My PC (about 7 years old) is playing up, something to do with page files and I'm tempted to just buy a new computer. I've always had a PC but am wondering about changing to Mac...any idea how traumatic that would be, if at all?
It would be pretty traumatic for your bank account! :-) I always keep all my "stuff" on external hard drives (and backups of that as well!) so when a PC packs up I just buy a new one - traumas down to a minimum. I usually buy from http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/ -- unless you want a "gee-whizz" up to the minute machine you can get a real bargain there, and they deliver to France for a reasonable rate. I never spend more than £150.
Useful to know Roger! I've been using an azerty keyboard for yonks now though...
You can easily change the settings in Windows so that you can use an AZERTY keyboard with WIndows in English.
They say Macs are easy to pick up, I struggle every time I look at one thanks to too many years of Windows. If you do buy one, I would keep PC as well so you have summat to use whilst learning.
What is the problem with your PC ?
With all the Ransomware going around at the moment, backups have probably never been more important
Wendy could almost certainly continue to use her current physical AZERTY keyboard in place of the UK keyboard that might come with a PC from Morgan Computers. As Steve Yates says, it would simply be a change to the keyboard setting in Control Panel for it to be recognized.
OTOH, you can sometimes save money by buying just the box and continuing with your existing screen, keyboard & mouse. Either way, if you buy in the UK, you'll get an English version of Windows, which isn't generally easy to get from a French supplier.
If you know the right people, Dell will supply PCs with Windows in English.
If you know the right people, Dell France can supply PCs with Windows in English.
As has been said, you CAN use your AZERTY keyboard on a box bought from somewhere like Morgan. (Carrefour and Leclerc also sell "end-of-line" boxes fairly cheap.) In the case of Morgan, if you buy just the box, that is what you get - no mouse, keyboard or screen.
My two current machines are both Dell, from Morgan. One, used for video editing, has never been "on-line" and is lightning fast.
When I retired after 35 years in the IT industry in 2011 and having been stuck with Windows for a large part of that my wife and I moved from Windows to Mac. My daughter had already moved the year before when she went to university. We had no problems at all making the move though we did install MS Office on our machines to continue to use Word, Excel, etc. We also use Office on our iPads for consistency. One great feature is automatic backups to an Apple device called a time capsule. This is a WiFi router come harddrive that in the background takes incremental backups of all our machines every hour. Having spent decades being paranoid about backups, that alone would have justified the move for me :-)
I can highly recommend the reliability of the Mac software and hardware and while the initial outlay may be more than a PC I think the build quality makes up for it. All three of our original machines, two Macbook pros and a Macbook Air, have never missed a beat and are still going strong, though with other family members. My daughter and I upgraded last year to the latest spec Macbook Pro and Macbook Air which are really stunning machines.
I bought a previously-owned Thinkpad T61 from http://www.xyllome.fr/
Price was great, 140 euros, and the service top! The guy even changed the keyboard to QWERTY, upgraded the RAM with +2GB and included a docking station for free.
There's also tower PC's there, if that's your preference.
Thank you so much, John, that's just what I want to hear!
Thanks Steve. Thhe problem is to do with page files. Every time I start it up, I get a warning that Windows has created a page file following a problem with the configuration of my page file...something to do with the size of the file. It keeps crashing, particularly Firefox, which I have now deleted...
I found a fix online, but I got half way through and it got too technical for me, so I gave up.
Have deleted loads of stuff, lots of files and programmes and am still getting the warning and I can't afford to have an unreliable computer.
Thanks Krister, that's useful to know, will check it out!
Sent you a PM
Good luck with deciding what to do about what to buy next. Do you have a friend/neighbour with a Mac that would let you have a play ?
Hi Wendy, I changed to a Mac from Windows almost 2 years ago and it's great, it really isn't that hard, infact the basic things you need to do are extremely easy.
I certainly haven't regretted it, if you have iPhone and or iPad then you're half way there, and they all talk to each other making it even easier.
Hi Pam, Thanks, yes we do have an iPad and iPhones and we're very happy with them, including excellent service from Apple following a broken screen and a couple of technical issues, really efficient and friendly...unlike Dell!
Ha, we had Dell before, I know exactly what you mean, hubby still has Dell but he's already decided to go to Mac on his next change.
I haven't come across any problem since changing to my Mac that couldn't be solved easily, the odd incompatibility of the format of documents but that's about it and I'm no tech expert.