Microsoft Windows Vista
 

Hi
As you may gather I am pretty swiched OFF when it comes to Computers.
My computer had VISTA installed when I got it but I recon this is a joke by PB. My question is this, "is there ANY OTHER operating system I could use beside Windows ???. I understand that Microsoft !!! have a monopoly on the systems that most computer manufacturers have to usebut there MUST BE something else ???. :ok::ok:

Do you want to play with operating systems, or do you want to do something useful? Most people simply need email, a web browser (which may cover the email), and something similar to Microsoft Office. Stick with Vista, it's only an operating system and it gets the job done.

You could try something like UBUNTU (Google it). It's free and it's highly rated by a lot of folk.

You can have a choice at bootup of selecting which OS you want to run.

Try SUSE linux v10 it's better than UBUNTU imho and also free.

And it installs as a dual boot system hassle free.

If you have limited computing knowledge, stick with Windows.
Linux is perfectly good enough but for this you'd have to learn a whole new operating system - Not something you want to be doing if you aren't into computers.

There is nothing wrong with Vista....You will find it's the most friendly for the beginner...Only other alternative really is to buy a Mac.
What are you finding difficult with Vista?

Using it to do anything meaningful. :ugh:

I can't understand people being unable to use Vista.....Many of the old XP stick in the muds just won't do anything with Vista out of bloody mindedness.
The OP is not a computer buff by their own admission. There should be no reason why he can't use it straight from the box. It's all very straightforward.

But windows 7 is excellent, very rarely go back back to XP. I'm afraid that Vista was a broken system when it was released.

He's just trying to catch up with Unix/Linux, which for decades has delighted in not letting you do things because you "don't have permission" ... when you own the ****ing machine and really don't want it to tell you what's allowed ... on an ordinary day things just fail, on a really really good day you might be told "access denied" (without being told what access was denied to which file, of course, as that would be too wordy for Unix/Linux) and asked to "contact your systems administrator", as if there was such a person, a hangover from the days when Unix was a multi-user system running on a PDP7 with a full time BOFH to keep it running.

If you use any UNIX-type system, even Mac OS X, you want to be a normal user most of the time. That way, you don't have to tiptoe around wondering if you might damage something. I don't know what the score is on the Mac, but on Linux, for those times when you need more, you have the "sudo" command, or "gksudo" for running graphical applications as root. Or, you can go "old school" and change the root password to give you full control over the root account - just be careful, it's a loaded gun. (My current netbook installation is the first time I haven't done that, actually.)

As for problems installing Ubuntu "Feisty"... that was 4 versions, or two years ago. It's gotten a lot better, and the standard disc works as a "Live CD" too. If you fancy trying it again, I suggest waiting till mid April, when v.04 "Jaunty" should be on the cover disks of the Linux magazines on the shelves - unless you don't mind downloading huge ISO files and burning discs, that is.

I have a different problem,

I have inherited a MacBook. It has both OS X and Vista installed. I wish to remove Vista and use OS X, how do I do this?

I have backed up iTunes library and photos.