New Programming Laptop

[dreamshark]

I need an endless supply of Windows 7 laptops to run my old Access database (Office 97 doesn't run on anything past Windows 7). I misplaced the last Programming Laptop, but Thorin gave me his old Dell (ca 2013?) and I spent the day whipping it into shape. It's a fine old machine that even includes a handy built-in DVD drive, making it easy to install Office 97. And it's much faster than the old Dell, which was at least 5 years older. 

It would be just perfect if the battery weren't shot and all the network connections broken (including the Ethernet port, which took me way too long to figure out. It sends but doesn't receive, so it looks like it's up). But it has a ton of USB ports and I have an Ethernet dongle. Held my breath watching it thrash around trying to come up with a device driver for the dongle, but it finally did and now I'm connected. 

Now I just have to get Thorin to clean all his old files off of here and I can lend it out to the Prog Head, who is coping with the sudden irretrievable loss of the glitzy online database. Moral: never depend on anything that runs on somebody else's server. 

If anybody has another old Win7 laptop that they want to get rid of, I'll add it to the pile. Windows 7 was probably the best version of Windows ever. It just did what you told it, not constantly trying to slither your information out of the computer and into the cloud. Long may it wave.

Comments

[minnehaha]

That's too bad the the glitzy whatever was lost.

K.

[carbonel]

I think I have a Windows 7 laptop with a dead (or mostly so) battery sitting around. It works fine as long as it's connected to wall power. If that's of interest, I can see if it still boots up.

I am mostly reconciled to Windows 10, but I agree that Windows 7 was an excellent version of Windows.

[dreamshark]

I don't strictly speaking NEED another one at this point, but if you'd like to get rid of it I'll take it.

[guppiecat]

Okay, dumb question ... why not just upgrade the Access database?

[dreamshark]

It's not upgradable. Newer versions of Access cannot open or upgrade these old files. In fact, when I tried to send one of the *.mdb files to the Prog Head as an attachment, her Microsoft-based email identified it as a fake *.mdb file (probably some sort of virus!).

It would have to be rewritten from scratch. At one time I tried to do some sort of conversion into Open Office but it was a failure.

[spiderplanet]

The guy who said he didn't want to run the database anymore turned over ALL of the source code and contents so that they could be hosted elsewhere. It's got nothing to do with his server.

I speculate that he would have continued hosting it with some recognition that he shouldn't be insulted, belittled and told "anyone else would be fired" for creating and maintaining that database for several years. If the guy who made a big show of saying what a piece of shit the guy who did the actual work is wants to host it, he has that opportunity, especially since everyone is just going to treat his behavior as 'fine.'

[davidwilford]

I have an old Dell Inspiron 1501 (circa 2007 I think) that has Windows 7 Home installed on it that you can have if you want it. Has an AMD Turion processor and not much RAM or HD space, but it still works as long as it's plugged in. ETA: it also has a working DVD drive.