
The other way is to go with Open Office and Thunderbird, which are free and offer pretty much everything the average user needs in terms of email and word processing. And everything is permanently in Beta mode, so certain common software like Google Earth and Spotify are hard to install. But Ubuntu, although easier to use than the old days of Linux, is not yet for amateurs.

Am not sure the software restriction policy is valid for Musicmatch now. Its one of those wonderful music players that has a good interface and had some very good functions like super tagging, etc. You can get *almost* everything you need on that operating system and say a curse on both Microsoft and Apple. About a year ago, someone posted following: andyarok - Ap1:47am I would love to have Musicmatch Jukebox portable. The way to avoid all of this is to go with Ubuntu, if you want to try that route.

Do you think for a moment that Microsoft is going to let Office 2000 run on Win8? Ha! Microsoft can only sell new versions of Office, for example, if it breaks the old versions so they won’t work on the newer operating systems.

Microsoft and Apple are founded on the principle of planned obsolescence. But really, clinging to Win7 is just postponing the inevitable. Yeah, but it’s an HP and I have not had good experiences with their computers, although their printers and scanners are great.
