Many thanks for your sympathy
Capn Bloggs.
Subsequent to a conversation I had with our "IT man" who looks after the company's system (comprising 1 x server, 8 x PCs + accounting software) etc. on early Friday afternoon, I down-loaded Firefox (having also considered Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari). I did some rapid research online, and found that IBM recommended that Firefox be the standard browser that all their employees should have installed at work. So, the installation was rapid and entirely trouble-free which was a huge relief - all my IE8 connections, security settings, favourites etc. appear to have been taken into account. I was able to immediately check if I'd won anything on last Wednesday's lotto draw (2 EUR?!) and play the Euromillions on Friday (no, I was not the French national who won the EUR 70 million+ jackpot).
Our "IT man" also commented on my ca. 2003 DELL DIMENSION XPS hardware (Pentium 4-266Mhz-512MB RAM expandable to 1024MB): Absolutely no point trying to upgrade to Windows 7 (any version of - I asked if he might have some licenses that he might have recovered or have spare for sale, no) on this hardware. In his experience, even Windows 7 needs 2-4GB RAM to work well. And considers Windows 8 or 8.1 to be untested and too recent to have much to say about these (other than 8 being a complete disaster, verdict out on 8.1) other than to affirm that you'd need a very recent PC equipped with a min. of 4GB RAM for either to work satisfactorily. And didn't think that DELL's recent offers (around EUR 4-500 excl. VAT for their lowest-priced office PCs) were worth considering from a hardware point-of-view. Of course he might say that, as 5 out of the 8 PCs in our office are old and still running XP PRO. He's prepared a quotation for their replacement before April 2014, perhaps I could "wangle-in" one for use at home into that...?!
PS. Still using IE8 for PPRuNe though. (I "checked" the necessary box concerning whether or not Firefox should be my "default browser". So now have 3 web browsers available (MS IE8, customised IE7 supplied by the ISP and Firefox) and pinned to the start menu. I don't consider them as wives (or I a Muslim). I prefer France's President Hollande's version - they're just
concubines (unlimited in numbers under Islam and apparently also as 1st ladies in France)...
