By Merrill Friend, Tampa PC Users Group
mfriendtampa@worldnet.att.net

Usually I look very carefully into purchases I make, but I really blew it this time. I wanted a laptop computer. I needed the portability, and this was the answer. I selected a Compaq Presario with XP Home Edition installed. I really didn’t give it much thought. After all it is Microsoft software, and if it has a Microsoft word processor and spreadsheet it can’t be too different from what I am already using on my desktop computer, can it? It has seemed to me that every time Microsoft has come out with a new product it has been an advancement over its previous product, so why should this one be any different? And surely it is going to be compatible with all earlier Microsoft products, isn’t it? Of course it is, I reasoned illogically!!!

So I get my dandy little laptop home and turn it on. A “Welcome” screen appeared telling me the need for registration of the hardware and software and suggesting that I handle the registration right now through the internet. I really didn’t care to register just then and was disappointed to find that the computer and software manufacturer had conspired to push me along in this direction. It was rather like having a high pressure salesman sitting at your elbow. Heck, I had just turned the darned thing on and wasn’t ready to do start registering anything just yet. But the welcoming screen just wouldn’t turn me loose.

Compaq and/or Microsoft’s motivations were clear, however, since under the guise of welcoming me as a client they were steering me toward registering through the FREE AOL program which came with my computer. All I really wanted to do right then was explore my new computer and the XP software but I couldn’t get rid of this pushy “Welcoming” gibberish. Since I already had an internet provider, I opted to skip the installation of AOL’s service as well as the immediate registration of my computer and the XP software since those tasks required an internet setup which I hadn’t handled yet.

The next question the charming “Welcome” screen asked me was what I wanted to name my computer, which impressed me as an awfully ridiculous thing to do. Why in heaven’s name would I want to name my computer? I certainly didn’t want to name it after the kid who programmed this pesky “Welcoming” screen. Had I done that it wouldn’t have been a very flattering name. I thought once about naming it “Bill Gate’s Alter Ego,” but thought better of it. I didn’t want to see that in front of me on a regular basis. Perhaps the naming had something to do with the possibility of my using my computer as a part of a local area network, but no reason, not even that one, was given for naming the computer.

“I don’t want to adopt you,” I finally said out loud to the computer, “I just want this crazy screen to go away so I can get on with using this machine.” I then realized that naming the computer was “optional” so I skipped that step. I have always been rather slow at reading all the directions and somehow in my haste to get on with it I missed that little word “optional”. The software then permitted me to gradually work through all the mandatory “welcomes” and I finally got to the desktop. I am thankful that the kid at Microsoft who did the programming of this “welcoming” sequence didn’t also program in a temper tantrum to yell and scream at me when I opted to skip those steps the kid and his bosses all obviously felt were so important. At this point, however, I wouldn’t have been surprised at anything.

My Internet provider is AT & T. Apparently Microsoft doesn’t like them. Of course they don’t own them either. The desktop of Microsoft XP contained icons for contacting CompuServe, AOL, and MSN but no Icon to use to set up my account with AT&T. Fortunately, years ago on a much older computer I printed out my passwords and usernames for that account. I also was able to copy the settings I was using on another computer to the appropriate places on the laptop and this made the job manageable. I had stubbornly decided that I was not going to be intimidated by my computer manufacturer or the software provider as to whom I was to use as my internet provider. No matter how much personal effort it took I intended to continue with my personal choice of internet provider. After all I paid for this machine; it now belongs to me and I’ll use it as I wish, thank you.

Then I went into the Microsoft Works software that came with the computer and pulled up the spreadsheet product. I had some Excel files on my other machine. “Works” was able to read one of them but couldn’t understand two formulas in the other spreadsheet. By redoing these formulas I could get “Works” to accept the second Excel spreadsheet. I then began actually comparing the two spreadsheets and found that the “Works” spreadsheet has far fewer features than does Microsoft Excel.

Had I done my homework I would have already known this, but such is life. One needs only to turn on two computers and bring up Excel on one and “Works” Spreadsheet on the other and go across the column heading selections at the top of each spreadsheet to see much of what has been left out of “Works.“ And for those reasons “Works” is compatible with Excel only on the simpler more basic spreadsheets.

One deficiency in the “Works” spreadsheet which was real important to me was the inability of the “Works” spreadsheet program to protect that part of the spreadsheet where permanent formulas exist, thus preventing their inadvertent change or removal. This is a feature of Excel but is not supported on the “Works” spreadsheet. The only way to protect a file under “Works” is to make that entire worksheet “read-only.” Not a practical idea unless you only want to read the worksheet and not ever work with it.

When I was growing up and someone said this or that product had “the works,” it meant it really had everything. I have learned that it doesn’t meant that as far as Microsoft “Works” is concerned because that program obviously has less than other Microsoft programs I am familiar with. Thus, its name seems somewhat of a misnomer.

But you probably already knew that anyway, didn’t you? You certainly did if, unlike me, you had done your homework. To those of you who haven’t done your homework, read on.

After I saw what had been done to the spreadsheet program, I pulled up the “Works” word processing program. Again, I was disappointed and again the same computer by computer comparison was easily be made of each of these two products.

So what was my solution? Phone an expert and get another viewpoint, as I should have done in the first place. So I phoned our own William LaMartin, who suggested that I should be able to successfully install my Microsoft Office 97 software on this new laptop which uses XP Home Edition. I tried that, and it worked fine giving me access to the programs I wanted.

I had been led to believe by a computer salesman when I bought my new laptop that Microsoft Works would be fully compatible with Excel and Word. Had I been told the truth, I would have wanted my laptop outfitted with the latest editions of these programs. When I found that what I was told wasn’t true, continuing with the old tried and true software was the easy answer for me. And if I buy any more computers, I now know one store to leave off my shopping list.

Next, I looked for a list of printers and was initially unable to find such a list. I went online to Hewlett Packard, who made my 820Cse printer, to get a driver for XP, only to remember that HP had obsoleted this printer a couple of years ago and no longer provides support for it.

As an aside I should tell you I bought this printer in1996 and at one time thought it would have to be replaced because, when it printed, the ink streaked over the paper and certain lines did not print. I contacted HP then and learned that it was obsolete so they couldn’t help me.

But HP has a users discussion board where I went with my problem. Some other HP user had had the same difficulty I was having and told me that there is a “tub” underneath the place where the printer ink jet cartridges reside when the computer is not actually printing. While sitting there excess ink from the print cartridge drips into this tub. Over the years the tub gets full. He suggested I clean out that “tub” of excess gooey ink residue that had accumulated over the years and my printer would work fine again.

He was correct, and I suspect that has possibly kept my printer going much longer than some others of this model. Whenever the ink jet cartridges moved over that full “tub” some gooey ink residue would rub off on the bottom of the cartridge and ruin the print. Just cleaning out the vat or “tub” with a wooden Popsicle stick cured that problem. I was warned not to touch anything else and not to use any cleaning fluids or lint bearing cloth.

But, back to the XP printer driver problem. I actually have two printers, the HP mentioned above and an ancient wide carriage workhorse Okidata dot matrix, over ten years old which my wife uses for excel spreadsheets. Okidata’s web site said that XP contained a generic printer driver, called the 193 Plus-IBM Okidata. I connected the printer to the laptop. Then I went to the Control Panel and asked to install it. It asked for disks, which I didn’t have, so I skipped that process and installed the generic driver. I then printed out some e-mail I had on my machine and thought I was home free.

But then I pulled up my “Works” word processor and brought up a 65 page document that had looked fine hours earlier only to see that it had now become a lot of unreadable gibberish. That’s when I realized that “Works” uses true type fonts and the old Okidata does not. Apparently Outlook Express doesn’t use true type fonts either because my e-mail had printed out fine on the Okidata. Concerned about getting the “Works” word processor working correctly I removed the Okidata printer from my machine and my “Works” word processor again displayed a clearly readable copy of my previous work.

I had never encountered such a situation previously when I was not actually attempting to print something and could not read the document because of the printer selection. Of course, at that time the Okidata was the only printer driver active on my laptop, and perhaps that was the key cause of the problem.

Next I decided to try the same process with my obsolete HP printer no longer supported by HP. I connected the printer and laptop, turned the printer on and then turned the laptop on and, once powered up, got a message on the desktop that my laptop had detected new hardware. The old Okidata did not have plug and play features but the HP and the Laptop did, and the XP Home Edition recognized it. The installation wizard came up and I opted to install the printer. When I was asked for a disk, I selected automatic installation since HP had not provided XP support. I was given two generic XP printer choices. I picked what appeared to be the right one for my printer. Then a test page was printed, and I was in business.

Did it include all the features that this printer was capable of? No, it did not, but enough features were there so that I could print letters on legal size and regular paper. I cannot print in “book” style on both sides of the same sheet of paper, which I will miss, but at least I have a printer and don’t yet have to go out and buy another one. If I need book printing, I can still do that on my desktop, where I still have the fully supported HP drivers on Windows Me.

I am a bit disappointed at HP for dropping support of my printer. When I called them on the phone they admitted they have other printers that are older than mine which still receive HP support, so age alone was not the criteria for dropping support on this model. XP Home Edition does seem to provide generic support for a wide range of printers from the ancient Okidata to the much more recent HP. (Hey, did I just pay Microsoft a compliment? Darned if I didn’t, and my machine didn’t lock up when I did it, either.)