New desktop computer?

[covetsthesun]

Disclosure: I am not an early adopter of technology. DH and I have OLD HP Pavilion desktop computers running Vista Home Premium. His is 2009 and mine is 2008. He uses Mozilla's browser and I use Google.

Both computers are still working...a little slow at times, and more and more websites don't support Vista. Recently, we had a GEEK from Best Buy out to clean things up a bit and he told us that we were endangering our private info by not upgrading the newest machines and OS's etc. Said that everytime we logged in to anything we might as well be handing our passwords etc to our neighbors. We are hardwired not WiFi by the way.

The GEEK wanted us to let him find a system for us and he'd bring it out and do the set up...made a point to say he didn't get commission etc.

Are we really in Fire Alarm peril here? I had planned to get new systems later this year... just not right now.

So... Tech ObiWan's do I really need to upgrade systems right now??

thanks
cts

[bighatnohorse]

I had to revert from Win 10 back to Win 7 pro. One of my needed programs had problems under Win 10. No work around. Win 10 allows you 10 days to revert back to your previous operating system.

[bighatnohorse]

strollin wrote:

bighatnohorse wrote:
... I now wish that I had upgraded to Win 10 on the one machine that still uses Win 7 Pro. ...

There's nothing stopping you from upgrading that Win 7 Pro machine to Win 10 Pro. Download this from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Thanks for that. You're right. I did the upgrade to two machines.

[TNGW1500SE]

I bought a mini NUC for the RV. Takes very little space!! It has a I3 and 2 HDMI's. Runs windows 7. Boots really fast! I hooked it to two 32 inch TV's. One in bedroom and one in living area. Added and external USB harddrive and DVD drive. I use a wireless keyboard with built in touchpad. It has WiFi and connects to my home network. I leave it on when parked at the house and transfer videos to it over the network from the house. I run the TV's and PC off a battery backup / surge that's plugged into the inverter so it never shuts off. I run a hotspot to my phone when on the road. Also installed cable modem so it we stay more than a few days we just pay for high speed internet. The keyboard dongle is on the end of a USB extension in the A/C vent right in the middle of the RV. Keyboard works throughout the RV. Added USB hub to connect everything.

[covetsthesun]

Thanks for all the advice and information folks. I still haven't bought a computer...but I have much better ideas now. Currently thinking solid state desktop with i7. DH likes to tinker with photos and such. Will also get a backup external hard drive...although DH thinks thumb drives are sufficient.

I'm also considering a Mac tablet (facetime with gkids) and an Iphone.

thanks again!

[strollin]

bighatnohorse wrote:

strollin wrote:

bighatnohorse wrote:
... I now wish that I had upgraded to Win 10 on the one machine that still uses Win 7 Pro. ...

There's nothing stopping you from upgrading that Win 7 Pro machine to Win 10 Pro. Download this from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

That's a bit misleading. The free upgrade period has long past. The upgrade is available for purchase.
Budget doesn't "stop" me but it is a hurdle - for the money, I'd rather upgrade the machine should a bigger, faster better machine comes out.

Not true at all. The only thing about the free upgrade period that MS has ended is the big push on their part for people to upgrade. Download the Media Creation Tool and try it if you don't believe me. No purchase necessary unless you are installing on a machine with no prior OS, or upgrading from an OS prior to Win 7.

[bighatnohorse]

strollin wrote:

bighatnohorse wrote:
... I now wish that I had upgraded to Win 10 on the one machine that still uses Win 7 Pro. ...

There's nothing stopping you from upgrading that Win 7 Pro machine to Win 10 Pro. Download this from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

That's a bit misleading. The free upgrade period has long past. The upgrade is available for purchase.
Budget doesn't "stop" me but it is a hurdle - for the money, I'd rather upgrade the machine should a bigger, faster better machine comes out.

[AsheGuy]

bighatnohorse wrote:
A secondary external backup hard drive is necessary - AND it's a good idea to disconnect the drive when not in use. A serious infection will search out all drives up to and including "cloud" backup platforms.

Except cloud services, at least Google Drive and Dropbox that I use, maintain backup versions of all of your files. So any corruption that might occur by a "serious infection" that might have access to your cloud-based documents would be limited.

Example of version history of one of my Google Drive documents, any one of which can be pulled up to replace a current version:


Google Photos (and again I suspect that other cloud based systems are similar) maintains a copy of all deleted photos for 60 days.

I just bought a larger HD (4TB) to backup my cloud based photo and document collections, but I think the probability that it will ever be needed is near zero.

[GoPackGo]

strollin wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
everything gets plugged into the USB hub. please explain the functional difference other than mega $$$. then one plugged into computer.
bumpy

Unless you have a USB connected monitor, you'll need to connect your external monitor to the laptop separately.

Unless you use an ethernet to USB adapter, you'll need to plug your ethernet cable in separately.

Same goes for every other peripheral. Speakers, mouse, keyboard all need to be USB.

Unless all of your peripherals are already USB connected, buying the adapters to connect them via USB will probably cost as much as it would cost to just get the USB dock in the first place.

You could use a USB hub to connect your external stuff to your laptop but it's definitely NOT functionally equivalent.

You stating they are is like someone claiming that a tent trailer is functionally equivalent to a travel trailer or 5th wheel. All get the job done but the last 2 of them do it better.

I'm not going to disagree with you regarding plugging in a monitor to a USB hub because I've never looked into doing that but . .

I have a USB hub connected to my laptop. I have the wireless mouse and keyboard's receiver permanently plugged into the hub. I also connect my phone to the hub because I use it as a hotspot (and it also gets charged at the same time). And I connect my printer and external hard drive to the hub as needed. Everything works perfectly and is 'functionally equivalent' with no switches to throw, etc. I just plug them in and use them. It is entirely seamless. All with only using one USB port on my laptop.

I admit to being a bit surprised that the laptop is able to see my phone as a continuous hotspot while also seeing my wireless mouse and keyboard continuously too - not to mention the other peripherals. But it does. I have not had one hiccup with this setup.

[strollin]

dup

[strollin]

bighatnohorse wrote:
... I now wish that I had upgraded to Win 10 on the one machine that still uses Win 7 Pro. ...

There's nothing stopping you from upgrading that Win 7 Pro machine to Win 10 Pro. Download this from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[bighatnohorse]

I like the desktop too - along with a decent surround system, sub-woofer and large screen monitor.

Windows 10 has much better software built-in for doing backups, including the operating system.
A machine with a solid state hard drive will boot up about 5x faster than a spinning disk. It's very desirable.

Most software does not fully use the i7 chip's hyperthreading structure. A few, such as Lightroom and Adobe's Photoshop might benefit. Having an i7 chip won't make any noticeable speed improvement unless your doing video editing or 3d rendering. For most purposes, an i5 chip is more than sufficient.
More about i5 vs i7

A secondary external backup hard drive is necessary - AND it's a good idea to disconnect the drive when not in use. A serious infection will search out all drives up to and including "cloud" backup platforms.

I found getting used to Windows 10 to be very frustrating at first. However, I now wish that I had upgraded to Win 10 on the one machine that still uses Win 7 Pro.

Living in a house really is much nicer than living in a cave. Upgrade your machine - you'll get used to it. 😉

[strollin]

Bumpyroad wrote:
everything gets plugged into the USB hub. please explain the functional difference other than mega $$$. then one plugged into computer.
bumpy

Unless you have a USB connected monitor, you'll need to connect your external monitor to the laptop separately.

Unless you use an ethernet to USB adapter, you'll need to plug your ethernet cable in separately.

Same goes for every other peripheral. Speakers, mouse, keyboard all need to be USB.

Unless all of your peripherals are already USB connected, buying the adapters to connect them via USB will probably cost as much as it would cost to just get the USB dock in the first place.

You could use a USB hub to connect your external stuff to your laptop but it's definitely NOT functionally equivalent.

You stating they are is like someone claiming that a tent trailer is functionally equivalent to a travel trailer or 5th wheel. All get the job done but the last 2 of them do it better.

[2112]

This message is coming to you via a Sony Vaio Win7 laptop with wireless keyboard, mouse and 20" HDMI monitor. It works just like a desktop. I'll never own another desktop. I can unplug and take this laptop with me.

I have a 15.4" Dell Win10 touchscreen laptop at work. It supports Creo, MS SDK and Labview as well as other demanding applications. It does everything my previous desktop did but I couldn't take my desktop to a meeting or out into the field. I can flip the screen and it acts as a touchscreen tablet. All this for $600. The only downside is it doesn't have an internal DVD/CD drive.

[joebedford]

I take my desktop when I snowbird. It's 8 years old and runs W10 very nicely. I can't imagine that it would cost you more than a couple hundred bux to get a good used system unit (not from Best Buy obviously).

I take a laptop for email and light browsing when on a short (< 2 week) trip. It's even older and running W10 nicely. It originally had Vista installed.

Are you sure your old machines can't be upgraded to W10?