Wind 8 - No experience of previous windows help please

macman

Chickabiddybex wrote: »

If the school are using Office 2003 then that 99% guarantees that they are using Windows.

I'd make that 100%. If they are on Macs then it would be Office for Mac 2004.

agrinnall

arrallas wrote: »

An 8 year old will have no problems at all with Windows 8. It's the people who have been using Windows for years who struggle...

Although I haven't used Win 8 yet myself I would be pretty confident this is correct, for an 8 year old, or indeed for anyone who has never used a previous version. The only value in going for Win 7 would be if it's what is used at school (which we still don't know, as knowing that they use Office 2003 doesn't tell us anything about which version of Windows they use, they could still be on XP).

vyle

MollyJoe wrote: »

Thank you, at the moment he doesn't. I spoke to the teacher who advised the school is using office 2003.

He is familiar with the internet as he uses our macbook and we have security. thank you .

Office isn't an operating system, it's just a program (well a program suite) and so in theory, they could be using XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 to run it.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

ideally go for 64 bit as you can do more. ideally ddr3 my netbook here cost me £254 acer aspire one ao725. You certainly got a good lot of memory on current spec.

RichL74

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

ideally go for 64 bit as you can do more. ideally ddr3 my netbook here cost me £254 acer aspire one ao725. You certainly got a good lot of memory on current spec.

While I would agree any other time, this is for an 8 year old child so 64 bit is not really that much of a USP.

MollyJoe

RichL74 wrote: »

While I would agree any other time, this is for an 8 year old child so 64 bit is not really that much of a USP.

Thank you all for your replies.

What is this 64 bit?

What part of the description on my laptop would it be under?

Is the USP a unique selling point or has it another term with laptops?

Thanks again.

RichL74

Yeah sorry that's what it means. Didn't mean to sound all technical.

It would say with the operating system details whether it is 32 or 64 bit Windows 7 but like I say in your case for your son, it is irrelevant so don't worry about it.

macman

MollyJoe wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies.

What is this 64 bit?

What part of the description on my laptop would it be under?

Is the USP a unique selling point or has it another term with laptops?

Thanks again.

Your OS is fully described on the General tab under Computer (right click).
It's either 32 bit or 64 bit.

prowla

oneblondebrow wrote: »

If he really hates windows after you buy it then install a Linux distribution, I would suggest Linux mint which is free, esspecially if he is only using it for office and web surfing, if anything that specification is wasted.if that all he is doing.

Also Linux has free.office software that's compatible with Microsoft office.

That is rubbish advice; he needs to use Office 2003, not a "compatible" product that isn't quite compatible in the real world and doesn't have the same menu options and so-on.

(I am a Linux user, and indeed work with it professionally, but please don't just quote mantra.)

macman wrote: »

I'd make that 100%. If they are on Macs then it would be Office for Mac 2004.

As far as running Office 2003, you can run it on a Mac or a Linux host computer, by using a virtual machine (VMware or Parallels on Mac) and installing Windows XP or higher. In other words you can install a pretend computer that runs Windows on whatever one is your preferred real laptop.

arrallas wrote: »

An 8 year old will have no problems at all with Windows 8. It's the people who have been using Windows for years who struggle...

On to Windows 8 - that is a total abomination, and you will sit there and snigger at it from your cosy mac environment.

macman

The chance that a school is running Office 2003 on a virtual machine over OSX or Linux is fairly negligible...