cockpheasant

My old comp running Win 7 died (graphics). I have the hard drive (sata ide) with Win 7 on it, I also have a 7 disc. Stupidly, I binned the old case with the windows no key sticker. Is there any way that I can get the no from the old hard drive and will; microsoft stand me transferring it to a laptop presently running Vista. Compliments of the season to all

Hi Woodbug, I had the same problem, and after considerable thought, I was able to buy refurbished windows 7 units that were way above the spec of my old XP machines and would take windows 8 for not a lot more money than the cost of Windows 7 programs. Worth a thought!!

Thanks Ray, I shall dig that out!

Hello again Nev. I am trying to rip a DVD to a USB drive for my portable caravan TV. The TV will play AVI or Mpeg. Is there a free reliable convertedr that I can download please.

OK Ken.....Company is Bargain*hardware (3419) on Ebay uk. Offering refurb Dell Win 7 home premium 32bit. 6.8 Ghz dual core 4GB ram with ATI radeon graphics card at £149.99 with free courier carriage. A DVD RW can be adde for a further £15.00 Regards, John

One other thing Matt, a usb wifi plug in dongle was just £6.99 and very easy to set up

Hello Matt. After the help that I had from this forum I decided also to go for a refurb. I found a supplier offering such machines with a good spec who were accredited microsoft agents. The unit has turned out to be excellent value, will take windows 8 later and the price was less than £150.00. If you are interested, Email me and I shall send you a link.

Back again guys. I dont know whether this is the correct thread, but in the new windows 7 I tried to connect first to this site and then to my TOMTOM update. The sites said that I needed Flashplayer which is incorporated into chrome but when my tomtom connects, the browser reverts to IE. Trying to download Flashplayer results in a flagup saying the file has an invalid signature and has been blocked by IE. Help please..its late and I am crying with frustration.

OK gentlemen, first of all, the compliments of the season to you. Next.....after weighing up the costs and pros v cons, I found a supplier who was offering refurbished Dell units with Windows 7 and a much much higher spec than my desktop which will also accommodate Win 8. The price was not a great amount over the cost of purchasing a new O/S and so I went for that. The laptop is newer so I shall get an upgrade disc. Many thanks once again for all your help. Reg John F.

Nev, thanks for the pointer. Things are starting to become clearer now. I shall get there eventually, I just learn more slowly with the advancing years.

Please excuse my tardiness Ken. I ran the check and the old XP unit will support Win 7.32 bit. as will the Vista unit. I am just in the process of updating the points picked up by the XP check, (audio drivers etc) and am climbing the learning curve until I am sure what I am doing. I have downloaded the official windows disc and I am still considering which way to jump as per the activation code.

Nice one Ken. I'm afraid that rolling pins and fish stunning clubs are about my level. Oh, and my goose egg cups are in demand!

I have a wood turning lathe......and argue the qualities of timber with the woodyard staff. Its what comes of being a war baby and wanting things for nothing.

Y'know what? I feel just like a little old man who threw a colleagues burger into a piranha pond!!

Many thanks once again folks, it will be interesting anyway to install a freeby on the Vista unit and see how it compares. Meanwhile, I shall continue to look for a good copy of Windows 7...it seems that the big retailers (pc world ) now only sell windows 8 and looked at me with pity for wanting an out of date o/s.

Thanks both, I shall report back. The "Free" time offered is for 12 months, then £7.50 per quarter thereafter. Not a bad deal I suppose, but quite an increase and with a relatively unknown (to me ) organisation. Sigh! another knock to the old age pension outgoins.

My ISP (virgin) has withdrawn its integral security package and farmed it out to a company called F-secure which is free initially then pay..cheapskate way of increasing profit! F- secure has installed ok on my windows7 unit also my old XP unit. With my Vista laptop it refused and said Norton 360 was installed (it isn't). Norton was on briefly three years ago and uninstalled with proprietary measures. I took a peek in the reg and lo and behold there are still the dregs of the old norton unit. I have tried Symantecs removal tool together with several others to no avail and am now up against it with either a manual cleanup or total reinstall of Vista. Any help with the system of manual removal would be very welcome folks!!

I shall do just that Ken. Apologies for my inexperience!

Ok, the uninstall advice is good, but.........I ran Norton 360 on my vista laptop briefly and uninstalled it with the proprietary methods. I am with Virgin who have now withdrawn their inclusive security suite and have replaced it with a free year of Fsecure (which then becomes chargeable) Fsecure installed ok on my old XP unit but would not install on the vista laptop and told me that norton 360 was installed (which it isnt) Lo and behold, I have a peek in the reg and there are still the norton dregs there. I have tried several third party removal tools including Symantecs own without success. I am now looking for information on manually removing the Norton rubbish before I am reduced to a complete reinstall (and possibly finding that the comp maufacturer has included Norton on the recovery disc) Please think very carefully before using Norton. ANY HELP ON MANUAL REMOVAL WOULD BE EXTREMELY WELL RECEIVED!!!

Many thanks again Nev. Maybe I can input a little,whilst not presuming to teach you to suck eggs, there is a site called magical jelly bean with a free download keyfinder which works a treat and finds the product key in seconds. Regards, John F.

Thanks again Nev. Any thoughts on the missing no?

Many thanks for the info Nev, can I please beg for some more. I have 2 comps, lap and desk. Lap runs vista desk runs xp. Can I install a single copy of win 7 on both machines? I am aware that I already have two licences so would an upgrade disc be preferable? Also, I have read that the new o/s needs to be activated via a number on a sticker attached to the comp. The xp unit is 10 years old with an unreadable sticker. Can I find the no within the o/s system somewhere? Thanks in anticipation. Whew, I hate being 70, clockwork was so much easier!!!

Hi Ken. Many thanks for the info. The result shows positive, with just a few tweaks to be done (easy?) Surprisingly for an ancient unit it is capable of running the 64 bit version of 7 although the present XP is just 32 bit. To do this the RAM would have toi be upgraded to a min of 2Gig to run in widows XP mode, but this is no loss to me. All that I have to do now is source a 7 disc and work out the installation process, any idea where iI can aquire a printout to cover this?

I run a computer with an AMD athlon 64 3200+ motherboard and an ATI radion 9800 pro secondary graphics card. At the moment it is running XP home but in view of the future plans of microsoft I should like to upgrade to Windows 7. Is this possible please...and how?:confused:

Starbuck and Nev. It would have saved me a lot of frustration and diesel if I had found this board first. Virgin supply a preconfigured unit which is winging its way to me as I write. The downside is that they charge £47 for it, but that is a fair swop for the previous irritation. Thank you once again