If you are only getting a new computer to do a newsletter and update a website occasionally you would likely find the Satellite you have would do the job.

Try Wordpad,
click Start
click All programs
click Accessories
click Wordpad and start typing.

Save your work as .rtf (Rich Text Format) and any other word processor will be able to understand it.

Will you be coding the web stuff or do they use a WYSIWYG program? (What you see is what you get, Drag and Drop.)

You could of course take the existing computer back to factory defaults which would improve performance

I saw this today. I know some people don't like Dell but we have 4 Dell laptops and 3 Dell desktops. The oldest are 7 years old and we never had a problem with any of them.

I was tempted when I saw the prices.

Here is a link that might be useful: Laptops

After browsing ads and doing some research yesterday, I find myself leaning toward making my Satellite usable. I wanted a new 'puter, but don't know about this computer challenged Grannie learning to operate Win 8. My satellite is Vista.

I tried doing the restore to original defaults, but couldn't find where to do that. Looked at the Control & system maintenance pages....no clue.

Toshiba laptops from mid 2007 onwards dont have a recovery disc supplied with a purchase of a laptop. Instead, Toshiba has added a hidden partion on the hard drive which contains the same files on a recovery cd / dvd.

See link,

Here is a link that might be useful: reset-toshiba-laptop-to-factory-settings

I hear you. I got one T laptop too this year with W8 and, guess what, I rarely use it. I was too frustrated with W8 so I went back to the old desktop that the laptop was going to replace. Problem is... the desktop has XP Pro and Microsoft will soon discontinue its support so I may just try to install W7 in the desktop instead.

Luis just because MS will stop support for XP it does not mean the program becomes useless, you can likely continue with it for a few more years. Just be diligent with keeping safety programs up to date.

You need top ascertain whether your current computer will accept W7 and what kind of performance you might expect. Run something like Speccy (stay on the green for free) to list the components then Google the motherboard for drivers. Plus any peripherals like printer, scanner, webcam might not be compatible.

Personally I think anyone who does not self build is wasting money on a second operating system because it becomes useless once the older machine goes off to the computer happy hunting ground in the sky.

I feel you pain regarding W*, try having a look at this site offering 60 tricks and tips for W8, some are quite useful.

Thx for the ideas. I'm going to first try doing a system restore. I've one more question....actually since this is over a week old, I'll repost