The new laptop has Windows 7 and I like it pretty well and decided that it was time to try it on the desktop computer as I stumbled into a $50 legal copy of the program. I only had two real problems with the install, one there is no Outlook Express for Win7 (or its predecessor Vista), so I needed a different desktop email client.
I have been using Outlook Express for email at home for about as long as I have been using a computer. It has only been around since 1996, but it just seems like forever. I can’t remember what I used for email prior to OE, maybe Pegasus Mail (which according to Wikipedia has been around since 1990 and is still in use today), but it didn’t come up in my web search for a replacement. Thunderbird seemed to be the top pick, but folks complained of issues importing email from OE. To test it out, I downloaded, installed it and tried it out. Everything went smooth for me, so I learned how to export the new email data and how to restore it for after the the 7 install.
The second issue came about after I had installed Windows 7. My old sound card was no longer being supported and the last official drivers for it were for XP. There was a small speaker icon in the task tray with a bright red X through it. That would never do. Google searched turned up traces of possible drivers, but I had no luck locating them. Looks like I might have to buy a new sound card (like I did 7 years ago when I first got this PC.) I was sort of surprised by that development because I had downloaded Micrsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser software and it didn’t flag that as an issue.
It did flag a couple other things, so I decided to try and get some drivers for those items to see if I needed anymore new hardware, because if it did I might just revert back to XP. Somehow, don’t ask because I don’t remember how, but while getting those drivers a box popped up with a list of attempted driver updates. The sound card was listed and and lo and behold it found a driver. I have sound.
Now comes the task of reloading all the programs I normally use, but I should be all finished by tomorrow.
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