Hi Pat,
You may be interested in an update to this saga! As you know I converted to Win7 from Vista as it got itself in a knot that no one could untie! Well I have had Win7 reinstalled twice since then!
After a couple of months it suddenly decided that it was no longer a genuine copy of Win7. After 2 hours on the phone to Microsoft trying to work around it, they gave up and talked me through re-installing it. I was then able to register it for the second time. OK for a month or so, then suddenly "Windows explorer has stopped working" was all I could get out of it regardless of what I tried. Even in safe mode nothing could be done - same message for every option. Microsoft wanted $80 to answer the question, so I took it back to the computer shop instead. They could not do anything with it either, so the hard disk has been wiped again and OS reinstalled a second time!! Hopefully I will get it back today - then the arduous job of reinstalling all the other software again and re-doing the customisations - YUK!!
Admittedly the last incident was my fault (or was it?), as I installed an old USB Bluetooth device that apparently had XP drivers. They apparently totally corrupted the operating system. I say it was my fault, but surely they could have programmed Win7 to recognise XP drivers or at least reject the software! Anyway I will reluctantly accept the blame (and the bill - probably much more than $80 - but then would MS have solved it over the phone anyway!). I will be much more cautious about installing old programs in future - can't afford a third re-install!!! If that happens I will give up on computers and retire properly!
EDIT - A few hours later: Well I did not get the laptop back and won't get it back - they had a break-in and my laptop was stollen, along with all their new ones! Thankfully they had backed up everything the night before and it had been totally wiped ready for the reload, so no personal data was on it. The other bit of good news is that they where fully insured, so I will get back what I paid 12 moths ago and better spec laptops are now available for nearly half what I originally paid, so I should be able to get a lot better one! Any suggestions as to what is best for TFP? Unfortunately more delays though waiting for the insurance, buying a new laptop and putting up with the old desktop in the interim.
Allan
