Wife surprised me this morning.

She told me that I "have to work inside today."

I have been doing yard work, and have progressed to the back yard.

UPS man is coming with a new Dell!

Apparently I have been known to bitch excessively about my existing computer, so she took the liberty of purchasing me a new one.

Now I am in the midst of deciding on whether to add the new one to our network or just park my existing, what software I want on it, do I go buy another monitor and run both or do a transfer, yada yada yada

One of my decisions will be regarding office software.

I have MS Office 2003 home business version. I also have the professional version but do not use it, but I am thinking about bagging all of that and going with Sun/Java/Oracle whatever OpenOffice.org

I did a (very) little research, and came across this:



Anybody running 7 and OpenOffice.org? Did you experience this problem?

I like firefox and use it pretty much always unless some (rare) problem develops...

Tips, suggestions, etc. appreciated on any aspect of the whole "New Computer transfer XP to 7 etc. thing"

I have successfully got 2003 office to run within Vista.. haven't tried 7.. but I would have to believe it would run.

To answer your open office.. yes my Wife's laptop is running open office on 7 beautifully.

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Hopped on msdn quick.. Office 03 is compatible with 7.. should have no issues.. with Vista you had to cheat the register nonsense or you kept getting this version is unregistered.. don't know if that has been resolved in 7.

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Ya, I'm pretty sure the 2003 office is going to run fine, backwards compatibility and all that MS has always done, but I'm thinking that the openoffice would be quite a bit more "modern", file types supprted, etc.

The new one comes pre-loaded with that Works9 crap, which will be the first thing to go--well, after I dump the pre-loaded McAfee (I pay my ISP for our security suite and it is the shit---FIOS)

DUDE! You got a Dell!

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Whatever you do, set up remote desktop. That stuff is awesome. It's like a computer within a computer.

I have both OpenOffice and Office 2003 on my Windows 7 RC computer, no problems with it. I would assume that would be the same with the retail Win7.

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Thanks for the advice, guys.

I went ahead and downloaded OpenOffice.org

It is chock-full of neat bells and whistles, and while I'm going to have to invest some time and effort to learn how to use all the features, I feel that the differences between Office and that program are insignificant enough to allow me to hold in abeyance downloading of Office software.

[strike]There is one thing that is bugging me about it, and this seems ridiculous, but I need your wife's assistance, Shawn...

The program loads a shortcut on to your desk top for the whole thing. Then when you click on the shortcut, it opens a window with all of the applications...word processor, spreadsheet, database, etc.

I cannot find a way to create a shortcut for each individual app. separately, either in the app or whatever the hell 7 calls explorer. I'm sure it is something obvious and stupid, but damned if I can find it. It's no great big deal, but Shawn, if you read this, ask your wife for me, will you?[/strike]It is simply amazing how shitty my old comp was compared to this one.

Nevermind--Had to go through a hoop in order to drag and drop--some participation thingamajig-fixed