New laptop 'bricked' by hubby ... GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[TheMobileWanderer]

Bitwarden is just a password manager, how can it brick your laptop?
I have it on every device and it works great.

Most things work great; until they don't.

It was BitLocker that bricked one of mine. I had no knowledge of it being in my laptop and had no keys for it, which meant I had to make a complete new install when it prevented windows 10 from booting. I only need windows for one specific piece of software which doesn't work on anything other than windows and for which I haven't found an alternative. And, of course, when windows 12 comes out ill have no idea whether that software will work on it.

Stuff like that hasn't happened on linux.

 

[TheMobileWanderer]

OK. I have windows 11 and office 365. I don’t seem to have the issues others have but OH badgers me about linux and libra but can I still use outlook which is my email because I certainly wouldn’t want to change that.

You should take a look at Thunderbird. I dumped outlook so far back, I dont recall when. Probably 2002. Does everything I need for my emails.

 

[Minxy]

Bitwarden is just a password manager, how can it brick your laptop?
I have it on every device and it works great.

Well spotted! It's BitLocker which the flipping auto correct changed to BitWarden probably as I had looked at the latter a while back.

 

[Minxy]

It was BitLocker that bricked one of mine. I had no knowledge of it being in my laptop and had no keys for it, which meant I had to make a complete new install when it prevented windows 10 from booting.

That was my problem but even though I had the keys it wouldn't accept any, it must eventually change which one it wants as I was later able to match up with one I had and gained access again.

 

[Minxy]

Can you try it on an old system first?

Yes, I've got my old HP which won't run Windows 11 so I can try it on that.

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[CeeJay13]

Oooo, forgot to add - you can try a Live USB/DVD version without affecting your Laptop's own OS (Windows)

 

[Gromett]

Tried Linux Mint about 4 years ago on an old HP laptop.
Complete disaster. Just kept crashing.
Never again
Once bitten etc....

Something wrong with your laptop I would think.

Linux is the most rock solid stable of all the OS's (with a nod to OS/X which is based on a similar unix background)

If you use an Android phone or tablet you are using Linux.
If you visit pretty much any website on the internet, that is more than likely to be running on Linux.
Even Microsoft's Azure cloud service has over 60% of it's virtualized servers running Linux.
ALL 500 of the top 500 supercomputers run on Linux. (source in case you don't believe me).
Even NASA dropped Windows and installed Linux on the ISS in 2013 with a stated reason that it required more stability (source)

Your laptop is an isolated event, which makes me think it is more likely to be your laptop or a component in the laptop

 

[Gromett]

I've often thought of using Linux but it's like a foreign language all the different varieties etc. . On the ops point we use google apps all the time now rather than office etc.

There is no need for any confusion to be honest. There are a couple of flavours/distributions that most (normal) people use. For me I always recommend Linux Mint Cinnamon edition.
Install that and you don't have to worry about any of the varieties. Just use it like you would any other computer, tablet or phone.

I HAVE to work with multiple distributions due to my job. But for the most part I use Debian on Servers and Linux Mint on anything with a screen. Linux mint is also Debian based.

The only ones I would advise anyone to avoid are
Redhat based or derived distros. Bad faith actors.
Arch Linux based or derived., Highly technical and not for the beginner.
Gentoo If you know you know but basically you have to build it from source. There is no install disk.

Other than that the flavours are a matter of choice/taste. I am very conservative. I want a good sized team, a team that doesn't do change for change sake. Linux Mint has been my goto for over a decade now.

 

[fred_jb]

When I used LibreOffice a few years ago I found that somewhere in the settings you can select the default format for each app. If you set these to the Microsoft formats, file formats become a non-issue.

When I retired and no longer needed Office 365 for business use, I changed to a Microsoft 365 family licence for £79 per year. This gives you pretty much all of the MS apps including Outlook which I use. The licence can be shared with 5 users, each of which can install it on multiple devices.

There was a glitch with this recently when they said the price would be going up to I think £115 to include CoPilot AI. Doing some research on this I found it was possible to avoid this increase by threatening to terminate the contract. In my case I found it was even easier. I just went into my account and turned off auto-renew at which point it asked if I wanted to continue with what they now call the basic version for £79. I think it is good value at this especially for multiple users, we have 3 linked to it, but I wasn't happy to pay more.

 

[Guigsy]

My desktop was running low on storage, so I put a new SSD in it. I intended to try dual booting it with Windows and Linux. I installed Pop OS Linux a few months ago... Never got around to putting Windows on it. My main concern was games, which all run fine. Whenever I think I need an app, there's always something in the software centre. The other week, I need to stitch some PDFs together, took about a minute to find an app and install it. Everything worked on first boot. Zero crashes. Nothing stands out... because everything works so cleanly and simply, I don't even think about it. Compared to how long it takes to set up Windows, it's ridiculous.

Only wrinkle is my Garmin bike satnav only updates in Windows. So I might try to put Windows in a virtual machine... if I can be bothered.

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[Lenny HB]

I was going to buy a newer copy of Office from Groupon as there are some cheap offers on there at the moment, but it's got me wondering about abandoning that idea and going with Libre Office which I've just downloaded which I'll have a play with tomorrow.

Be careful with those Mel they are normally corporate copies and Microsoft catch up with them and brick them.

We run corporate copies on our PC's but ours are legal ones from when Mi was working downloaded direct from Microsoft for £9 each.
With companies that have hundreds of licences Microsoft occasionally do deals for employees.

I bought Mi a new Laptop for her birthday found we can't load or transfer office, trying to persuade her to use Libre Office I use it most of the time much easier to use than MS Office.
Don't want to pay a few hundred quid for a legal copy of office and don't want 365.

The other option is Google sheets only disadvantage is your data it stored on Google cloud.

 

[Lazyboy]

I think it's time to 'brick' hubby...

But keep your thumbs out of the way!!

 

[Vanman]

Another shout for CJS-CD Keys , Windows 11 Pro £9.99 Full office 24 suites under £25.

Nothing much wrong with Libre office, but why bother with what is 'tricky' (file save formats etc.) for £25?

IMHO Linux is Marmite. My Brother uses it but he is techy and it takes some setting up. Many softwares (CCTV etc. need to be run in a DOS window or they won't work).

 

[Guigsy]

IMHO Linux is Marmite. My Brother uses it but he is techy and it takes some setting up. Many softwares (CCTV etc. need to be run in a DOS window or they won't work).

I've got a lot of gizmos and nerd toys. Very little stuff needs Windows now. Pretty much everything is web based and phone apps (which is a different future problem to worry about).

And it's waaaay faster to set up than Windows. I can get Linux installed on a PC from a USB stick, with it running Libre Office, opening your favourite web site and pulling email in 15 minutes. It did take me about an hour to get one of my games working (Battle.net needed installing manually), but most stuff in Steam runs seamlessly.

I even use Ubuntu Linux on a mini PC that I use on my bike trainer to do Zwift virtual races. That has to connect to 6 different Bluetooth devices. Then displays the 3d game virtual world on the wall mounted TV infront of me. Runs better than Windows... even though it's not supposed to run in Linux.

 

[hja]

You should take a look at Thunderbird. I dumped outlook so far back, I dont recall when. Probably 2002. Does everything I need for my emails.

But then I would have to change my email address?

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[Gromett]

But then I would have to change my email address?

No, Thunderbird support IMAP4 and POP3 the same as outlook.

I have been using Thunderbird for 20 years now. I got fed up of outlook crashing and corrupting my .pst file. It was so traumatic I still remember the file extension all these years on.
Never had a single crash with Thunderbird and it is faster.

edit: You can use them side by side if you use IMAP4 to fetch emails to try it out.

 

[TheMobileWanderer]

But then I would have to change my email address?

Nope. I think I recall that it took me a while to get my head around the concept of how they work.

You use the email address and its password, the IP address of the server the email account is on and the port settings (automated by thunderbird) and also, setting it for IMAP (not to use POP3), and it should connect and display your emails. Setup on one device won't affect the setup on another or the setup on a different email client (the email software). So; download Thunderbird (If you're interested) and set up your email account in it and it won't affect the existing setting on your current email software. Thunderbird actually provides a step-by-step setup process which helps too.

It may also help, to explain that when you have done that, you will have your emails in both your current software and in Thunderbird too. And if you delete one email message in Thunderbird, IMAP will delete it from the server, which will also show it deleted in your current software, once it refreshes itself.

My OH (technically reluctant) has her email account connected through three email apps on her phone; The default email client, which is rubbish, as well as Gmail and Thunderbird.
Using Gmail confused her because her account isn't a gmail account so, I downloaded Thunderbird and had her account set up in minutes. She hasn't looked back and I am not plagued with requests to assist as was the case with the other two.

 

[jerryz]

Open office is excellent too,,

 

[Saucer]

Bitwarden is just a password manager, how can it brick your laptop?
I have it on every device and it works great.

You and me both

 

[Saucer]

I was looking for a free alternative to Excel for my large iPad and am now using OnlyOffice which is great

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[Gromett]

Open office is excellent too,,

It's not up to the LibreOffice standard and is dying. There are very few developers still working on it.
Better to stick with LibreOffice to be honest.

 

[Gromett]

Open office is excellent too,,

 

[Gromett]

I was looking for a free alternative to Excel for my large iPad and am now using OnlyOffice which is great

I just looked at that. It is an online only jobby. So won't be quite as fast as one installed on your local machine and will not work when the internet goes down.
I also have concerns in that the documents by default would be stored only in the cloud and if you rely on that you may get bitten.

I am not saying it is not good, or right for some people. Just there are issues with cloud only software like this and google.

I for one do not trust cloud software and for the most part where possible avoid it and use locally installed software.

 

[Gromett]

I was looking for a free alternative to Excel for my large iPad and am now using OnlyOffice which is great

Am I reading the price correctly?

 

[cyberyacht]

Never had this trouble back in the day of the abacus. If you had a crash, you just had to thread another bead on.

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[Jon Stewart]

After nursing dozens of PCs & laptops through thousands of updates since before windows, now I'm free from the workplace, I have decided to dump Microsoft.

I admit it's better than it used to be at repairing itself but the fact you have to hold your breath, and keep your fingers crossed, every time the 'updates' screen appears is just too stressful.

Also, I don't like being continously badgered into using OneDrive/365 and detest their 'making it better' mantra when quite a lot is just 'change for change's sake'.

However, for some strange reason, I am happy to use my Google accounts, several of them, across loads of devices.

So, on the basis Google knows everything about me already, I experimented with migrating some old laptops to Chrome-OS and was pleasantly surprised.

Simple but effective, and more than enough functionality for most folk. The familiarity across laptop, tablet & phone (and use of expansive app store) made the transition really easy for a very reluctant IT user (ie. my other half).

However, Linux** may well be the solution for my main PC ('cos it'll be fun to experiment with!), with an offline windows machine for any legacy/obscure applications with no Linux/chrome equivalent.

**Edit: it's good to know we have some Linux experts on here I can pester when I get stuck

Not to mention a live Linux thumbdrive to try and fix bricked windows machines, or recover data!

 

[The Wino]

I've recently started using MS 365 and find it excellent but I'll be the first to admit it needs a monthly subscription so on cost grounds it doesn't compare with the products mentioned in this thread.

What I like about it is there's an Android version which I've installed on my phone and tablet. While walking the dog the other day I had a thought about something I'm working on at the moment so I opened the document on my phone, made the change then closed it. Back home I could open the document again and continue working on the now updated document. All the files are stored remotely so loss of a device, fire or whatever would have no impact. You can keep copies locally on your device if you want.

You can do just the same with Google docs etc free.

 

[DBK]

You can do just the same with Google docs etc free.

I know and I use that as well sometimes but I find Word easier to use for I want. However, I should look at GDs again, if only to save money! Thanks for the prompt.

 

[CeeJay13]

Not to mention a live Linux thumbdrive to try and fix bricked windows machines, or recover data!

Knoppix? Or at least, that is what I have been using for years and years!

 

[Lenny HB]

Another shout for CJS-CD Keys , Windows 11 Pro £9.99 Full office 24 suites under £25.

Until Microsoft catch up with it and brick it.

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