Advice needed re software on Vista

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Could anyone advise me on free software.

I need equivilents to MS Office and its various different types of applications. If not free I would like someting under £50 for WP, Spreadsheet, Database, DTP etc all together.

I have a new laptop - Intel core2 Dou processor T5500 / (1.66Ghz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2cache) / 80GB HDD
running Vista. It has pre-installed office but it is only trial and I have to pay lots to keep it.

I don't know much about this sort of thing, could I put Office from my old lap-top onto a memory stick and pput it onto my new lap-top so I can use Word 2003? If yes - would i have to put in a code to use it or pay a licence even though it was on my old lap-top?

If I can put office from my old lap-top onto my new - would it just be a matter of copying it over to the drive I keep software on and pasting in onto the drive?

You really need the M$ Office install CD and Key to install the copy of office from your old machine but doing that is quite leagle providing you remove it from your old laptop. Copying the files just will not work.

You could altenitivly download and install open office from: http://www.openoffice.org/ this is a fully functional office sute that is compatable with MS Office and avalable on a free licence.

I don't think a databse is included but the versions of MS Office that include Access are the most expensive ones and alternatives are avalable.

Firstly, you should be able to retrieve your old Office key with the Magic Jellybean Keyfinder.

Secondly - beware of using the Vista version of Word. It stores files in the new, opaque, proprietary, pointless "docx" format. At the end of your 30 days you will no longer be able to access any such files. You cannot even cut&paste the text. (It is possible to recover the text from them, but it's a hassle.).

Go straight for www.OpenOffice.org, which even includes a database, these days. You might find it falls a little short with DTP - it depends what you want. Try it out anyway - it's free.

For DTP, you could look at Scribus. (Also free.)

Even better, ditch archaic, slow, demanding, expensive Vista and switch to fresh, free, pretty Ubuntu, which comes with OpenOffice and Scribus (as I've just noticed) already installed, plus a mass of other free software. (I have 2,251 packages installed, out of a total of 21,517 available). You could even try to come to grips with the mega-stuff of TeX (book typesetting, etc).

You can always download the Ubuntu CD and try it out, running from the CD. It doesn't touch your hard drive. It just comes up with an icon on the desktop that you can hit, should you decide you want to install. It'll then let you squash down Vista and run either system from the boot.

Thank you to the two people above this that gave their advice.

I have installed Open Office. I have been able to use the WP application by opening an old file on my desktop orininally made in word2003. It opened it in OpenOffice, fine. However, When I go into my C drive and into programs folder where OpenOffice is, I cannot see where the separate applications are like the WP app (which I had just used) and other apps like speadsheets etc.

I have blanked and renamed an unwanted WP file on the desktop to use as a shortcut to opening the OpenOffice WordProcessor but I would like to be abl e to open it by clicking a shortcut that shows it is a WP application and the same for the other applications. I would like to be ablr to do this from either or both the start button path or from the desktop like with Micro-Shite - how would I do that?

Hope you or someone else can help. I might need to do a separate topic for this incase this is not read.

I would imagine you've got there by now... but there are two methods. You may have only found one.

Essentially, there is only the single "OpenOffice.org" program (obscurely, still called "soffice.exe", I believe, as it used to be "Star Office" in the distant past, when I first used it). This one program takes command line switches to decide what particular function to do. I could say that, unlike the MS Office suite, Open Office is really "integrated". Anyway...

Firstly, you should find a perfectly good set of OOO apps under the "Start" button. Copy and paste them to the desktop, if you like. I.e. right click on each, and take the "Copy" option, then right click the desktop and "Paste" (or "Paste as shortcut", which is almost the same thing).

However, the alternative is probably much nicer. Just tell Open Office that you want a "QuickStart". This will give you a button that immediately allows you to select any function (WP, Spreadsheet, Database, Presentation, Drawing). The quick start means that OpenOffice will load into memory at system startup. If you almost invariably use it, this will be fine, and save you time, as it will also stay in memory between uses. I sometimes turn this off, as I don't always use it, every time I boot up, and I begrudge the couple of seconds it takes to load every time, when I don't use it.

Oh... and thirdly... no, "amongst our many methods".... I'm not sure how Vista (which I've opnly toyed with a little) might differ from XP, but you should find it easy to many the OpenOffice bits "sticky" in the Start" menu. On XP, recent programs appear on the lower part of the "Start" menu, and you could drag them to the top section to make them stay, rather than eventually scrolling off.

And... tediously, fourthly, I always put things on the XP quick start taskbar (bottiom left, by default, when enabled).

And... fifthly, I enable the "Desktop" menu on the bottom taskbar, so I can invoke things on my desktop, without having to uncover them.

Some of the above may not work with Vista. Vista may have sillier ways to do it all.