Where is word and excel on windows vista

mikeb222
mikeb222 Posts: 149 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
Guys,

I have recently had to reinstall Vista after several "blue screen of death" episodes, but now I have no Word/excel installed.

Doesn't vista come with any office then?
I don't understand how this all works and I can't find any office software so I don't know how I came to have office anyway.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Just looked at office 2010 which would work on vista and it's at least £80??
For a 4 year old system, is that right?

Wouldn't I be better of upgrading to windows 8 or something?

Comments

  • Geodark
    Geodark Posts: 1,049 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    mikeb222 wrote: »
    Guys,

    I have recently had to reinstall Vista after several "blue screen of death" episodes, but now I have no Word/excel installed.

    Doesn't vista come with any office then?
    I don't understand how this all works and I can't find any office software so I don't know how I came to have office anyway.

    Any advice greatly appreciated.

    Just looked at office 2010 which would work on vista and it's at least £80??
    For a 4 year old system, is that right?

    Wouldn't I be better of upgrading to windows 8 or something?

    Hiya, you don't get office software with any of the windows Operating Systems they all have to be purchased and installed separately. If all you want is something to do a few letters on and do you budgets etc, then why not have a look at libre office - its free!
  • grumpycrab
    grumpycrab Posts: 5,015 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Bake Off Boss!
    mikeb222 wrote: »
    Doesn't vista come with any office then?
    No. If you reinstalled the factory version of Vista there will be no office. If you reinstalled from your own image backup then you'll only get office if the image backup included office. Where did you get the computer from in the first place? Did they give you an office key? Did you buy it separately? The software is easy to find but you need the key.
    mikeb222 wrote: »
    Wouldn't I be better of upgrading to windows 8 or something?
    That won't help with office and Vista, fully patched, works ok.

    Office Starter 2010 (word, excel) should work but the install is a pain.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVt58pP8h0w

    Other than that, try a free office suite.
    If you put your general location in your Profile, somebody here may be able to come and help you.
  • John259
    John259 Posts: 1,085 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary
    You should find WordPad in the Start menu, it's a cutdown version of Word but perfectly ok unless you need to do anything advanced.

    Otherwise, as the previous poster suggested try Libre Office, or perhaps Google Docs which is also free but cloud-based.
    "Such an enormous country, you realize when you cross it" - Jack Kerouac
  • Geodark
    Geodark Posts: 1,049 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    John259 wrote: »
    You should find WordPad in the Start menu, it's a cutdown version of Word but perfectly ok unless you need to do anything advanced.

    Otherwise, as the previous poster suggested try Libre Office, or perhaps Google Docs which is also free but cloud-based.

    You know I always forget about google docs - I really must give it a look at some point.
  • grumpycrab
    grumpycrab Posts: 5,015 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Bake Off Boss!
    If you put your general location in your Profile, somebody here may be able to come and help you.
  • mikeb222
    mikeb222 Posts: 149 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    I have got wordpad, but when I install my memory stick with my word documents on it, I am not able to change or add anything to it, so im still stuck at the moment.

    As you can gather i'm not very technical!
  • mikeb222
    mikeb222 Posts: 149 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    Just to add to that.
    When I install memory stick, my docs come up under word viewer.

    Is that wordpad then?
  • John259
    John259 Posts: 1,085 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary
    mikeb222 wrote: »
    Just to add to that.
    When I install memory stick, my docs come up under word viewer.

    Is that wordpad then?
    No it's different. You could change the file extension association from Word Viewer to WordPad but I don't think that would be a good idea. That's because a quick test suggests that WordPad can open Word documents (provided you change the file type filter to all files) and the text appears but it's surrounded by a lot of formatting control nonsense.

    So to edit your existing documents my advice is to try one of the free office packages.
    "Such an enormous country, you realize when you cross it" - Jack Kerouac
  • paddyrg
    paddyrg Posts: 13,543 Forumite
    Word Pad is horrible, archaic, and barely compatible with anyone else's programmes - I'd strongly suggest libre office over word pad, for most users it's good enough.
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