Haven't seen all posts ,so if missed something -apologies .

Might be worth a lookin ASDA Stores at some of the laptops - one ,think it's Samung ,win7 ,3mb mem/320 hd ,not sure of CPU speed , £259,but AMD 300 .

@JRW

I am aware of that piece of software, but it should never have been needed; and why the hell does a file format need a 38MB file download to read FFS !!??

The file was also never easy to find, and has to be manually downloaded, which when you have people who are scared to change a mouse, causes a lot of hassle.

It also wont help you if someone sends you a document created with "MS Works", which uses a file format no other program uses, and again, no easy fix for MS Office,for every version I have tried (97, 2000, XP, 2003; & 2010); you have to go hunting the MS website.

Open Office and Libre Office read every MS format out of the box.

My boss still uses the Office97 version that came with her first PC, and to be honest, I can see no reason for her to update, the newer versions do nothing she needs.

@JRW

I am aware of that piece of software, but it should never have been needed; and why the hell does a file format need a 38MB file download to read FFS !!??

The file was also never easy to find, and has to be manually downloaded, which when you have people who are scared to change a mouse, causes a lot of hassle.

It also wont help you if someone sends you a document created with "MS Works", which uses a file format no other program uses, and again, no easy fix for MS Office,for every version I have tried (97, 2000, XP, 2003; & 2010); you have to go hunting the MS website.

Open Office and Libre Office read every MS format out of the box.

My boss still uses the Office97 version that came with her first PC, and to be honest, I can see no reason for her to update, the newer versions do nothing she needs.

its been part of WSUS for a good few years now so doesn't need to be manually downloaded and also part of Windows updates.

As for the MS Works comment, same could be said for Open Office native format if you sent an ODF file to someone without Open Office. Works both ways.

Is it part of Win Update now?? It certainly didnt used to be, I had to track it down and manually install it on a Winbox running XP SP3 and Office XP in 2010.

Yes Open and Libre Office are pushing odf, but it is not a proprietary file format, hence the name "OPEN document format"; MS joined the odf working group, tried and failed to sabotage it, then left in a huff.

Works is coded and sold by MS, as is Office, so why cant they get their own software packages to talk to each other ?? This is not the only fubar in the MS stable, there are/were other MS programs that dont talk to each other without a 3rd party addon; at least up until a few years ago. Just dont ask me to name them off the top of my head, I only had to deal with the problem once or twice, and as mentioned, it was several years ago.

And dont even talk to me about using the Windows Update site, having to install IE just to reliably use it is a major insult AFAIK

TBH ALL the big software makers need to get back to basics; create clean efficient code THAT WORKS, and worry about the bells and whistles afterwards, and stop relying on bolting new features onto old, buggy code. It is really stupid that my little netbook, running 2GB of Ram and a 1.6GHz cpu is slower than my old Amiga 500 with 1MB of Ram and a 8MHz cpu, yet is hardly capable of doing much more than the old A500.