Laptop with Windows 8.1

A friend who works in a remote town, entrusted me to purchase a cheap laptop for her, and bring it when I next come to visit.

So, today I found an inexpensive sale-price laptop at Dick Smith, an Asus X551MAV-BING-SX391B, with 15.6inch screen, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, USB3 and DVD burner, for AU$348.

First time that I fired it up, I was somewhat bamboozled by the Metro user interface -- this is the first time that I have used Windows 8.x.

Fortunately, I found this site, which explains how Windows 8.1 can be restored to a reasonably sensible desktop:
http://www.howtogeek.com/167013/how-to-optimize-windows-8.1-for-a-desktop-pc/

Thank goodness. There are all kinds of peculiarities in the 8.x UI, that seem either confusing or unnecessary. I have now set it up so that my friend will feel comfortable using it -- as she is only familiar with XP and 7.

She also entrusted me with her Microsoft Office 2010 DVD, a legal one, with product key, and I installed that. I wondered whether there might be issues with installing a 2010 version of Office in Windows 8.1, but no problem, it runs fine.

Tags: general