wow Lynn I don't know what to tell you, do I think you can save his stuff if it is just what you mentioned yes I do, moving it to an external drive is not hard nor is moving it to a flash drive but it will take time you are right about that.

i have not worked with vista at all, it is very similar to 7 in fact 7 is basically an upgraded vista they have the same core. I can tell you when I just set up my wireless network and added my husbands new laptop that he got for Christmas which is windows 7 it connected immediately, I typed in the passkey and he was on with full strength and full speed and it has been that way since.

However if it is something that was set wrong in your settings in your router or in your network that could of course affect anything trying to connect. Not knowing what the problem is makes it hard to determine what to tell you.

do you happen to know anyone that has a windows7 laptop that could come to your house with it and see if they can log in to your network and try it out?

My thoughts. First you - or himself preferably - need to sit down and quietly assess what is really wrong with Vista in your opinions. It is different to XP and there is the rub for anyone who changes but it is not impossible to adapt. New computer users do not suffer this because they never had XP and those I know are very happy with Vista.

To spend so much money to change to windows 7 makes no sense whatsoever but of course only you can make such a decision. Windows 7 is Vista with a few added bells and whistles. Somewhere locally is a person who can find what is really wrong making it impossible to get online. Ask the neighbourhood kids, they'll know a young whiz who will sort it out sudden like I'll bet.

To transfer data to an external drive is simple. Assuming it is your 'My documents' folder you do this
Right click Start
click Explore
click My documents in the left pane to highlight it
now the contents appear in the right pane
click on the top item in the right pane
hold down the 'Shift' key and tap the 'End' key to highlight everything
right click on highlighted data
click Copy
right click on the external drive near the bottom of the left pane
click Paste
Walk away for a half hour, possibly more. That is how easy it really is, you do not need to keep your repair guy busy with these menial tasks for such large sums of money. I feel your repair guy has found himself a gold mine, you might look elsewhere for local help.

Will the laptop connect directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable or have we already gone through this.

There is nothing wrong with Vista. It did have some bugs like any new O/S when first released , but those have been resolved. Time will expose them in W7 too as it always happens.

The architecture for W7 is the same architecture as Vista with reports having the code being up to 85% similar. The difference was Vista focused on security where W7 focuses on the best of Vista and performance.

In many venues Vista got a bad rap. Gamers didn't like it and that is the kiss of death as gaming is the main drive for technological advances. Some XP users didn't like it as they were resistive to change. The list of petty reasons goes on.

I'm on a Vista system right now and it is outstanding. I am quite comfortable in reporting it can do anything a new W7 system can do.

So if you want a new W7 please get one. However, if you just want to replace Vista for some "reason" be prepared for Vista II. As I have read authors say many times, "W7 is nothing but Vista done right".

If it were me I'd save my money. I am even though a new W7 would be nice to play with. I'm waiting for W8 which is currently in process and tentatively scheduled for release for Christmas 2011. Believe it or not W9 is already in progress too.

DA

Okay. You guys are great. Clearly the collective wisdom is not to throw money at the problem - but figure the problem out. Owbist - in my thread on not connecting my husband's vista laptop to our network, I tried quietly, methodically to troubleshoot the issues - to no avail. I found lots of similar frustrations on google - but no solutions that worked - and I think I tried them all - at least to the best of my ability. thanks for those great, easy-to-follow instructions to transfer to an external hard drive. He'll want to do that anyway - even if he keeps this computer.

This computer guy is pricey - but where I am in DC they seem to fall in the $125-140/hour range - and they can usually fix a problem. Others that charge $40-75 - that the uninformed think are good - but their know-how is less than what I find here. I tried a few of those locally recommended guys - and they accomplished the simple tasks but also made mistakes I had to hire the more expensive guy to fix. My main complaint with him is that he's wedded to his biases - he hates Vista - so his recommendation is usually to avoid or ditch it. Our struggles with Vista seem to often be how often we're blocked from things or performing simple tasks have all sort of obstacles - for "safety's" sake.

Thanks to everyone for pointing out that Windows 7 is just a revamped Vista. I got my first issue of Smart Computing and they were tauting it and described some features I thought I'd love.

DA - if W8 is in process, is there any indication of what it will be like? Probably worth waiting for - or at least waiting to hear more about how Windows 7 is panning out.

So I'll keep plugging away on my other thread to get him connected. If I don't succeed by Tuesday, the computer guy will come and fix it. I guess we'll stop there.

Thanks.
Lynn.

Lynn,

There is so much speculation, truth, and rumor out there about W8 I ask that you Google "windows 8" (sans quotes) and determine who/what to believe. I just did it and there are several interesting links among the many entries on the inquiry report.

DA

If I were you, I'd definitely try to work the problem some more, rather than spend lots of money on a new computer that may not solve this. I've got two of my four computers that run Vista, and have never had any major issues with it. I don't know whether your problem is Vista or not, but I tend to think that it is something else, possibly related to the router setup. It's hard to make recommendations, especially since I don't know what else you've tried. However, there have been several times when I have had a problem like this and I resolved it after one or two tech assistance calls to the router manufacturer. Several of the router manufacturers offer free lifetime support. Have you tried this approach? It's always worked for me.

Nothing wrong with Vista as far as I am concerned. I set the look to classic and had to find a few things because they changed the names and location. I don't like IE's set up, but I use FF, so it doesn't matter. The only other thing I don't like about it is the "start/search/files and folders set up. I used to uninstall, then use search to find any bits and pieces left over from the game or whatever I uninstalled. Search is useless, unless I don't know how to operate it.

Lynn the key to the entire problem is that his laptop would connect and work fine on the wireless network till you went in to set up the security settings and changed things in the router, then his laptop is now saying it connects but has limited access, this to me is screaming it is a setting change or an inability for his laptop to be able to "catch" the new info it needs wirelessly. It could be one of those wild coinkydinks that his wireless card went on the fritz at the same time also I suppose. I posted more on the other thread.

I think we need to go back into the router and do step by step just exactly what was done and what settings were made.