Geek stuff, computer misc

[Irulan]

1. Has anyone any experience comments on the newish Microsoft Security Essentials? It's getting good reviews. I have been using AVG for years, but the new version (2011) caused some serious froze-the-whole-system problems so I finally got it uninstalled and am back to AVG 9. Please don't suggest Norton: I believe it's a resource hog and I won't use it.

2. Does anyone know if it's possible to run both OFFICE 2003 and 2010 at the same time? We haven't upgraded yet. Well, we did but the function of 2003 in Excel is such that it changed how all our engineering charts display and it was a disaster, so we had to change back**. (many engineering companies had this problem) We've been using a document converter for the .docx files, but it's getting to the point where other than the excel issue, we should really upgrade. But, we'd like to be able to keep Excel as 2003.


**note on the excel upgrade. All the colors and tools for making charts were changed so that all the graphs and what not ( years and years worth) displayed different and/or inaccurately from the original input. The previous options were eliminated. MS told us Excel had been "improved" and there was no way to get the old tools back. We would have had to manualy re-do thousands of files to fix them to appear correctly, so we just reverted to 2003 and have stayed there.

ideas anyone?

[Cataboo]

I have office 2003 & 2010 installed on my mini - the only problem is sometimes when you're opening a document from a directory or whatever, it opens in the wrong version (and if I went into the control panel and changed the file extension linkages, I could fix that) - I just generally open the version of word or excel I want to be in, and then just open the documents through that.

[tulip]

I used AVG for a long time without any issues, but when I had my computer repaired (non-virus thing), the computer guy put Avast on. He says he runs it on all his computers and recommends it to his customers. He says its the best out there. It's also free.

I have newer Excel but often have to "save down" to share documents with clients who have 2007. I've experienced no problems doing that.

YMMV.

[hebe]

I run Microsoft Security Essentials and have had no problems with it at all, most of the time I don't even notice it's there.

[Catrin]

AVG has been a solid product for a very long time, but they really sc***ed up everyone with a 64-bit machine this past week with an update. Thankfully I changed to Avast about a year ago. I was getting ready to go back to AVG but after this week I will not do that as I have a 64-bit machine.

There isn't any problem with running multiple versions of Office on a Windows machine, can't speak for Macs. Just be aware that if you decide to uninstall one of them then it might cause issues with the other - or not - I've seen both outcomes. Many of the people I know at work have both versions of Excel for the very same reason you mention.

[Irulan]

AVG has been a solid product for a very long time, but they really sc***ed up everyone with a 64-bit machine this past week with an update. Thankfully I changed to Avast about a year ago. I was getting ready to go back to AVG but after this week I will not do that as I have a 64-bit machine.

There isn't any problem with running multiple versions of Office on a Windows machine, can't speak for Macs. Just be aware that if you decide to uninstall one of them then it might cause issues with the other - or not - I've seen both outcomes. Many of the people I know at work have both versions of Excel for the very same reason you mention.

Thanks Catrin. Maybe I'll just ask the geek child ( my elec. eng/comp sci kid) to help us set that up when he comes home for xmas.