Cheap College PC

[MobileCheese]

I want to buy my sister a PC for her to do her college work on and may be surf the web, nothing fancy, budget max £350. Anyone got any recommendations, both new or places that do second hand refurbs ? I noticed nearlly all the new stuff runs VISTA, would I be able to run Office 2000 on that ? Ive not used VISTA and know nothing about PC's really.

Cheers

[xoggoth]

Vista is sorta tulipe, hammers your disk and occasionally has a minute's nap for no obvious reason, but useable enough if you keep a separate user ID just to do instals on. Office 2000 does run on Vista and there are free upgrades for it. Common bug reported on net, and I have never been able to cure is that it takes over half a minute to open an office file initially. (Some on net report much longer)

[Sockpuppet]

Get a cheap £350 laptop and put Win Xp on it.

Problem solved.

[~Craig~]

Get a cheap £350 laptop and put Win Xp on it.

Problem solved.

Yep it will fly too.

[MobileCheese]

Get a cheap £350 laptop and put Win Xp on it.

Problem solved.

Ive got an XP CD for my home PC, but someone mentioned that as I have used it on my home PC it wont work again on a different PC, is that correct that the CD is tied to the machine. XP seems pricey at £150plus on its own.

Seen this at Dabs has XP professional on £334, does it seem a good deal ? http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx...1012&InMerch=1

[TheFaQQer]

Ive got an XP CD for my home PC, but someone mentioned that as I have used it on my home PC it wont work again on a different PC, is that correct that the CD is tied to the machine. XP seems pricey at £150plus on its own.

Seen this at Dabs has XP professional on £334, does it seem a good deal ? http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx...1012&InMerch=1

Yes, that's right - the licence is tied to the computer, or the company if you have a site licence.

Comet are selling an Acer Aspire with Vista Home Premium for £329 or there abouts (my sister has just rung me to ask my opinion).

In answer to your original question, I see no reason why Office 2000 would not work, but students (and teachers) can get a cheap licence for MS Office anyway, so it could be a good opportunity to upgrade.

[NoddY]

New Dell InspironTM 530 with 17in flat panel, currently retailing for £359 on their website. That includes VAT and delivery. Not bad!

[DBA_bloke]

Use Google & eBay. Thank you.

[daviejones]

Ive got an XP CD for my home PC, but someone mentioned that as I have used it on my home PC it wont work again on a different PC, is that correct that the CD is tied to the machine. XP seems pricey at £150plus on its own.

Seen this at Dabs has XP professional on £334, does it seem a good deal ? http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx...1012&InMerch=1

Download the Black XP 3.90 from a guy called Gamerman...it comes with lots of free software...apparently...and I have heard that it never needs activating either ;-)))