First Desktop computer home build help required?

[Hightower]

The trouble is that I do have old files that would need transferring and opening and with my children using memory sticks to upload work for school. If this Open Office was compatible with the files then this would seem to be the Ideal solution. The other reason that I want works is that I work my emails inside the Outlook express environment and again have an address book and emails that would need transferring over.

I've seen cheap licenced copy's of office 2009 on ebay for a fiver. Is this for real? People seem to be happy with the copies they're getting. Outdated stock? Pirate copy's ?

Anyone help here?

[willk]

I made pretty much the same move as you. I use OpenOffice and Mozilla Thunderbird, both freeware.

OpenOffice can be set up to create/open/save/close MS Office/Works files by default - it's very flexible. The latest version handles .docx files too. Try it out, but take a moment to set up the default settings. I run it alongside Works and Office and no problems.

T-bird can import your old emails and address book from Outlook Exp.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Hightower

The trouble is that I do have old files that would need transferring and opening and with my children using memory sticks to upload work for school. If this Open Office was compatible with the files then this would seem to be the Ideal solution. The other reason that I want works is that I work my emails inside the Outlook express environment and again have an address book and emails that would need transferring over.

I've seen cheap licenced copy's of office 2009 on ebay for a fiver. Is this for real? People seem to be happy with the copies they're getting. Outdated stock? Pirate copy's ?

Anyone help here?

Andy, Open office will open and "save as" most word, excel, powerpoint etc files (in fact I've not found any that won't open in the latest version - and 95% of files will be displayed perfectly - the odd fancy formatted document is occasionally slightly altered - but nothing significant. I've never tried opening "MS Works" files but there are some "tricks" on the web for doing it occassionally and a few OO variants which will open them natively: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/...iles_(.wps)%3F


How does using Outlook Express drive you down the Works road? You could keep using OE with Open Office although I'd be surprised if you'd have much difficulty moving them into Thunderbird if you really wanted to ditch MS products, but I've never tried.

[willk]

Originally Posted by Polwart

How does using Outlook Express drive you down the Works road?

LOL - No Outlook Express bundled with 7. Caught me too!

[Poly]

Originally Posted by willk

LOL - No Outlook Express bundled with 7. Caught me too!

thunderbird then - I'm sure the migration will be pretty straight forward.

[chris123]

Originally Posted by Hightower

The trouble is that I do have old files that would need transferring and opening and with my children using memory sticks to upload work for school. If this Open Office was compatible with the files then this would seem to be the Ideal solution. The other reason that I want works is that I work my emails inside the Outlook express environment and again have an address book and emails that would need transferring over.

I've seen cheap licenced copy's of office 2009 on ebay for a fiver. Is this for real? People seem to be happy with the copies they're getting. Outdated stock? Pirate copy's ?

I tested OpenOffice about 18 months ago and whilst it was fine in isolation, I had issues with compatibility with Microsoft Office.

Nothing major, just silly little things like messing up indents, justification bulleted lists. OK as a one off, but I needed to switch back and forwards regularly which ruled it out for me. It may have improved since then, nothing to lose by giving it a try.

That said, you can get a legit copy of Microsoft Office for under £40:

http://www.software4students.co.uk/M...FQIB4wod2VOKaw

and just to confirm they are legit:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/educatio...s/default.aspx

which if your kids are submitting homework that has to be spot on would be money well spent (IMHO).

Agree with the comments about Thunderbird - the latest version 3.1.2 is better than ever, and I am a big fan of the associated browser Firefox.

As for the £5 Ebay Office discs? Yes, they are most likely pirate discs, usually corporate licences that don't need to be validated online. You pays your money and takes your choice, but best avoided in my opinion.

Cheers

Chris

[willk]

I think you were using OpenOffice 2.x.x

3.x is a different story. srsly

[Hightower]

Well, I've downloaded Thunderbird and spent all evening trying every which way to connect to my email server.

Out going is OK as it's though Talk Talk, but the incoming is from Orange. So it seems that this Thunderbird won't work though the Orangehome server. All I'm getting is Invalid login/password messages

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Hightower

Well, I've downloaded Thunderbird and spent all evening trying every which way to connect to my email server.

Out going is OK as it's though Talk Talk, but the incoming is from Orange. So it seems that this Thunderbird won't work though the Orangehome server. All I'm getting is Invalid login/password messages

Andy, it is extremly unlikely that Thunderbird just won't / can't work with orange. Are you manually configuring it or using a wizard?

If a wizard - try doing it manually with these settings:

Your Orange dial-up and broadband email settings are:

username

Your email username takes one of the following formats:

yourname.orangehome.co.uk
yourname.wanadoo.co.uk
yourname.freeserve.co.uk
yourname.fsnet.co.uk
yourname.fsbusiness.co.uk
yourname.fslife.co.uk
yourname.fsworld.co.uk

Broadband customers please note: @fs should not be used in email, or webspace settings

email address

Your email address is your choice of name, followed by the '@' sign and your email username, eg mail@yourname.orangehome.co.uk

You can use as many email addresses before the '@' sign as you like, eg bob@yourname.orangehome.co.uk, elisabeth@yourname.orangehome.co.uk

server settings
email server: POP3 
pop server (incoming): pop.orangehome.co.uk 
smtp server (outgoing): smtp.orangehome.co.uk 
secure password authentication: no