Computer Gurus..........

[buffalobo]

Nitroxboss on here owns two computer stores in the metro area and can probably help you out. I want to say the name is Action PC.

I think Irving is correct.

I had really good experience with them last summer under similar circumstances.

They checked out my old dead laptop(tech spent about an hour trying to revive it) and hooked me up with a used machine with new OS. They kept price under $300 and did not charge me for techs time spent trying to revive old machine or time spent prepping the new used machine.





Lobbed from my electronic ball and chain.

[TFOGGER]

You're in good company, Bert. The IRS has it's ass in a wringer because they didn't complete their upgrades in time. Who could blame them? They only had 4+ years notice of the end of support...

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...ors_picks=true

[ChadAmberg]

Remember just because support is ending doesn't mean its any worse off than the day before. Just no new fixes. But when is the last time you were affected by a bug in Windows? Keep your antivirus up to date and be careful downloading things, and you'll be fine for a while yet.

[USMC_5-Echo]

The first thing to do would be to download the Microsoft upgrade adviser http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=20 and run it on each computer. It's a good piece of software and will tell you if you can run Windows 7 or not, and if not it will tell you exactly where your computer is lacking. This is the cheapest and easiest because it'll give you the best idea of how much money you may need to spend, no need in spending excessive cash if you don't need to. But as it was also mentioned earlier, anything you purchase for your business would be a tax write off for next year. I used this tool for clients over the years when Vista and Windows 7 both came out and it helped to save money. As a professional opinion I wouldn't upgrade your computers to Windows 8 if you can avoid it, you can make it look like XP\Vista\7 but why go through a bunch of extra work when you can use Windows 7.

[cstone]

Mint Linux with Libre Office, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox will do just about anything you do now and will cost you nothing but the time to install. I'm willing to help.

[J]

Meh, Ubuntu > Mint. Mint is great, and based on Ubuntu, but the complete removal of in-place release upgrade support is a killer for me. Stick with one of the flavors of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Etc if you want to go Linux (which I think is great!). Installing the proprietary drivers, codecs and softwares (read: Adobe) manually is much easier than a full manual upgrade from release to release that Mint makes you do. Ubuntu will do release upgrades in-place and easily.

[merl]

If you are just browsing the web and opening the occasional attachment I agree a linux distro will do ya. If you actually want to use libreoffice to create and already have Office then you'll be probably be disappointed. (at least I have been by the spreadsheet, it works but not the easiest)

[BPTactical]

You guys do realize your speaking a foreign language to me, correct?

[Ridge]

Bert, can you give us the specs on your computers? Go to Control Panel, then system.

We'll need the processor and amount of RAM on the computers to give you an idea of if they are upgradeable or not, and what your options are.

[gnihcraes]

Buy a couple newer dell systems from a local recycle center. I recently bought a Dell quad core for $160. Dual dvd, 250 gig, 4 gig memory. Loaded up windows 7. Just an idea.