[KFA]

I'm hoping someone can help me, i've tried everything but nothing helps. Every time i've tried to open an office application (i have word, exel, outlook and power point) I get an error message saying:

"This application must be installed to run. Please run setup from the location where you originally installed the application."

The only thing i've done recently is download Easy Message and IE 6 and i can't work out whats wrong. I don't have the disc to reinstall it and I don't know of anyone who has it. Has anyone got any ideas, and before you say it I know this isn't a techie site but I don't know what else to do, I need it for college and can't afford to buy it

[KFA]

Its Office 2000 and Windows '98 by the way.

[timb]

of course you own an office 2000 license because it came with your computer or something. so give me your address and ill send you a copied CD, which of course is perfectly legal because we both own licenses.

the problem almost definately needs a reinstall

[StaticFish]

When you installed office, you clicked the minimal amount to be installed, so it needs the setup disk every time. Next time you get an office disk click complete installation and you wont get this problem.

I might be able to send you an office disk if you want

[KFA]

I'm not sure what to do. I was thinkng of getting a new one, but I would need somewhere that might let me pay it off over 3 terms or something. I don't work much because of home commitments so I'm not sure if i'd get credit.

I've had it 3 years and it only has 64mb ram. It crashes about 5 times a night and i'm * off with it.

[timb]

you should be able to replace the box unit with one you build yourself for about £200 - £250, using the monitor and peripherals from your old one.

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

only 64mb of ram bah only four times my computers....

[KFA]

I think i should get a new monitor, this one is about 10 years old and is due for retirement. I saw one in Dixons and PC World for £499.99 which i thought was pretty good.

Its got 256mb RAM, 80gb hard drive (i'd ever use it all) and its Celeron which i think would be ok. I don't really understand the difference between Celeron, Athlon and Pentium 4 anyway.

[timb]

Celeron is a cut down version of the P4 so the same clock speed P4 and Celeron will not perform the same. An Athlon is made by a different company. It is there flag ship product and is made to compete with the P4. However at the moment Athlons aren't available at as high speeds as P4s.

For general desktop use a celeron would be fine. For lots of 3d games you might want something better but would still be ok.

FYI the Duron is to the Athlon what the Celeron is to the P4.

[Dickie]

Don't buy a PC from dixons whatever you do.

All intergrated crap inside those machines!!

[Aaron]

Don't buy a PC from dixons whatever you do.

All intergrated crap inside those machines!!

are you speaking from experience?

[Dickie]

I'm speaking from knowledge.

They get you by having sound and graphics on the motherboard. Hence, if there's a problem with one, there's a problem with all.

Plus performance is not as good as having seperate components.

I know this as i build PC's and they tend to be faster and more reliable than the High Street ones that also come with loads of shit software on that no-one needs!

[KFA]

Where would be the best place to get one from then? I've heard bad things about PC World too, theres not that many places around here really

By the way, thank you all for your help

[timb]

make it yourself, its a piece of pish anyone can do it. if your looking for a work PC with only light gaming i'd say integrated sound audio and LAN are all fine. as long as you check the motherboard has an AGP SLOT so you can ugprade later.

if you want us to put together a list of components from DABS for a nice cheap PC thatll work we can do it for you. it really is just a matter of plugging stuff in.

[timb]

also if u decide to buy retail, youll probably be best buying from a reputable net supplier. local independent retailers will be expensive and large retailers suck

[timb]

go to http://www.microlanduk.com they have some nice deals, including configure your own PC where u select the spec and they build it. their cheapest one is about £380 for a fairly decent spec

i've used them before for one of my major upgrades

[KFA]

Thanks for the advice, still not decided what to do, I have to wait for my loan to come in. Also got another question. I've got about 500 mp3 on this computer and I'd hate to lose them, is there anyway to transfer them to a new computer?

[Aaron]

i dont know how expensive it and it depends if you have a network card, but try networking your old computer to your new computer.

[timb]

Two network cards and a piece of cable should cost about £15 if you buiy a home network 'kit'.

[Spoon]

If you don't want to network the pcs, you could always just take the hard drive out and put it in the new computer. I did when I took a few GB of mp3 from home to work.

[timb]

yes, but then you will have to change the jumpers so that it is set as the slave and not the master

[Spoon]

If it's a modern motherboard, the hard drive jumpers can be left unset and the motherboard works it out.
One thing you've got to look out for is if trying to read an NTFS formatted drive in Win98, you need a special app you can download to do that.

[KFA]

Thanks again for the advice, they all sound a bit complicated for me, i'll just have to sort something out

[bob_fleming]

if you are looking for a cheap but fairly good computer try http://www.scan.co.uk they have deals of the day on every day (suprisingly) and sometimes they sell off whole comuters and u have to supply the disk drive and they are genrally quite good

hope that helps

[Sidders]

This is slightly unrelated, but I got my new PC today. I might be going on about it a bit.