.
First, if you're not even remotely interested in computers and you find your eyes glazing over after a sentence or two, that's OK - no offense taken.
Second and more important: before I even begin this tale, do NOT tell me all our problems would be solved by switching to a Mac.
Seriously. Don't go there.
Anyway, Kate’s old desktop was on its last legs - we really had no idea how far gone it was until we actually replaced it with a new desktop-replacement laptop. At least the replacement came with Windows 7 so we dodged the Vista bullet. My notebook and our netbook use XP.
I had set up the old desktop in the kitchen to help with the transition, which was aided significantly by a 500 GB portable hard drive. I got what I wanted from it so I took it down. Then I thought I needed something else so I set it up on the living room floor.
Turned it on. Nothing.
OK, maybe the old monitor had decided it was a good day to die. It had been stored rather haphazardly in our very damp basement since replacing it with a flat screen last month. So I hooked up the new monitor.
Still nothing.
So we called our computer guy and arranged to drop off the CPU with him. Turns out the problem was an add-on video card that had shot craps so he just took it out and activated the built-in one. But in the meantime I had left both the CPU and the monitor plugged in.
Later, I heard a very loud “SNAP!” I figured the cats had done something - they’re always knocking things over.
Nope. The old monitor had smoked itself. It was, in fact, a good day to die.
Hopefully that’s it for the hardware woes. We get the old CPU back tomorrow. There are still some cool fonts and some odds and ends to be retrieved from it, but they'll keep.
Kate has used Outlook Express for a decade or so, but unfortunately, OE has been replaced in Windows 7 with Windows Live Mail. Since I’ve used Outlook for almost as long, I figured it'd be easier to use that because that meant only one of us had to learn a new program and it's similar so her learning curve wouldn't be too steep. But for some reason the Outlook import feature doesn’t work in Windows 7 - no idea why, it just says it can’t open the folder where I put the OE mailbox and address book.
I was able to transfer Kate's OE to my laptop, but since I'm using Outlook, exporting her files would put them in MY Outlook. Not good. I thought I'd upload Outlook to the old CPU when we got it back (this was the "something else" I thought I needed), but then I remembered the netbook. It has both OE and Outlook on it and it had not been set up for either of our e-mail accounts. So I transferred all of Kate’s e-mail, folders and address book to it, then I was able to export everything to Outlook. HOME FREE!
Not quite.
I was able to transfer her e-mail folders to the new laptop without too much difficulty. And I was able to transfer her Contacts list easily. The problem was she has quite a few distribution lists (DLs) that she depends on to publish her monthly Art Tips, make press announcements, contact her students and the like. The headers for the DLs were all there, but when I opened them in Outlook they were empty.
Fortunately, she had saved her Art Tip DLs to draft e-mails - these were the most critical because she has well over a thousand people who have signed up to receive them. Our ISP only allows mail to 150 addresses at a time so she has EIGHT DLs for that alone! So I had her send those e-mails to me and with a little tweaking I was able to recreate them. Then I went back to OE on the netbook and transferred the remaining DLs to a Word document. I was able to copy and paste those into the old headers, so now she’s as good to go as she’s gonna get.
Except that she is totally dependent on WordPerfect X3, and Windows 7 and AVG don’t seem to want to play well with it, even when you run it in XP compatible mode. So we may have to upgrade to X4 - at least Corel claims that it’s Windows 7 compatible.
Squee.
First, if you're not even remotely interested in computers and you find your eyes glazing over after a sentence or two, that's OK - no offense taken.
Second and more important: before I even begin this tale, do NOT tell me all our problems would be solved by switching to a Mac.
Seriously. Don't go there.
Anyway, Kate’s old desktop was on its last legs - we really had no idea how far gone it was until we actually replaced it with a new desktop-replacement laptop. At least the replacement came with Windows 7 so we dodged the Vista bullet. My notebook and our netbook use XP.
I had set up the old desktop in the kitchen to help with the transition, which was aided significantly by a 500 GB portable hard drive. I got what I wanted from it so I took it down. Then I thought I needed something else so I set it up on the living room floor.
Turned it on. Nothing.
OK, maybe the old monitor had decided it was a good day to die. It had been stored rather haphazardly in our very damp basement since replacing it with a flat screen last month. So I hooked up the new monitor.
Still nothing.
So we called our computer guy and arranged to drop off the CPU with him. Turns out the problem was an add-on video card that had shot craps so he just took it out and activated the built-in one. But in the meantime I had left both the CPU and the monitor plugged in.
Later, I heard a very loud “SNAP!” I figured the cats had done something - they’re always knocking things over.
Nope. The old monitor had smoked itself. It was, in fact, a good day to die.
Hopefully that’s it for the hardware woes. We get the old CPU back tomorrow. There are still some cool fonts and some odds and ends to be retrieved from it, but they'll keep.
Kate has used Outlook Express for a decade or so, but unfortunately, OE has been replaced in Windows 7 with Windows Live Mail. Since I’ve used Outlook for almost as long, I figured it'd be easier to use that because that meant only one of us had to learn a new program and it's similar so her learning curve wouldn't be too steep. But for some reason the Outlook import feature doesn’t work in Windows 7 - no idea why, it just says it can’t open the folder where I put the OE mailbox and address book.
I was able to transfer Kate's OE to my laptop, but since I'm using Outlook, exporting her files would put them in MY Outlook. Not good. I thought I'd upload Outlook to the old CPU when we got it back (this was the "something else" I thought I needed), but then I remembered the netbook. It has both OE and Outlook on it and it had not been set up for either of our e-mail accounts. So I transferred all of Kate’s e-mail, folders and address book to it, then I was able to export everything to Outlook. HOME FREE!
Not quite.
I was able to transfer her e-mail folders to the new laptop without too much difficulty. And I was able to transfer her Contacts list easily. The problem was she has quite a few distribution lists (DLs) that she depends on to publish her monthly Art Tips, make press announcements, contact her students and the like. The headers for the DLs were all there, but when I opened them in Outlook they were empty.
Fortunately, she had saved her Art Tip DLs to draft e-mails - these were the most critical because she has well over a thousand people who have signed up to receive them. Our ISP only allows mail to 150 addresses at a time so she has EIGHT DLs for that alone! So I had her send those e-mails to me and with a little tweaking I was able to recreate them. Then I went back to OE on the netbook and transferred the remaining DLs to a Word document. I was able to copy and paste those into the old headers, so now she’s as good to go as she’s gonna get.
Except that she is totally dependent on WordPerfect X3, and Windows 7 and AVG don’t seem to want to play well with it, even when you run it in XP compatible mode. So we may have to upgrade to X4 - at least Corel claims that it’s Windows 7 compatible.
Squee.