Replies

It can be the ISP. Have you the possibility of using a VPN and then try to connect?

That’s fine, which is why I thought it was the router. But you are right – it could be the ISP. Do they block irrespective of whether you are using their own DNS servers or someone else’s?

Kinda sounding like the router. Did you try turning off the parental controls on the router? What do ping and tracert return? If you get an ip for the host you could try that in the browser address box.

:cheers:

I tried all that, yes. Tracert got hung up somewhere along the way, and ping returned nothing – although I don’t set too much store by ping as it can be configured to be ignored by the server.

I’ve got a purchased 32-bit Win7 that I VM-ed (from a Win7 laptop onto a Mac). I know that I can do an in-place upgrade, and appreciate that it will have to be 32-bit if I do.

I can (presumably) also create a new VM using the 64-bit Win 7 disks. I can port across the software that I have to have Windows for – but not, if I recall correctly, my Office 2013 click-to-run. I think that that is tied to specific (now virtualised) hardware. Is that right?

I still need Office 2013, for the VBA, so what would be my best solution? Am I allowed to have two VMs, both upgraded to Win 10 from the same Win7, but with different bittedness so long as I don’t run them both at the same time? Or will activating it in 64 bit on the new VM kill the licence for the old 32-bit VM? Or can I, actually, move Office 2013? Or do I have to do a 64-bit fresh install in the original VM because that’s where the virtual hardware for Office resides?

All too complicated!
Thanks for any advice
Stuart

It sounds as though you intend to run Windows and Windows-based software on your new laptop (“do I run into licensing issues with Windows/Office/etc transferring from my laptop to the virtual windows machine on the Mac?”).

If the software that I wanted/needed was available natively on the platform I choose, then I’m not wedded to what I have got. But bearing in mind that the Macs are much more expensive, it was a question of whether I could limit my outlay (if I go that route) by using existing software in a dual boot / VM way. For example, Office 2013 is, I think, now a single non-transferrable licence. But if I am VM-ing my old OS into a new environment, does that still apply. And can I even move the OS – it is a kosher copy, rather than OEM, as the machine originally came with Vista and I upgraded it, but is it slaved the processor?

If so, why not simply buy a new Windows-based laptop? You can still buy some models with Windows 7 pre-installed, or select a desirable model with Windows 8 and learn how to make that OS work for you. (After all, you would have to learn Apple’s OS X should you elect to go that route.) This will get you up and running with new hardware; you can then decide at your leisure if you wish to upgrade to Windows 10 once it is launched and stable. There will be no rush, because Microsoft is committed to support both Windows 7 and 8 for quite a while.

Or, stay the course with your current hardware until Win 10 is out and about and buy a new laptop with it pre-installed. Given current estimates that we will see this new OS launched by mid-2015, the reviews should be in by late summer and laptops with pre-installed Win 10 in stores soon thereafter.

True, although late summer is quite a while away and I seem to spend some moments of every day waiting for my laptop to open something or churn through something. And that “..and stable” comment could be a bit of a gotcha.

I hear everything you are all saying, but I can’t pretend that I’m any closer to deciding. Perhaps I’ll wait until my daughter is back from uni and play with her boot-to-desktop Win8.1 to see if it is any better.

Thanks
Stuart

I’m not scared by price, necessarily. I’m not about to shell out regardless – I don’t own an iPad precisely because I don’t see a business need for it – but I am prepared to pay that bit more for a higher end machine that will last me many years. But certainly Macs are a high price for what they are / what you get, compared to Windows machines of comparable build quality.

It’s just … I’ve played again over the weekend with son’s Win8.1 machine and I just don’t like the OS. I’m trying really hard, honest!

I have a MacBook Pro, Linux Mint on a Desktop and a Notebook, Win7 and Win8.1 on both Desktops and Notebooks and a Vista computer still working.

And of all of those, which do you prefer and why? Or are you just using them all as test beds?

I’m seriously impressed! Works a treat – thanks very much!

Now I’m going to have to go away and work out HOW it works!

I did explain, but happy to make it clearer.

On the attached workbook, look at the “Services” sheet. Cell A18 has the entry “AV 50 ”
Now look at the “Composites” sheet. The reference “AV 50 ” appears in E14, and the ID attached to that row, in A14, is Z284. I want to write that value onto line 18 of the Services sheet, say at N18 not that that matters.

So, to summarise, I want to look up a value from Services!A18 in Composites!E4:O26 and have Composites!A14 returned into Services!N18

And I want to do the equivalent lookup for each value in Services!A4:A155, writing the answer in Services!N4:N155.

Finally, as I said in my original post, it must NOT be a macro.

It was partly that, but also because everything had already been set up on his local account and I had read various stories about issues when converting a local account to an MS Account.

The FB app wasn’t my idea, you understand. But I’m his IT consultant rather than his “preventer of IT services”

Stuart

Thanks. I saw that, but thought that it was asking for the Microsoft Account every time he wanted to run the app.

Hi Susan.

Re: your list of patches for Office 2013, I have recently discovered that I have no way of not installing them – or at least, I think that’s the case.

I’m used to Office patches being part of Windows Update. They have been for many years, and were with the Office 2007 that I was using until a recent upgrade. Now, though, I get a separate Office Upgrade, with its own icon in the notifications area. Apparently I have “click and run” Office (which sounds like a “click and then get the heck out of there” sort of action, but never mind) and I am not supposed to use Windows Update for updates to Office. But this new version doesn’t seem to allow me to review and not install things – the setting within office is either “install all updates” or “disable updates”, neither of which are really what I want. Any thoughts that might help me decide? Thanks.

Stuart

I have had all of the router security features that Fred describes for some time now. The downside though is that the occasional visting iPad or phone is a right pain to add to the network, because first of all I have to locate the MAC address (not always easy, especially on Android devices), and then use my laptop to connect to the router. And then, my router doesn’t maintain a list of helpful names against MAC addresses, but instead I have to have a list of which of my devices have a connection to the WiFi (the length of it surprised me!) so that I can remove the “guests” later.

My router, though, has the option to have multiple SSIDs, and I have seen somewhere a recommendation that I should set up a “Guest” version, presumably without MAC filtering. But doesn’t that just mean that I am back to being exposed again? Or is the new SSID isolated from the first? But even then, I am still potentially opening a crack into my otherwise locked down internet connection & LAN.

Any advice? Thanks.

Aha!
That was the bit I was missing. That’s great – the CTRL-click does what I need. Many thanks.

Stuart

Thanks. I’ll look at pricing.

While extending your WiFi is clearly important, and I guess potentially tricky (I’ve been fortunate not to have to worry about it so far) I note that you say that extenders are “…generally easy. For better models, you press the extender’s WPS button”. This would be the same WPS that Windows Secrets was exhorting us to turn off only a few issues ago, because its security could be easily hacked?

Regards,
Stuart