LETTERS
6 APRIL2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE
Letters
Youcanalwaysrely on ustoanswerallyourcomputing-relatedquestions,and
evensome of theonesyou haven’teventhoughtabout asking yet
[email protected]
Star letter
Answeringthe call
Ifonecounts the years with your
sister publicationComputerBuyer
before itsdemise,Ihave been asubscriber
toComputerShopperforabout 20 years. I
have been loyalbecause you have provided
lots of useful information on awide range
of subjects, at the right level of expertise.
No doubtmost of this information
could be found on the internet, but the
advantage of the magazine is that it
answers questions that one would never
think to ask. Youreally came up trumps in
this respect withShopper383 and the
feature on the end of Windows7.
Our household had threePCs and one
laptopstill runningWindows 7, andthe
reason we didn’t upgrade to Windows
and thenWindows 10 at the time of their
introduction was to do with Windows
Media Center (WMC).Two of our PCs have
dual-tuner TV cards fitted to provide
personal video recorder (PVR)
functionality controlled by WMC.
Most of theTVprogrammes we watch
have been pre-recorded,asthis gives us
theflexibility to pause,rewind, fast-
forward or skip anywhere during the show.
Also,werecord awhole series before
starting to watchit, so we canwatch it
over successive nights.
WMC was an integral free part of
Windows 7. It was supported by Windows
8, butwas aseparate download. Ididn’t
upgrade at this time because Windows 8
waswidely criticised.
WhenWindows 10 came along,itwas
greeted as ahugeand worthwhile step
forward, but it didn’t
include or support WMC,
so Istuck with 7.
Ihad,ofcourse,been
aware of the approaching
end of support forWindows 7for some time,
and thought Iwas facedwith the choice
betweentwo notveryattractive options.
The first would be to pay£120per
machine,£480 in total, to buy Windows 10
licences, and still have to find andinstall
suitable PVRsoftware to replace WMC.
The second (free) option would be to
switch to aversion of Linux, and again
searchfor suitable PVR software.Iwould
have been happytotry Linux,but the rest
of the household would not.
However,Ineedn’t have worried:
ComputerShopperprovided the answer.
Amethodtoupgrade to Windows 10 for
free wasavailable.Download the ISOfile,
burn it on to aDVD,enter my Windows 7
product keyand Ihaveanactivated and
fully functioningcopyofWindows 10.
Thisworkedfor the three PCs, each of which
had its ownWindows 7installation disc.
The laptop has arestore
partition instead of a
disc, and Windows
installed but would not
activate. It is still
perfectlyusable, it’sjust that someofthe
customisation options aredisabled.
Forthe PVR software,Ieventually
decided on NextPVR with Kodi as theuser
interface,asit’s abit more user-friendly
than the native NextPVR interface.
While Iwas struggling with thisprocess,
Ithought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice ifComputer
Shopperdid afeature on using aPCasa
PVR?’,and heypresto, issue 385 reveals
that just such athing will appear in the
next issue.Ilookforward to reading that
and to see if Ihavemade the right choice.
Thanks very much,and keep up the
good work.
KenCalvert
Good tohear the Windows 7end-of-
support feature came in useful, and you
can turn to page 124 to read about our
take on ahome-made PVR.
Write in and win
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Star Letterwill be awarded one of these solid-statedevices, which
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This SSD is 45 times moreenergy-efficient than atypical hard
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Unconnectedchoice
MelCroucheraskshow
thedigitaldividecouldbe
fixed(Shopper384),before
demonstratingthatitismostly a
matter of personal preference.
Thedigital divideseems to be
mostly people whoaren’ttime pressured
anddon’t want to do some company’s job
forit. Is it easiertofill in an online form
that Ihavenever seen before?
Or writeortelephone and get
the company’s employees to
sort out theproblem?
Isuspect at least 10% of all
Mel’s columns and half of his
Rants have complainedabout
companies expecting customers to do the
work themselves. Idoubtmany of his Raves
have been favourable.
My family containsseveral silver
surfers and onedigital refusenik. None
of them has much patience withmost
online systems, as variousonline support
staffcould testify.
Most have learnt to use afew thingsof
interest to themselves, eBay, news sites,
online banking and forums, butthe
refuseniksimply prefers to talk to people
and isn’t interestedinmachines.
