ZtaKED Loc: Lakes Region, New Hampshire & NE Florida

If you want to play, you gotta pay….sometimes it better to trail the technology by one generation after the hardware/ software folks showcase the next best thing since canned beer. Usually, there’s a few dollars of value left in what you have for trade or sale. I’m more than happy to take hand-me-ups from my kids. I just offered my daughter $20 more than the “generous” Apple trade in value for her not so old Mac laptop. She was very happy to take my offer.

tedmoore Loc: Philadelphia

There are free MS Office alternatives available (you may not be able to replicate Publisher, though). Google is your friend…

tedmoore Loc: Philadelphia

Excellent point/advice. Thank you!

tedmoore Loc: Philadelphia

Great advice! Thanks

tcthome Loc: NJ

The electronics/software trap? Well as many photos that I take (usually more than half, maybe even 75% get deleted) I guess it might be cheaper than film? If I update past the D850, if I stay Nikon or go any new camera, probably will have to upgrade software, etc. Part of the game.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Prefabs off the shelf almost always have a bottleneck somewhere in the build. Anything to boost the profits. The ones that don't cost more than a custom build.

wireloose

Is it very old? I just replaced my graphics card yesterday, Office needed réactivation, online declined that, if you do it over the phone took 5 minutes and I am back in business. Had the same with Windows last time I upgraded my motherboard and processor.

FrumCA

I upgraded to Win 10 years ago with no problems or slow down and then recently purchased a new backup desktop with Win 11. To keep up with feature improvements in applications you will have to bite the bullet and upgrade your OS. New monitors are relatively inexpensive as well. Time to upgrade I think😀😀.

dbjazz Loc: Long Island, NY

I feel your pain. My car just told me that my phone is too old.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

photoman43

My experience with old windows pcs was that win 10 ran faster than win 7. I am still using Microsoft Home and Student 2010 on a win 10 pro 64 bit laptop and desktop. If your version is still 32 bit, you may be able to update it to 64 bit. You will need your installation disk and your License code.

Double B Loc: South Carolina

Unfortunately we are all caught in Moores law where they predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip would double every year, and they did in a single layer. So as time goes on and engineers get more cleaver they have learned how to make 3D transistor layers in semiconductors.

Hence the advancement of technology we all love, in my case Dual Expeed 6 processors in mu Z 6II. My first computer was an IBM 286 with 640k of ram and dual 5 1/4" floppy drives, I at that time thought I was king.... Fortunately those days are gone and technology has advanced to where we are today.

In our world of photography we still need the ability to correct our images and begin thinking about workflow and how we manage it all. We have operating systems, processor speed, and RAM to contend with. It is never fun or easy to upgrade computers, but there comes a time, depending on need of course, I'm sure someone out there is still running that old IBM; when the transition is necessary.

Just like the excitement of new camera systems the computer and software should really follow suite. Technology changes and so does software making our jobs easier. In my opinion Adobe, albeit Photoshop is wonderful software, is too expensive for what I use it for, I am not a professional photographer. I don't want to pay for a subscription service that I might not use for several months, which is why I found Affinity Photo and Designer serve me well. Then you have workflow to consider Adobe has become the king out there but here to are other options without subscriptions...

So the end of the long story, PHRubin, I feel your pain but you may have some options to help with your system depending on whether it is a desktop or laptop.

Here are some things you could consider to boost your speed and make Windows 10 more friendly:

- Increase the amount of RAM you have, in some laptops they have proprietary built in RAM so this is not possible but it is worthwhile checking out. In an older system it will be very inexpensive. In a Desktop, this is easy peasy...

- Consider changing your hard drive from the old SATA hard drive to a solid state drive.
Sata hard drives are rated to last 10-years it is not a point of if they will fail, it is when, and here is the point that panic sets in...
The first indication that a hard drive is on the way out will be if a computer is getting slower and slower. The programs take several minutes to load. Second, the computer keeps freezing just after you try to load a program. It stays like that for minutes, and you can’t do anything about it.

This is of course is where backup comes in, personally I have 20 TB of backup and storage where I don't store anything that I don't want to lose on the laptop I use.
Changing hard drives is an easy task and most manufacturers provide the new drive with cloning software built in so it will transfer all operating systems and software. There is a tremendous amount of information on the web regarding these upgrades if you decide this is a better more cost effect path for you to pursue.
Hope this help....
BB

photoman43

I also use Microcenter to custom build my desktops. I always add extra cooling fans and make sure they are silent. My reasons follow comments already made. I am using two of them right now.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

You know, you could simplify things and just shoot JPEG and all this goes away

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I hate those flash adapters, often required on camcorders. I bought one for a Sony, but it didn't fit. What happened to standardization. I also find it annoying when an old version of software won't open files made with the new version.