Dear Mr Gates:

You don’t know me personally, but I’m one of the many people using Windows 7 on my new laptop.  And according to discussions a good percentage of those people, myself included, are not very impressed with it.

In fact, although my original plan was to use the laptop as my main system, I’ve found Win 7 so awkward to work with that I reverted to using my desktop, running XP, as my main system.  Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a case of trying Win 7 for a couple of days.  I gave it at least a month and it never got any easier to navigate around.

Unfortunately my trusty desktop has died – the IDE controller decided it didn’t want to control any longer – so the time has come to replace this unit.  But, to be honest Mr G, because of my less than ideal experience with Windows 7, I’m not sure I want another Windows based system.  For years my son has been telling me I should get a Mac.  I’m on fixed income, so a Mac would stretch the budget, but it’s certainly worth considering.  An alternative would be a PC with one of the various Linux operating systems out there.  Many software producers now produce Linux versions their products and I’ve been told that Linux will run most programmes seamlessly, so I shouldn’t have a problem.

Mr Gates, it would seem that by making Windows more and more complicated, you’re driving customers away.

Yours disappointingly,

Cat.

Give me time!!

Recently I got a laptop and decided to upgrade my photo processing software.  This new programme is Corel Paintshop Pro X4.  I ordered it and of course it arrived before I got the laptop.  So it finally got installed in early June.  I couldn’t install it on my desktop because  X4 requires Windows 7 to work properly and the desktop runs XP.

The programme is okay, although I’m not sure if my irritants are caused by the programme itself or Win 7.  Anyway, that isn’t the purpose of this posting.  Since I bought this directly from Corel and registered with them, obviously I get various email offers from them.  That’s fine, I don’t mind.  One of these days they may actually offer me WordPerfect at a better price.

What I do find a bit of a pain is this: I’ve had X4 for about three months now, and since my previous version was X2, there are naturally things I’ve got to figure out that are different from the previous version as well as new features.  I’m now getting offers for discounts on Paintshop Pro X5. That’s what bugs me.

I’m still trying to figure out X4 (in fact there are things on X2 I still haven’t mastered) and they’re trying to sell me X5 already.  Please, Corel – give me time to understand what I’ve got before trying to upgrade me.  And sorry to burst your “new and improved” bubble, but there are some things I still find easier to do using Jasc Paint Shop Pro  version 7, which predates Corel acquiring the company.  Sorry guys, but that’s just the way it is.  Maybe once I understand X4, I’ll use it instead for those things.

Cat.