[quote=darkelvensfi]I think there's a bit of confusion between hard drive space and memory. These are two separate items. If your computer is 5 years old, its more likely that you have 5 gigs of hard drive space, and maybe 512 megs of memory (RAM). Increasing your hard drive space wont increase your computer performance.. actually, in 5 years, the drives have become faster, so you will likely see an improvement. But, the technology has changed and the new hard drives likely won't be recognised by your computer. You'll likely find similar problems with buying more memory. You've likely got SD RAM, and most shops will only sell DDR and DDR2 memory. DDR5 is becoming available... [strong] I have no idea what kind of RAM I have honestly -- I have attached my computer properties but if you could tell me how to figure-out the kind of RAM I have it would be great. I need a lot of RAM because I work with several large programs open at once - To me RAM is more important than HD space because of the way I work. I guess it's from years of using the best qualities of several programs to accomplish a project faster than sticking with one program. I have powerpoint, Adobe Acrobat, Gimp, Neomallers Portal and FF open at the moment and that's just messing around, lol! I hadn't really thought about the incompatibility of my technology with what was out there now. I have always worked on corporate computers that were maintained by a technology department with bi-annual upgrades so I never had to think about that before.[/strong] If you buy a computer from a company, and it has any programs on it, they must provide you with CDs of all the programs; they cannot provide the programs installed unless you pay for them, which means you get the CDs too. It sounds like they might have done a shifty on you and made you pay for something you didn't really get. In any case, many of the old programs are available via ebay pretty cheaply these days. Don't fall into the trap of thinking the latest is the best. As long as you can perform the tasks you want/need to do, then you're all good. [strong]The post after yours may explain how DELL got away with this. I remember calling Dell when I had a problem with something and needed the disks. My free help desk warranty had expired so they were vague about how I could create my own disks... However, I know they did something shifty with my Symantec program because it is a Corporate version. I had a problem with the program and called Symantec to get some help and they informed me that my version is under a corporations' license and that corporation is supposed to have an IT professional overseeing my program issues (they couldn't discuss my issue because I am not a licensed IT professional and never said-so but alluded that I should not be using or have this program). WONDERFUL! I do have a genuine Windows program that is licensed to me as well as the other programs on the computer so I am really confused about how I don't have any disks. When I worked a hospital we didn't buy enough licenses for everyone in our department so we had to go out and buy individual programs instead of networking them -- it was a huge expense and everyone had to have their little boxes and disks at their desks for inspection. Thanks for the tip about ebay![/strong] Because you're working on an old computer, you are likely having to deal with software developers who are making programs for computers that are faster. This means they (think they) are more free with their use of system resources. Said differently: When you use these newer programs, they will be using up a higher percentage of your resources because they have been designed to be run on higher end computers. [strong] I have to agree about this! It is shocking how much memory some programs use! Adobe + Quickbooks is over 1GB and on my 5GB HD that is huge![/strong] I'm one of those 'computer types', and I can't work on a computer that's more than 6 months old... which also means I have a lot of spare parts. If there's any chance you live in/near Perth Australia, let me know and I'll see if I can send some parts to you. At the least, I've got some old hard drives that I'm not using. [strong]That is quite generous of you! I don't live anywhere close to there but I have been there :) It took 40 hours to get to Perth from Atlanta, Georgia in the US! I may PM you about what you may have that I could use and check into how much shipping would be.[/strong] Also, don't install windows Vista. It's very system hungry and has been discarded by Windows; they no longer readily support it. Install XP or try to get your hands on Windows 7.[/quote] [strong]I have used Vista and I do not like it; it is not very user-friendly in my opinion. I love Windows XP![/strong] ~ Mimi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Mimi's Ménagerie ~ http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=temps_bons&misc

[quote=EWP]Coming in a bit late probably, but when you complained about your half-price day frustrations, it reminded of a couple months ago, just after I'd updated to the new version of Firefox. After I reverted to the older Version 3, I was suddenly able to use my computer again. It was that bad! I mention this in case it helps. If you didn't recently update ff, just ignore this message.[/quote] I did upgrade FF recently (same day as the java, microsoft upgrades). I do not like the newer FF and I can't use my Neopets Toolbar. Even though the tarla alert didn't work the shortcuts were amazing. If you have a link to get me back to the earlier version I would love to revert! ~ Mimi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Mimi's Ménagerie ~ http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=temps_bons&misc

[quote=Gavin63]From memory Dell was the first to have a separate partition with the operating system on it. To reformat instead of being supplied the windows disc you done it straight from the partitioned drive. Also with a 5 year old computer you would find it would be hard to update any component as everything has changed so if you wanted to update your ram it would possibly require a new motherboard which would require a new cpu and possibly Hard Drive due to different connections, pins & slots If you do check out bitdefender make sure you look for Bitdefender Free Edition.[/quote] At least computers are relatively cheap now! The fist computer I bought was top of the line (crap by today's standards) and cost almost 6K (that was in 1990). Here's some fun history for the young ones on this site: The first computer I ever used was a TRS-80 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80 ) and everything was done in c:\ prompt with BASIC computer language -- no pretty windows just a black sreen... lol! I learned and produced graphic design projects for national medical conferences on a 386 which had 4MB of RAM and was thrilled to be upgraded to a 486 which had 16 MB of RAM that I had to request and beg for -- create a proposal along with how much my productivity could be increased. I literally timed my waiting periods with a stop watch for a week to put in this proposal! I can't imagine how much hair I would pull out now waiting around like I did back in the day! Literally, it would take minutes to complete any command. The invention of Windows and the "undo button" by Microsoft was a break-through! Windows was great because it was much more user friendly and people didn't have to learn a programming language. They could just hover over a button and it would tell them what it would do. The undo button was groundbreaking because any mistake was paid for in 15 minute increments when you were working with a very small HD and barely any RAM! I feel so old and so glad I have my cruddy little 5 year old computer with a 5 GB HD and 1GB Memory! ~ Mimi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Mimi's Ménagerie ~ http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=temps_bons&misc

[quote=darkelvensfi]My first computer was an Amstrad. Not sure if anyone remembers them. But they worked off a cassette tape that you had to run through to get your program loaded. Aweful things. Had a couple of other computers between there and the old 386s. I still remember buying my first hard drive of 70 megs and thinking about how I could never fill it up, it was sooo big. I really liked the old DOS system and waited until I had a 486 before finally relenting and getting windows. Now things are different. I've got an i7 with 6 gigs of DDR3 RAM and over a terabyte of hard drive space (and need more). The odd thing is, that I still seem to be able to run about the same amount of programs now as I did on my old celeron 300mhz. But like I said earlier, the programs increase in resource use as computers improve in capacity. Why would companies spend thousands of dollars making a program run on half the resources when computers today can run several large programs without slowing down...[/quote] LOL, I could not for the life of me remember "DOS" -- man that shows how long ago that was! I do remember those Amstrads http://www.solarnavigator.net/sponsorship/sponsorship_images/Amstrad_PC_micro_computer_64x.jpg -- Weird even back then to me, haha! Do you remember when the internet was released? Do you remember the chat boards that people would SPAM which meant they put in code that shut down the site, your computer, or just repeated something over and over for pages and pages until everyone gave up and left the chat room, lol! I was with you on most of what you said about your computer but am embarrassed to admit I didn't know about the terabyte until this board yesterday *cough* I don't know why they would spend extra money on doing something right.... that singular concept of "get it done cheaply" annoys me to no end! BEGINNING RANT IN ..........3 - 2 - 1 -- I would hope that there would be a QA (Quality Assurance) professional that would show them that in the end you always save money by doing your best, most compact, efficient work -- perhaps you always save "on the back-end" or "in the long-run" but the savings are there and the company's reputation is more important than the bottom-line when times are tough (customer loyalty trumps savings when times are tough for the customer and the company -- I've seen it over and over)! *deep breath* OKay....I feel better now, *lol* ~ Mimi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Mimi's Ménagerie ~ http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=temps_bons&misc

[quote=raine_storme][center] Meh, customer loyalty SHOULD trump savings... but when you practically have a monopoly *cough* like microsoft *cough*, most customers will buy your lame trashy products anyway... I mean goodness, I despise tons of microsoft stuff... But I'm familiar with it, and I'm too lazy to learn a new system... So I keep buying and using microsoft, as much as I dislike it. ------------------------------------------------------------------- [url=http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=raine_storme&misc]~~ Come visit my map shop ~~[/url] [/center][/quote] Yes, Microsoft is one of those monopolies that you just can't get around. But what's everyone elses excuse? And why wouldn't MS want to have better products? It saddens me that people aren't more driven toward excellence and smaller/ more compact programs should be the most basic goal for a software company. My computer is FULL of random memory usage to run MS programs -- their updates take up tons of space -- I feel I need an external HD just for those stupid things! ~ Mimi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Mimi's Ménagerie ~ http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=temps_bons&misc