Six or eight months back Win 10 started upgrading, messing with my installed programs, wanted to correct files in MS Word on HD and Jump Drive. MS also tried to make MSEdge the internet search browser. There is no way to disable what MS was doing except go into the basic system files and alter the commands. Yanking the jum0p drive when MS started to attack because it was an older version of MS Word, I saved it and the files. The HD was at MS mercy I couldn't stop MS 10 from rewriting MS Word files there
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My jump drive languished all this time as there was no way I was going to let Win10 take another whack at it even if I had disabled updates and blocked Edge from installing. I didn't trust what had already been done in Win10. I finally gave up, purchased another monitor, keyboard, mouse and booted a computer I had parked because a short in the multi plug in had fried everything. Crossed my fingers and prayed the computer hadn't been whacked also. It had but it hadn't as it booted up. it proclaimed all the files had been compromised and suggested a reinstall from initial Win install located on HD. The fresh install worked along with all the auxiliary programs I had previously installed. Crossed my fingers and installed the jump drive into the USB port. Asked it it should scan for virus and corrupted files. Tentatively I clicked scan.
Everything is clean and all files are good. This is the same jump drive Win10 wanted to rewrite as it detected corrupt files when Win10 updated. This computer now handling the jump drive is running Win7. It will never touch the net or get an update. I stopped writing for two reasons. one was time, I've been extremely busy with the goats, farm, and life. The other thing is every time I tried writing using MSWord it would crash ten minutes or up to an hour later and everything I had done would disappear into the void not recoverable. It was an exercise in futility and wasn't working. MS10 does NOT work with an older version of MSWord. or MSPublisher, or Excel or any of the older MS programs. Not even with the programs not MS. It doesn't work with older programs as MS tries to push everyone into accepting MS 360 and Cloud storage or whatever their whole package is named.
Hugs People, use your own judgement whether you play MS games or not. Count me out. They scare me into joining by yelling virus. In the future I may be running a virtual Win, something there but isn't. Stay safe, don't click onto anything web or email you aren't one hundred percent sure isn't a scam or virus.
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I was having trouble with MS Word
I was running an older version of MS Word (2010) and it was getting crotchety after they quit supporting it. I was considering switching over to open office when I came across a place I could purchase MS Word 2021 student for $149; purchase not subscribe. I refuse to subscribe to software. If it's on my computer either I own it or I don't use it. I do use a free version of a photo editor online.
Since I publish on Smashwords/Draft2Digital and they want .doc files, not .docx. Most of what I save is then "exported" as a Word 97 .doc file. I have several files that were saved in my old version of Word. When I open them it does upgrade them, but should I alter and then save, it writes a new file as a .docx and leaves the old .doc file there.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Last decent version of MS Office was ...
In my opinion the last decent version of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access) was 97. The change in the interface of the 2000 version was, in my opinion, a huge step back into confusion and obfuscation. And the XP version was not any better. Unfortunately WordPerfect had not been able to make to move from DOS to Windows. I had done things with WordPerfect 5.1 that I was only able to replicate starting with Word 97, but then lost again with Word 2000/XP.
So in 2003 I upgraded from MS Office 97 to OpenOffice. There were a few very advanced (and seldom used) features that did not properly convert, but I was able to find a usable workaround. And there were a few differences in commonly used keyboard shortcuts. But other than that the transition was more or less a non-event. A few years later I upgraded to LibreOffice, when the sponsor of OpenOffice started to move away from Open-Source-Software.
Since LibreOffice is available and runs on all three mayor operating system families (Linux, Apple, Microsoft) I have found that sharing document files between users on the various platforms to be completely transparent.
As a bonus, LibreOffice can read and write a huge variety of different file formats. Which is a bonus when trying to recover some jurassic archival data. (Who remembers WordStar from the mid 1980s?)
By 2005 I was migrating from WinXP to Linux. And your (as well as others here) tales of woe with the M$ ecosystem is just more confirmation for me that I made the correct decision some 20 years back.
MSWord, Excel and similar: Not paying for ...
I have been using software from https://portableapps.com/ for a =decade plus= and been very happy.
All software is =Free=.
All their software is designed to =not= muck up other drives, or Registry, or ... Run it at work? At the Library? Do it. Portable Apps are built to not hurt anything.
While it talks about "living" on a USB drive, it also lives happily on your hard drive.
Download the "menu" system first. Download is on the front page, no digging. Then, =>from inside the Menu<=, load the Portable Apps you want. They will give you LibreOffice, a full micro-squish "Office", including Excel (Calc), Word (Writer), Games, etc.
I have done little testing, but LibreOffice formats are compatible enough that I can "transport" Writer files to my Library and their MSWord can print it. Enough for me.
Grab "Notepad++", a =nice= plain-text (.txt) editor. They have web browsers At the moment I'm using Iron. Also music players (VLC). The Utilities include a countdown ('kitchen timer') timer, and many geeky utilities.
Don't like something? Uninstall works. If not, deleting the directory containing the 'bad' program is harmless. But move your work elsewhere first.
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Important note: By default your files (documents, .txt, Excel (Calc, etc.) are saved =inside of= the Portable Apps directory. For me, it's best if I store all documents over on my hard (C:), or better, on my giga-byte+ USB hard drive.
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"Backups are done by people who used to not do backups."
Good call on Portable Apps
Portable Apps is a very good Open-Source-Software option for those that do not want to move away from Windows to Linux. It was also an easy way of carrying your documents with you in an age where mobile computers were merely transportable, and laptop computers cost at least twice (if not trice) of what a desktop PC with equivalent specifications would retail.
As you said, the Portable Apps environment can be installed on a USB stick or an external hard drive. Thus you can take your customary computing tools, environment and personalizations with you where ever you go. And you will not have any compatibility or formatting problems because your host is missing some “obscure” component that is vital for your purpose and goal. The Portable Apps system resides in the system tray of a Windows OS.
Once you have personalized the apps to your satisfaction, you can burn the whole Portable Apps folder to a CD/DVD and run it directly from there. But you will loose the ability to further personalize your apps, since it is a read-only medium.
On the other hand, the last time I checked, Portable Apps gives user an amazing freedom of choice regarding which tool to use for each task. Because for many tasks there are more than one tools available. LibreOffice is one office productivity suite, but there are also other options available. The same applies to image manipulation, media players, text editors, and even web browsers.
Just go to the website Alan listed above and take a look at the available apps listed.
Since I have no computer with Windows anymore, nor do I have to support any Windows users either, I have not looked at that website for a long time. Because of the nature of the Portable Apps ecosystem, it is definitely not bleeding edge, though the community tries to keep on the leading edge of the development of the underlying apps. Similar to what Debian [Linux] is doing by prioritizing stability over the latest and greatest features of the newest release available upstream. (Only once in the last fifteen years have I had to resort to a newer “experimental” version of a software I use on Debian.)
LibreOffice all the way!
Initially, I thought LibreOffice was a bit janky, simply because some of the user interface interctions weren't what I was accustomed to. (I was coming from 30+ years on Macs for personal use and MS Office on machines provided by employers.)
I regarded anything by Microsoft as barely better than a virus, for most of that time. When I got into gaming, I found it useful to have a Windows machine, but I'd never trust such a machine with my data.
With the coming of Windows 11, you're no longer the user, but the mark; the victim; the cash cow. For example, want to do a backup? Great... but Windows 11 only invites backups to its cloud-based service, so you'd better have your credit card ready. Everything on the Windows 11 platform is about distractions, pop-ups and advertisements; the last thing a writer needs! With difficulty, you can learn to squelch most of the advertisements, until the next update, but Microsoft will never, ever stop trying to slurp your information and gouge you for monthly subscriptions.
LibreOffice looks exactly the same under Linux, which made the switch virtually painless. (I have high hopes for SteamOS as a replacement for Windows in gaming, too.) Apple is... kind of meh, nowadays. The hardware is good quality, if you don't mind a laptop keyboard replacement being £815, but they're playing the monthly subscriptions game, too: they see the user interface as a marketplace. Older machines, if I happen to fire them up, seem like an oasis of placid rationality.
My current daily driver is a Framework laptop, dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh