David, if you have your old PC to hand, if you go to the Microsoft website and click on their “buy windows 8 for ?24.99” – this doesn’t actually buy it but does download an assistant that first checks the PC and it’s programs for compatability with Windows 8. That way you might get an idea of your current portfolio.

I looked at upgrading from 7, but started finding reviews that said the user interface had gone all tablety, and desktop was hidden. So what Windows was originally good for (multi tasking) has been pushed aside in favour of the finger prodders. I’d love to know how you find it!

Email I’m afraid I’d heartily recommend Gmail, but obviously you need to create a Gmail account, or Outlook if you need a PC based solution. Neither give me problems or limitations.

David,

According to the Microsoft Windows 8 compatibility website Eudora v 7.1 is compatible but there are no user comments to confirm this. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1 included support for 64 bit OS such as Vista and it may be worth trying this although the Microsoft site says v11.0 is required and the Nuance site v12.

The link to v10.1 is **LINK**

Richard

If you dont have a touch screen, and hate the tablet "metro" interface, there is a little program called "Start 8" and it basically turns off the "auto start in metro" and gives you a Windows 7 style start button and desktop back. It essentially reverts the look of the user interface back to Windows 7 looking. You can still run the metro tablet desktop, but I just find it easier. It costs a couple of pounds. I am not affiliated with that company.

**LINK**

Thunderbird is a pretty good mail client, should feels miles ahead of Eudora if thats what you are used to.

Have you checked the microsoft website to see whether a download exists for MS Visual C++ Redistributable installer exists for Windows 8?

e.g **LINK**

Check right down the bottom. There are links to many different versions that you can download that may be compatible.

Graham

David,

Regarding "Dragon Naturally Speaking"

this document seems a good place to start.

MichaelG.

.

… followed by this.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/01/2013 14:24:49

I'm with you all the way on that one. I've used Eudora continuously since 1996. I've tried Outlook, OE, Thunderbird (which I use for newsgroups) and several others along the way. None of them have the flexibility to do things my way that Eudora does. And I don't recall there ever being an exploit aimed at Eudora (too small an installed base probably).

Please keep us informed on your efforts. I have a new, fast system that I've built and installed Win-8 on via the special offer. I'm just waiting to get a round tuit to load it up with my user programs before I replace my current machine with it. If I can't use Eudora I might just have to go back to XP on that machine.

Hi David,

I use Eudora OSE, which is a Thunderbird engine with the Eudora GUI grafted on. It gives you pretty much the look and feel of classic Eudora, along with the abilty to filter and direct posts to specific mailboxes.

Being Thunderbird based should mean that it's more likely to continue working through more Windows releases. I can't vouch for Win8 as I refuse to move from XP, but as it appears on windows8appstore there a good chance it will work.

Ben

I said I was waiting for one, not that I wanted one

Hi David,

Out of interest, which version of 7 did you use. Mine is 7.0.0.16 but on checking, I notice that Qualcomm did actually release a version 7.1.

Thanks, David. I downloaded that version and I'll give it a try

You mean my latest turn through the cycle:

– update hardware to the latest in all-singing, all-dancing fast components
– update to latest version of Windows
– latest version of Windows is so sluggish it robs 90% of the hardware performance gain

….. is actually going to work for me this time?