Please help a computer idiot transition

[awp_101]

Not THAT kind of transition!

I've been running a hand me down desktop (Windows 8.1!) in the Man Hovel for about 10 years now. We have a Surface Book 2 with Windows 10 Pro that's not being used and I'm thinking about replacing the tower with the SB2. I know I'll need a USB extender to handle my dongles ([Beavis]hehheheheheh he said dongle hehheheheheheh[/Beavis]) for the wireless keyboard and mouse and some kind of adapter for the speakers and external monitor. I've got an external drive I can use to store my pictures, etc and at least 1 2TB thumb drive I can use to copy the entire HD if I need to. I also have a Seagate backup drive but the one time I tried to use it I never could get anything to transfer.

Is there an easy button to make this transition? Something like plugging the laptop into the desktop and transferring everything but the operating system over? Please type slowly and use small words. Doing anything with computers besides the bare basics I might have learned in 1990 is one step above black magic to me...

Thanks!

[Dov]

Not THAT kind of transition!

I've been running a hand me down desktop (Windows 8.1!) in the Man Hovel for about 10 years now. We have a Surface Book 2 with Windows 10 Pro that's not being used and I'm thinking about replacing the tower with the SB2. I know I'll need a USB extender to handle my dongles ([Beavis]hehheheheheh he said dongle hehheheheheheh[/Beavis]) for the wireless keyboard and mouse and some kind of adapter for the speakers and external monitor. I've got an external drive I can use to store my pictures, etc and at least 1 2TB thumb drive I can use to copy the entire HD if I need to. I also have a Seagate backup drive but the one time I tried to use it I never could get anything to transfer.

Is there an easy button to make this transition? Something like plugging the laptop into the desktop and transferring everything but the operating system over? Please type slowly and use small words. Doing anything with computers besides the bare basics I might have learned in 1990 is one step above black magic to me...

Thanks!

Do you want help with just what you asked or do you want help to figure out what your actual goals/parameters are?

Like in PF Home Defense terms you sound like someone saying they have this old heirloom shotgun they want to use for home defense because you don't have to aim it and they just want to add some random accessory.

Part of the reason I ask is that I really try to steer average people away from Windows systems unless they actually need it for several reasons.

To continue PF comparisons, running windows IMHO is more like running 1911, fine if you need or want to but most people are far better off with a Glock 19.

[awp_101]

Fair questions!

End goal: Move everything on my desktop to the laptop and use the laptop as my "new" computer including the external monitor and speakers. Preferably in the easiest way possible.

Why a Windows based laptop: Because it's what I have that's not being used (aka free). We use Win 10 (and maybe 11?) at work so it's not completely unfamiliar to me.

This is basically my entertainment computer. I use it to surf the web and make purchases, nothing work related.

[whomever]

"I use it to surf the web and make purchases, nothing work related."

Disclaimer: I'm a long time unix type.

We wanted a low wattage cheap computer for our cabin, to look at game cam photos and watch the odd DVD. I got one of these:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400/

$100. If you have a mouse and USB C wall wart, you can get the stripped version for $70.

It comes with PiOS (a linux variant) installed. I switched to Ubuntu because that's what my other computers run.

The keyboard looking thing is the whole computer.

I just mention it because if you just need a browser, it's a pretty cheap way to go. It's not a power machine, you won't want to run massive spreadsheets or keep 142 browser windows open or whatever, but for most general use it's just fine.

We just got a second one at home to be the dedicated financial stuff computer, for security reasons.

[RoyGBiv]

I've had a good experience using this dongle for my windows laptop.
Not all have hdmi and ethernet, if you need both.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C99CYQRY?th=1

[awp_101]

We wanted a low wattage cheap computer for our cabin, to look at game cam photos and watch the odd DVD. I got one of these:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400/

$100.

I'm really not looking to buy a new setup but that's intriguing. I guess I do a little more than I realized I did. I tend to keep lots of tabs open (I'm doing some image searches right now and count 21 tabs open at the moment but I don't normally keep that many open), I do some minor photo editing (GIMP or Windows Photos depending on what I need to do), I watch a lot of Youtube and I save lots of images. The images can be saved to an external device but can/will it support the rest?

I've had a good experience using this dongle for my windows laptop.
Not all have hdmi and ethernet, if you need both.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C99CYQRY?th=1

Just added it to my wish list, thanks!

[Dov]

I've been running a hand me down desktop (Windows 8.1!) in the Man Hovel for about 10 years now. We have a Surface Book 2 with Windows 10 Pro that's not being used and I'm thinking about replacing the tower with the SB2. I know I'll need a USB extender to handle my dongles ([Beavis]hehheheheheh he said dongle hehheheheheheh[/Beavis]) for the wireless keyboard and mouse and some kind of adapter for the speakers and external monitor. I've got an external drive I can use to store my pictures, etc and at least 1 2TB thumb drive I can use to copy the entire HD if I need to. I also have a Seagate backup drive but the one time I tried to use it I never could get anything to transfer.

Is there an easy button to make this transition? Something like plugging the laptop into the desktop and transferring everything but the operating system over? Please type slowly and use small words. Doing anything with computers besides the bare basics I might have learned in 1990 is one step above black magic to me...

Thanks!

First I'm really tired so might make some silly mistake(s) responding, but first thing I'd point out is annoyingly all software needs to get regular updates/security patches if it gets used for anything involving money, PII, or security and is connected to internet and/or public.

Windows 8.1 is past EOL (End of Life) and Windows 10 is getting close to the end. Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025, while Windows 8.1 was EOL back on January 10, 2023

There are workarounds to that issue with most Windows machines but they require more time & effort, like switching to some version of Linux.

On the hardware side, if your wanting to keep using windows two important factors to keep in mind. Difficulty of repairs and availability of parts especially for laptops, and will your hardware be supported by next generation of Windows (ie Windows 11 in this case).

I don't know the Surface line hardly at all, I do know some models were real PITA, but I also know some people that have been happy with them. But they aren't what I would pick for good deal lifecycle cost wise or ease or maintenance/repair . Desktop almost always going to be a better deal for lifecycle costs & ease of repair.

For transferring your files & etc, if is already on an external HDD/SSD you should be able to just connect it to the newer machine and access immediately.

Without more information I am not sure what your problem was with that stuff so far.

I will point out that you can't trust any single drive for long term storage of critical or important data.

Also thumb drives/flash drives are really crappy and will lose or corrupt data even faster than a real HDD or SSD because they use really cheap components. They will usually also be much slower for data transfer, which since you mention images and/or video might be an issue.

Data backup and retention is whole topic by itself but really short version for moving your data like right this weekend you can run to Walmart and get a Seagate external HDD https://www.walmart.com/ip/Seagate-S...2?athbdg=L1600 for $50 ish depending on size of drive and just copy files to it, or a step up in price but lot better IMHO get a Samsung T7 external SSD from walmart https://www.walmart.com/search?q=SAMSUNG+T7 they will be around $80+ depending on size but on computer with USB 3 will move files lot faster than the HDD.

There are lots of choices for external drives, but I use both of those models personally for years. The T7 is really good and was recommended to me by one of the top HDD/SSD experts around. I've got like three T7's and gf has 2 that we use for backing up our machines. I used to use the Seagate HDD but when I had to restore from backup to fix a problem that took forever time wise just because of the difference in speed of the drives.

Some additional points to consider, you should be able to update your Windows 8.1 machine to Windows 10 for free, it may or may not run great depending on specifics of hardware. IME limited experience doing this for people, they always run but some much older machines run slower on the newer OS. I am testing couple version of Linux as better solution for those old Windows machines, but just haven't had time and energy to get deep into that yet.

I really STRONGLY urge all average people that ask me about computers to strongly consider a Chromebook or iOS device (ie iPad, iPhone, etc) first because they are the Glock 19's of the computer world in many ways.

They have lot more solid and integrated Software updating systems, better security, and have easy to use for average people cloud backup of data.

If you need or want to stick to windows that is fine, I can point you at very inexpensive options for desktops for that. Used enterprise machines, generally lease returns from companies that upgrade every few years can usually be bought for $200 to $400.

Good Windows laptops that are easy to repair & maintain are bit more expensive and fewer options as even the enterprise laptop market is moving away from laptops designed to be maintained to smaller and lighter machines that aren't really designed to be fixed.

[whomever]

I'm really not looking to buy a new setup but that's intriguing. I guess I do a little more than I realized I did. I tend to keep lots of tabs open (I'm doing some image searches right now and count 21 tabs open at the moment but I don't normally keep that many open), I do some minor photo editing (GIMP or Windows Photos depending on what I need to do), I watch a lot of Youtube and I save lots of images. The images can be saved to an external device but can/will it support the rest?

I'm a photo idiot, but I installed Gimp and did a couple of rando things to a 4M image - cropped and de-speckled, whatever that is :-). Then (with gimp still active) I opened a half dozen Brave browser windows - a couple of CNN stories, P-F of course, a couple of Amazon windows, then fired up a youtube video. It all worked fine - with the video running, I could surf around amazon for example.

This was on the Pi 400 computer-in-a-keyboard with 4M of memory. If you don't need it packaged in the keyboard, you can get Pi 4's with 8M of memory. And there is a new Pi 5 that maybe has a faster processor or something??

Caveat: I'm not the most demanding user. The first computer I used had 128 *words* of memory. My first system programmer job was running an IBM mainframe with 4M of main memory. We're kind of Luddites ... we have DSL for example. People ask me what speed and ...I dunno. Fast enough for me :-). I generally don't care if video is 4K or 1080 or whatever. No doubt lots of folks would be horrified by how backward we are :-).

For contrast - a couple of years ago we got whatever the cheapest windows laptop Costco had - maybe $500?? - for the things that just have to run on windows. I find that painfully slow to use.

Anyway, there are things I wouldn't try to do on a Raspberry Pi - CAD for example. I have a medium-to-high end desktop (also Ubuntu) to run OpenSCAD and the other 3D printer software. A simple design might work on the Pi, but even on the desktop complicated models have me having a cup of coffee while it whirs. I've never done video editing, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was a no-go on a Pi. But general surfing/watching vids/spreadsheets/word processing just aren't yuuuugely compute intensive things.

I should mention as well, it is a slightly different environment than ordinary desktop Ubuntu. For example, I usually full disk encrypt Ubuntu installs. I tried to do that for the Pi 'disk' (actually a microSD card) and gave up after an hours futzing.

My bottom line: it's a pretty good deal for $100. I might get another one for the workshop, so I can watch 'how do you change the wipers on a 2003 Civic' videos, stream music, or whatever.

[Dov]

"I use it to surf the web and make purchases, nothing work related."

Disclaimer: I'm a long time unix type.

We wanted a low wattage cheap computer for our cabin, to look at game cam photos and watch the odd DVD. I got one of these:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400/

$100. If you have a mouse and USB C wall wart, you can get the stripped version for $70.

It comes with PiOS (a linux variant) installed. I switched to Ubuntu because that's what my other computers run.

The keyboard looking thing is the whole computer.

I just mention it because if you just need a browser, it's a pretty cheap way to go. It's not a power machine, you won't want to run massive spreadsheets or keep 142 browser windows open or whatever, but for most general use it's just fine.

We just got a second one at home to be the dedicated financial stuff computer, for security reasons.

Not to derail this thread with a tangent, but Ubuntu and Lubuntu are what I am trying to find the time to seriously test as workable OS for old windows machines for lot of friends/family with old EOL Windows machines.

So I'd welcome any and all feedback on those two flavors of Linux.

I've mainly putzed around with Debian so far, but do so little with it that only machine that I patch/update Linux at all anymore is the native Linux VM on my Chromebook https://support.google.com/chromeboo.../9145439?hl=en which is Debian. I've actually had less headaches (read none) running the Linux VM on my Chromebook vs the old Core 2 Duo laptop I use for playing with Linux.

When I got my Chromebook I wasn't expecting to run VM on it so it only has M3-8100y CPU, 8 GB RAM, and 64GB eMMC it works fine but is bit sluggish. Though I still get a chuckle every time I fire it up just to run Firefox on a Chromebook.

Next Chromebook I buy will be specced to run VM solidly

[awp_101]

I really STRONGLY urge all average people that ask me about computers to strongly consider a Chromebook or iOS device (ie iPad, iPhone, etc) first because they are the Glock 19's of the computer world in many ways.

I use my iPad and iPhone on a regular basis but I don't know of anyway to connect them to my wired monitor or speakers. Actually I've never considered the possibility. Is there a standalone bluetooth thing they would plug in to and then connect to the iPad that way?

EDIT: A quick google and Amazon search shows multiple types of adapters to do just that and I can get a bluetooth mouse and keyboard as well! I'd still need a way to access and/or transfer thousands of pics from external drives though...