Laptop only comes with o/s, adding sofeware?

swizzle_2

Hi

I have been looking at a Laptop at Laptops direct a Hewlett Packard 510 £315 windows Xp which looks like it will do what I want- just home accounts and web surfing,burning odd cd and photos.

But it only comes with Windows Xp operating sysytem, Can I use the disks that came with my desktop- also Xp to load xtra sofeware- ie Ability office and microsoft money or should you only use these on one computer?

Or to be legal, do I have to buy again?

Thanks

wakandem

The disks that came with your old pc are probably oem licenced, so they will only be legal on the pc they were bought with.

devizes18193

there always open source stuff and stiff on magazines discs

BlueVinney

Not a problem. My laptop came the same way but free downloads allow you to do everything you need for security and most applications.

MSE has stickies giving recommended free software downloads. I use Zonealarm for firewall (when you've got it installed turn off XP firewall which doesn't monitor outbound traffic), AVG (antivirus), Adaware and Asquared (spyware and trojans) but there are others recommended which could work just as well. They've kept me completely virus and trojan free, but remember to frequently download the updates and then run them.

For wordprocessing and other 'office' tasks I use openoffice. It's compatible with Microsoft Office, you can exchange documents with Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and they all seem to work OK. Openoffice doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the latest Office but covers 99.99% of anything you will want to do.

There's also 'Google pack' software collection may have somethings you want.

Just Google any of the software above and you get the url to download the software.

For browsing use Mozilla Firefox currently more secure than Internet Explorer and very flexible, particularly if you download some of the extensions and themes.

One tip. Avoid ANYTHING from McAfee like the plague, there is some security and utilities software with a 'free' trial period. The cost is you can NEVER completely delete it from your computer.

Enjoy

Donnie

swizzle wrote: »

Hi

I have been looking at a Laptop at Laptops direct a Hewlett Packard 510 £315 windows Xp which looks like it will do what I want- just home accounts and web surfing,burning odd cd and photos.

But it only comes with Windows Xp operating sysytem, Can I use the disks that came with my desktop- also Xp to load xtra sofeware- ie Ability office and microsoft money or should you only use these on one computer?

Or to be legal, do I have to buy again?

Thanks

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Hewlett_Packard_510_Laptop_RU964AA/version.asp

It's listed at 380 pounds. Where's the link for 315?