Jeez, guess I should be more careful. For years I've just opened the case and blasted the dust with my shop air compressor. 50psi or so works really good. It's especially fun cleaning all the fans in the thing this way, they get spinning so fast they scream! Doesn't work too good on keyboards though, tends to send keys flying all over the place.
My computers just keep on going ...
Then my money - and the fact that you indicted yours must be of a certain age - tells me you aren't running Windows 8.
I tried to load in an old Microsoft Office Word thing I had from an old unit of mine - legit, and with code - and got as far as opening the document page, and on the very first letter I struck, up popped a notice telling me there was a missing line of code and I couldn't proceed any further.
Today, the shop saw me yet again, and they suggested I try using Libre Office. I free-downloaded two sets of files, and the icon sits on the desktop, but when I click, left does zero and right brings up a list that helps not in the least to get me to a blank page where I can start to write a letter. This entire pile of crap cost me just under a friggin' thousand euros, and my e-mails via Thunderbird suck (I can't get to use the perfectly working old Windows Mail route anymore), and though I can see all the incoming mail, I've lost most of my outward bound efforts, and the order of arrivals keeps changing too: one day the last are first, some days they are a mixed bag, and sometimes they work as hoped: last one on top of the pile!
And please, don't anybody suggest I contact the Microsoft site: I have, and get nowhere. Try them sometime and attempt to send them a direct e-mail outlining anything that doesn't fit neat little boxes. Like so many multies, they hide their real contact details because they don't want to know, and probably because they understand all too well that they'd spend their entire day answering problems they have sold on to folks like me. At any rate, that's the way that the Microsoft experience of today strikes me.
No wonder I don't sleep very well anymore. Progress? What's that - something to do with pilgrims?
Rob C
P.S. I have managed to defeat the beast yet again: I
can get the Libre Office to work! The problem wasn't theirs, the problem was the roundabout way that W8 forces one to do things. Having icon on the desktop isn't enough: you have to do more than that now. So thanks to Libre after all!
