Windows 7 End of Support

[Brds7t7]

Why should I buy again as I already own a working earlier version?

If all you use is Word and you don't want to pay MS over-inflated prices, you could try the free libreoffice:
Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Fun Project - Fantastic People

I was using office 2007 for years, but I've ditched it now and use libreoffice. It does everything I used MS office for.

There's a learning curve, but it's free to try though, so you could always install it alongside MS Office and give it a try. If it doesn't suit your needs then just uninstall it and go back to MS office.

The only MS products I still use are Windows and one Hotmail account, which I've had for about 20 years, and will need for the foreseeable future. I can still get everything done exactly the same as I did with MS products. Obviously that's different for every user though.

 

[Melchior]

I use Libreoffice too... lol

 

[michael diemer]

There are several other free Office suites. Not saying Libre is bad, but it's not the best. I recently switched to Free Office. Then I upgraded to the paid version, because they offered it to me at 28.00, a huge savings, which was all my wife needed to say "Buy it." Me, I was happy with the free version...It is a bit leaner, only has three parts, a text editor, spreadsheet and presentation app. Libre has at least 2 more but all most people use are the text editor and spreadsheet. Of the various choices, Free Office looks the most like MS Office, if that is important.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

If all you use is Word and you don't want to pay MS over-inflated prices, you could try the free libreoffice:
Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Fun Project - Fantastic People

I was using office 2007 for years, but I've ditched it now and use libreoffice. It does everything I used MS office for.

There's a learning curve, but it's free to try though, so you could always install it alongside MS Office and give it a try. If it doesn't suit your needs then just uninstall it and go back to MS office.

The only MS products I still use are Windows and one Hotmail account, which I've had for about 20 years, and will need for the foreseeable future. I can still get everything done exactly the same as I did with MS products. Obviously that's different for every user though.

I use Libreoffice too... lol

Me three. I actually prefer it to MS Office.I haven't used my copy of MS Office 2010 in a couple of years now even though I still have it installed.

As Brds7t7 said, there is a learning curve for Libre Office but it's usable from the get go.

 

[blue skies]

I use Libreoffice too... lol

When I switched to Windows 7 way back in 2010, I was so upset that it didn't include basic Word. I ended up using Open Office, and then later LibreOffice, and have always been extremely happy with them. (I also switched to free and open source Thunderbird email client back then too, because Microsoft discontinued Outlook Express... and years of using those free and open source MS replacements made it particularly easy for me to switch to Linux now that they are dumping the awesome Windows 7.)

IIRC, last time I installed LibreOffice on Windows I was able to choose to install whichever parts I wanted -- Writer, the word processing program and Calc, the Excel type program. If that isn't an option and/or you want to try a different word processing program... AbiWord still gets very positive reviews, I think.

 

[townsbg]

Since when did Windows come with Word? It might have been slapped on by the vendor as a trial but it isn't part of Windows and to my knowledge has never come with it. Are you referring to wordpad? If so that's different. Oh Wordpad does come with 7.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Since when did Windows come with Word? It might have been slapped on by the vendor as a trial but it isn't part of Windows and to my knowledge has never come with it. Are you referring to wordpad? If so that's different. Oh Wordpad does come with 7.

XP came with a basic version of MS Word (not just Wordpad) as part of its Works Suite.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Again, you said it....Word was a part of Works, not an integral part of Windows.
Works was a real POC!



I've spent hours, converting Works files to MS Word format, for a little old lady, who was getting rid of her old PC and getting a new one, without Works.


Today we have a viable choice, for a replacement for MS Office. I gave up on office back in 2007, and I now use only "Open Office" for my spreadsheet work. It's FREE!


Cheers Mates,

 

[michael diemer]

Word as well as Works came with Windows 98. Or, at least they were part of the package I got when we got our first computer. It came with a boatload of CD, including Word and Works. (I personally liked Works, and used it as my text editor). We paid 2,000.00 for that sucker. Real money back then...

 

[z3r010]

That wasn't standard with 98.

 

[z3r010]

XP came with a basic version of MS Word (not just Wordpad) as part of its Works Suite.

The works suite didn't come with XP, if it came with yours it must have been bundled by an OEM.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The works suite didn't come with XP, if it came with yours it must have been bundled by an OEM.

Curious. I had five XP machines (three or four different manufacturers) and each one had Works and Word on them.

 

[Brds7t7]

Yeah I think those must have been included by the OEMs. I have boxed retail versions of XP home and pro and none of those include Works or any type of Office suite.

Think XP only came with Wordpad (or was that only included in 7? It's been a while since I used XP).

Edit: I just checked, yes XP did come with Wordpad. I forgot Wordpad had been included since '98.

 

[townsbg]

I agree. Works doesn't come on XP. I have retail versions and a couple of VMs now and never had works installed on Windows. My parents had a computer that came with the whole works suite plus word but the retailer did that. Just because the manufacturer puts it on a few computers doesn't mean that it comes with Windows anymore than if they slapped on norton or mcafee. Wordpad does and that gives a little functionality but not much more than notepad.

Works was a real POC

 

[RoWin7]

I started using using Open Office a few years ago, and uninstalled Office. It's free and open-source, and the files are compatible with Office.

 

[blue skies]

Since when did Windows come with Word? It might have been slapped on by the vendor as a trial but it isn't part of Windows and to my knowledge has never come with it. Are you referring to wordpad? If so that's different. Oh Wordpad does come with 7.

Huh. I thought I had MS Word on my old XP computers. Maybe it was just Wordpad. At some point I remember being upset because I could no longer use all those .doc files I had saved, which I think is what motivated me to switch to Open Office. Was when Windows 7 came out, or am I just remembering everything about that wrong?

I have a 2005 laptop that had XP on it (which I used on rare occasions offline,) but I installed Peppermint OS linux distro on it recently, so I can no longer check.

Wow, MS Works! I haven't thought about that in a long time. So that was just a trial suite? I was thinking that was what they called the bundled Outlook Express and Word etc... but I guess not.

 

[RoWin7]

Wordpad reads both .doc files and OpenOffices's .odt files, OO reads docs and Wordpad's rtf files... We're covered all around.

Most people don't know they have Wordpad, which has the same functions as a basic Word. Lady Fitzgerald--Wordpad has a lot more than Notepad. You can format on it and insert images. A simple document would look exactly like a Word doc. You can write an entire book on it, if you want to skip the Table of Contents and page numbering.



Isn't LibreOffice just the latest version of OpenOffice? Does it also create odt files?

 

[Brds7t7]

Isn't LibreOffice just the latest version of OpenOffice? Does it also create odt files?

Libreoffice is a newer fork of OpenOffice and does tend to get updated more often.
.odt is the default file type in both LO and OO, although I've set mine to .docx by default.

I don't know if this is still the case, but I read somewhere a few years ago that they both use different licences, which means features from OO can be incorporated into LO, but not the other way round.

They're both pretty similar, I just prefer LO personally.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Libreoffice is a newer fork of OpenOffice and does tend to get updated more often.
.odt is the default file type in both LO and OO, although I've set mine to .docx by default.

I don't know if this is still the case, but I read somewhere a few years ago that they both use different licences, which means features from OO can be incorporated into LO, but not the other way round.

They're both pretty similar, I just prefer LO personally.

 

[Brink]

Windows 7 end of life: Months from patch cut-off, millions still haven't upgraded | ZDNet