Help me figure out a new laptop

If you have read some of my posts, you may know I am not a fan of more modern technology, my current laptop is antique and runs slow on a slow connection, and I'm good with that. My phone is the oldest one I can run on the Verizon network (oooh, they hate that!) I don't WANT to be part of the high speed etc generation! I also have a song I sing or hum when me and mom are out shopping, "Not your target market, I'm not your target market!" I'm NOT the target market for most things the world considers normal. I'm just not. And a lot of it I'm actively hostile about. Makes this whole bit more challenging.

But life happens. Due to a massive change in my life circumstances, I need to upgrade to a laptop that can work with online banking, other secure sites, and I need to be able to do video conferencing. I'm not a fan of this concept, but the reality matters more than my personal preferences. I'm hoping to keep most of my stuff on my older system, but reality may not go how I wish and the new laptop might end up being my daily use machine. I do need laptop, although I prefer desktop, because I'll quite probably end up having to carry it places.

It has been so long since I even looked at tech I need help figuring out what I actually need, and the terminology to look for so I can get something that does what I want.

Part of this is I'm EMF sensitive, and I can sort of tolerate wifi, but want to avoid as much excess electrical noise as possible. Part of it is I'm old school and cranky, get off my computer ya damn kids!  :D

I know I need:
Windows OS - it's most familiar to me.
Wired mouse - Hate the track pad, I have the one on this machine covered up because I kept bumping it. Doesn't work for my life except in a few emergencies.
No bluetooth anything or shut off-able - Part of the EMF sensitivity stuff, bluetooth screams loudly to me.

What is the current way to hard wire to a cable or fiber network? Last time I was hard wired I used RJ45 connectors, I want to have the option of hard wiring this one in, what kind of ports would that be?

I'd love to be able to put a keyboard, wired mouse and monitor on it to let it just act like a tower, as I really don't like the whole laptop format to start with. What ports do I need to be able to do that?

CD/DVD drive and burner - My cars have CD players, not phone connections :D I make CDs to listen to.

Able to do some sort of video conferencing, not even sure what that entails I hate watching most video at all, and hate to have my face on video, so I have never used it, and I step out of range when others have it on. What do I even need to do it?

What am I missing on this list? hmm....  I use Dvorak, but that's a software thing. I like being able to remap keys as I need to, not sure that happens anymore, I know this laptop I run won't do it.

I'm REALLY SERIOUSLY anti-google. I have adblockers set to stop *@ google.com with an exception for their maps. I don't want ANY phone or computer that's google technology at all.

I'm old school in general, I don't like icons that look like they came off Fisher Price toys, I like process trees, and don't want my stuff in "libraries." No thanks, I'll organize it how I want it myself. C drive is my friend, I don't need a layer of "but it's convenient!" on top of it.

I don't play computer games.  I do graphics, my software is old, and I have a desktop XP system it runs on, but being able to run older graphics programs would be nice. Photoshop CS2 is so habitual to me I don't even have to think to use it. No interest in any graphic program that requires a subscription.

I need to run a printer, scanner would be nice (not sure if the software for the one I run on the XP machine would run on anything more current, it's also not my favorite scanner I have ever had, it has it's own ideas about what it should scan on a page, to me that's MY decision, not the technology's.) Other tech like laser cutter and 3D printing might be fun to be able to work with in the future. Not sure what ports any of that takes

I also use MS Word 97 still, I have a much more current version that I absolutely hate, but that will open docx when I have to. It would possibly be a useful program if I were writing a 300 page book with lots of footnotes and indexing. For what I  do it's just annoying, I basically want just notepad with fonts and colors. So the 97 is still my day to day processor, and I want something that basic for day to day.

I have absolutely hated every email program I have seen for years, I still run Thunderbird 3.0.2  I want my email to come in to my various separate email accounts, not threaded, just by date, can be sorted as I need to, end of game, no other nonsense.  Any suggestions there?

Browser: I use a firefox variant, I need it configurable, I tend to remove most icons, and ignore the ones I can't remove. Really didn't like what I saw on the laptops I looked at, (could be the user hadn't ever formatted it for themselves)  one of the Foxes will probably end up most tolerable. NOT Edge or Chrome!  Definitely need to be be able to put adblockers on, I can't stand ads.

And actually, I need to be able to configure most of my software, I have zero use for over 85% of the crap they put in programs, and I just want it to go away. The stuff I use I like being able to arrange as I wish, as my parameters are not the same as others (or I'd not be having a problem with figuring out what I laptop I can tolerate) and it just irritates me to beat my head against parameters designed for other people.

Oh, someone (who uses Macs) says laptops don't have replaceable batteries any more? Is this true? If so, that absolutely sucks. That's one of the main things I like about my current one, I can charge up several batteries and take it places and just swap as I need to. Grid power is not always available in my world.

Help me out here, I'm at sea, and the people whose laptops I looked at seemed to just accept that they do things that the person doesn't prefer. I'm REALLY not a fan of that. I like my tools to do as I need them to, not as someone else needs them to.
What ports do I need to do all this?
What Windows OS would I have most chance of tolerating?
What hardware?
Software suggestions?
What am I missing?

Thanks for any assistance!!  

:D

I'm no computer whiz at all, but it seems to me that you may need to have someone build one out for you. You can get around a lot of your problems by going to a USB connected keyboard, mouse and printer. Some laptops have gone away from having an ethernet/lan port (Your RJ45's). The tough part would be the cd driver/writing function being built in. Most laptops have gone away from this, but you could purchase a cd drive that is USB connected. Most everything can be found easily to use a USB port. The software side of things is where you are going to have a harder time adapting, as you specified a windows unit, and windows has a million built in things that are hard to disable. If you have a lot of old programs to run, you could have someone set you up a virtual machine that runs windows XP or vista (whatever you need to run those old programs with). I find myself in the exact same boat as you, but about automobiles. I want a newly built late seventies truck with a modern fuel injected engine and ZERO of the other electric/computer upgrades. Of course those don't exist (at least not in my price range), so I'll be building my own. Hope this helps, and best of luck on your hunt.

I am in limited agreement with Rusty. At least take the time to walk into a computer…computer repair shop with your list of needs and check on the price.  I have found having a computer custom built is not that pricey.  Of course, call in advance to be sure the company builds computers.

On the flip side, I called a small computer company (Polywell …which was small at the time) maybe 25 years ago).   I talked to the guy who was going to custom build it. He definitely thought I needed more features than I could afford.  Anyway, I stayed firm at my price limit…even with reduced features. The computer arrived at my price limit ….with all the upscale features the builder said I needed. It ran great for the next 15 years.

The most normal wired way to connect your laptop to your router is still using cat-6 cable terminated with RJ45. All my laptops still have ports for that, but they're flimsy. You might get a real RJ45 port if you look for a laptop with a bulky frame, but even if you need a slim machine, just make sure it does have that Ethernet port.

Most of the peripherals these days are USB and so connecting to your new laptop should be easy (unless you have too many). I'd suggest setting up whatever docking station the laptop is expected to work with in your primary workplace at home and that way you can disconnect a single thing from your laptop when it's time to go.

Your CD burner will probably be an external, USB-connected peripheral. In general, the world has moved on to USB 'thumb' drives for all that kind of thing.

Any modern Windows laptop will do video conferencing fine as-is. It will have an in-built camera that's always staring at you. You can put a piece of tape over it when not in use if that freaks you out. You'll have to install the software for whatever platform (e.g. Zoom or MS Teams) you're using.

Instead of swapping out batteries, people now use external power bricks (like this: https://www.amazon.com/INIU-20000mAh-Portable-Charging-3-Output/dp/B0CB1DTFT6/ but that's me just showing an example, not suggesting a specific thing to buy.)

Pearl,

I agree with your approach.
Office 97 still has 100 times more features than a normal person may ever need. It's all progress for the sake of progress and making things obsolete for profit. Very fast machines running extremely badly written software that is just nothing more than bloat.
I don't like google either, as I don't like any monopolies.
To do any banking online you willl need latest browsers that usually run only on newest machines and pathetic new operating systems.It's bevause only them can provide required security.
Video conferencing will also work only with the "latest' in most cases.

Shopping for laptop I would look for backlit keyboard. I'm off grid and without this feature I would have very hard time using the keyboard at night. Any laptop will accept external mouse and a keyboard.
Please pay attention to reviews - I had some laptops with screen separating from the main body after 6 months of gentle use. New laptos usually do not have CD/DVD readers built in.
If you install windows, make sure that you disable any automatic updates that will consume all your bandwidth in no time. Only update if it will ditectly improve your operations. I would recommend checking Linux.

Sadly most new systems come without the ports you need or with very limited number of them.  CD/DVD aka optical drives are not included in most new systems.  So there is a strike against buying one off the shelf and there aren't very many independent builders who build laptops most build towers.  
It sounds like you don't need the latest and greatest tech out there which which is going to make things a bit harder actually

Wired mouse and keyboard will require at least 2 USB ports, plus an extra one for an external CD/ DVD writable drive.  So  minimum of 3 USB ports.
You will need the ability to hardwire your system into your LAN and yep that is still the same port.

You will need a hard copy of your Word program and the installation key for it.  The same goes for any other programs you want to move from old system to new system.  

Microscrew now wants to totally take over your system and life but you can still turn off many of the anti privacy features. BUT  it is getting harder and harder to do so. In fact the new Windows 11 won't even let you set up your system without a MS account unless you are very careful at the beginning and tell it you don't have internet...  It also will not run some of the legacy programs many of us love.  It may pay to take a really close look at the actual requirements for the programs you need to use and be able to access now.  Write them down and use that information when shopping.

You can still plug your laptop into a battery pack but yes many of the newer laptops can no longer have the internal battery replaced.  When the internal battery dies your machine is dead.  The more money you want to spend the more likely you can find something suitable.

Read descriptions carefully.  You DO NOT want a Chromebook which keeps everything on someone else's server system and you download or access as needed.  Google has an operating system this is is what makes a Chromebook possible but you will sometimes see it on a normal laptop instead of Windows.

While hard to find you really do want at least 16 gigs of ram since most new machines have built in graphics and  "shares" the ram.

Hard drives can be as small as 256 gigabytes because they expect you to use an external hard drive. They are also frequently SSD drives which means NO DEFRAGGING.  In fact many of the routine maintenance we learned to perform back in the 90s and early 2000s is no longer needed or can actually be harmful to your system.`

Depending on what you need to do with your laptop now may be a good time to learn another operating system especially if you have been using Windows 7, 8 or XP.  The new Windows are nothing like them.

We recently had to replace my husband's laptop as the CPU fan died and to get it fixed would cost more then a new system (new laptops are now designed to be discarded not repaired)  Since he doesn't take it out of the house often and really has no need for that portability we opted for one of the new Mini PC designs with a separate Monitor.    There are folks who are using these Mini PC with a smaller "travel" monitor as lap top replacements.  Just as with a laptop you need to keep an eye on how many ports and which kinds the little box has but some will have more then most folks need.  MANY if not most of the ones I looked at came with at least one LAN port, 2 ways to connect to a monitor for use with multiple monitors and the needed  4 plus USB ports for a wired mouse, keyboard, and external CDC player/burner.   The little systems can have up to 1 Terabyte hard drives but many are only 512 gigabytes or smaller so a USB port for an external hard drive is considered a necessity by some folks.  I would recommend an AMD Ryzen 5 with at least 16 gigs of ram if you go this route.  

What John said - go into a repair shop , not a big box retailer- and talk to a person there.
Ask them if they think Ogre Battle is the best video game of all time. The person into classic video games and who can keep them running is the guy you want.

You are going to get overwhelmed here and short sold in a retailer.

I would add that you should have two- the small laptop or notebook or tablet you travel with and the desktop at home. You'll save a lot of money and have the home one a lot longer with less wifi usage if you do this. Do you have more than one type of shovel or rake? Same optimization should apply with these  tools. Laptop parts aren't as good and aren't made to be as universal.

You'll want the repair shop savant to remove bloatware and disable all AI features for you, make sure he knows that.

Some Dell laptops have docking stations.
So when you get home you set it on the dock and it is connected to your monitor, mouse etc.

My old Dell Latitude E6430 business class can come with a docking station and has a CD player.
I've found that business class laptops are so much better than others.
Mine can still be upgraded to windows 11 according to the computer repair place I bought it from.
Sometimes repair shops have their favorite old tech laptop that they sell refurbished.
I got mine years ago and it works great. Went in recently to ask some questions and when he saw what kind of laptop I had he was still raving about how fast it is.

Just want to slide in on this conversation in a way that may help Pearl and possibly answer a question I've had about laptops in the past 8 - 10 years.

First, if the place that you are purchasing from can offer you a 'loaner' of the machine you hope to buy, I would advise doing that.  I've had several laptops over the years issued at the workplace that ranged from Dell to HP to Micron.  For my work needs, nearly all did what they were supposed to do and I grew accustomed to the functionality of the offerings.  I think I got spoiled!.....because they tended to be higher-end, workstation replacement laptops.  Now retired, I've gone through several laptops, some died from hardware issues, some grew obsolete with respect to Windows upgrades, and yet admittedly, most were mid-range price point in what each company offered (Gateway, HP, now LG).   Perhaps the most frustrating aspect to me....which may be user error....is the 'wigginess' of the wrist rest and the trackpad.  I use 17" laptops for the greater screen size for aging eyes and opted fo the 'over-sized' trackpad relative to most machines.  It just seems like some movements throw all kinds of unwanted commands and page changes.  Should I not be resting my wrists aloing side of the trackpad?  I've already adjusted the pad sensitivity to its least sensitive level, but still little improvement.  I'm hoping this spurs additional commentary on how Pearl may be able to 'pre-test' a machine before purchase to see if any strange irritations arise within the process that may help to guide the purchase.  Thanks....

Hi Pearl,
It may seem like a lot of things, but what you are looking to do is not a big deal.

Pearl Sutton wrote:But life happens. Due to a massive change in my life circumstances, I need to upgrade to a laptop that can work with online banking, other secure sites, and I need to be able to do video conferencing. I'm not a fan of this concept, but the reality matters more than my personal preferences. I'm hoping to keep most of my stuff on my older system, but reality may not go how I wish and the new laptop might end up being my daily use machine. I do need laptop, although I prefer desktop, because I'll quite probably end up having to carry it places.

It has been so long since I even looked at tech I need help figuring out what I actually need, and the terminology to look for so I can get something that does what I want.

Part of this is I'm EMF sensitive, and I can sort of tolerate wifi, but want to avoid as much excess electrical noise as possible. Part of it is I'm old school and cranky, get off my computer ya damn kids!  :D

I know I need:
Windows OS - it's most familiar to me.
Wired mouse - Hate the track pad, I have the one on this machine covered up because I kept bumping it. Doesn't work for my life except in a few emergencies.
No bluetooth anything or shut off-able - Part of the EMF sensitivity stuff, bluetooth screams loudly to me.

I would recommend the Lenovo T Series of laptops. They come with different sized screens. They will probably come with Windows 11. I still like Windows 10 better, but they will be dropping support for it this fall. That may not matter to you. You can turn off the bluetooth and wireless if you want. And they come with Windows Pro... which is slightly less annoying than Windows Home.

Pearl Sutton wrote:What is the current way to hard wire to a cable or fiber network? Last time I was hard wired I used RJ45 connectors, I want to have the option of hard wiring this one in, what kind of ports would that be?

This hasn't really changed, except many laptops are too skinny to fit a port. The Lenovo's I suggested do still have an RJ45 port that uses Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6a, Cat7 or whatever. They use the same port, but the bigger number means they are rated for faster speeds. I would not go less than Cat6 out of principal... but you probably wouldn't notice a difference no matter what you used.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I'd love to be able to put a keyboard, wired mouse and monitor on it to let it just act like a tower, as I really don't like the whole laptop format to start with. What ports do I need to be able to do that?

I would highly recommend a docking station. We use this kind at work. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XH3PD25?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2

You plug in all your peripherals to the docking station (monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, flash drive, wired internet, etc) then a single cable connects the docking station to the laptop. Those particular laptops (with those particular docking stations) can charge from the same cord that connects all the peripherals. You walk over, plug in the one cord, and you have a "desktop". Then when you need to carry it somewhere, there is one cord to unplug and you can go.

Pearl Sutton wrote:CD/DVD drive and burner - My cars have CD players, not phone connections :D I make CDs to listen to.

This is not as common anymore. You can still get laptops with them... but they are going to be bigger or specialized machines like a 17" gaming laptop or a panasonic toughbook. Much more expensive and overkill for what you need. I would go with what people have suggested already... a USB CD/DVD drive.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Able to do some sort of video conferencing, not even sure what that entails I hate watching most video at all, and hate to have my face on video, so I have never used it, and I step out of range when others have it on. What do I even need to do it?

All you need is a camera (which will come built in to almost every modern laptop), a microphone (also built in) and the software to connection (zoom, microsoft teams, google meet, etc). The laptops I suggest have a physical switch that can be closed to cover the camera when not in use. A piece of tape works too... but its nice to just slide it over. You can buy higher quality cameras and microphones separately... but you probably don't need anything like that.

Pearl Sutton wrote:What am I missing on this list? hmm....  I use Dvorak, but that's a software thing. I like being able to remap keys as I need to, not sure that happens anymore, I know this laptop I run won't do it.

Yeah, just remap stuff.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I'm REALLY SERIOUSLY anti-google. I have adblockers set to stop *@ google.com with an exception for their maps. I don't want ANY phone or computer that's google technology at all.

The suggested laptop is not google in anyway unless you install google products.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I'm old school in general, I don't like icons that look like they came off Fisher Price toys, I like process trees, and don't want my stuff in "libraries." No thanks, I'll organize it how I want it myself. C drive is my friend, I don't need a layer of "but it's convenient!" on top of it.

I can't speak to the icons... they are what they are, but Windows does still allow you to make all your own folders. It tries very hard to get you to do it other ways... but you can still use the C drive.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I don't play computer games.  I do graphics, my software is old, and I have a desktop XP system it runs on, but being able to run older graphics programs would be nice. Photoshop CS2 is so habitual to me I don't even have to think to use it. No interest in any graphic program that requires a subscription.

The only graphics program I use is GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program), which is an open source piece of software. It has a lot of features that I don't use... I generally just use it for basic resizing and cropping.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I need to run a printer, scanner would be nice (not sure if the software for the one I run on the XP machine would run on anything more current, it's also not my favorite scanner I have ever had, it has it's own ideas about what it should scan on a page, to me that's MY decision, not the technology's.) Other tech like laser cutter and 3D printing might be fun to be able to work with in the future. Not sure what ports any of that takes

You can still get printers with USB ports or RJ45 ports... but they are pushing wireless pretty hard. Just look at the specs and you can tell. The old printer might work, but I doubt it would work quite the same way. You may want to consider a new printer/scanner.  

Pearl Sutton wrote:I also use MS Word 97 still, I have a much more current version that I absolutely hate, but that will open docx when I have to. It would possibly be a useful program if I were writing a 300 page book with lots of footnotes and indexing. For what I  do it's just annoying, I basically want just notepad with fonts and colors. So the 97 is still my day to day processor, and I want something that basic for day to day.

I'm not sure if Word 97 would work. I use a product call Libre Office. An open source free alternative to Microsoft Office. It can open docx files among many others.  

Pearl Sutton wrote:I have absolutely hated every email program I have seen for years, I still run Thunderbird 3.0.2  I want my email to come in to my various separate email accounts, not threaded, just by date, can be sorted as I need to, end of game, no other nonsense.  Any suggestions there?

Thunderbird is still around, and is probably the best stand alone client that I know if. I'm sure the newer version will look different though.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Browser: I use a firefox variant, I need it configurable, I tend to remove most icons, and ignore the ones I can't remove. Really didn't like what I saw on the laptops I looked at, (could be the user hadn't ever formatted it for themselves)  one of the Foxes will probably end up most tolerable. NOT Edge or Chrome!  Definitely need to be be able to put adblockers on, I can't stand ads.

I use Firefox mostly myself, so I know it would work fine. Edge comes default on Windows computers, but you don't have to use it.

Pearl Sutton wrote:And actually, I need to be able to configure most of my software, I have zero use for over 85% of the crap they put in programs, and I just want it to go away. The stuff I use I like being able to arrange as I wish, as my parameters are not the same as others (or I'd not be having a problem with figuring out what I laptop I can tolerate) and it just irritates me to beat my head against parameters designed for other people.

This is probably where you will have the most trouble. Modern programs are making it harder and harder to configure things. They want them to work the same way for everyone so they have less to manage. You still can, but you have to really pick and choose the programs.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Oh, someone (who uses Macs) says laptops don't have replaceable batteries any more? Is this true? If so, that absolutely sucks. That's one of the main things I like about my current one, I can charge up several batteries and take it places and just swap as I need to. Grid power is not always available in my world.

There are laptops (like the panasonic toughbooks) which still have a battery that can be taken out and replaced with another charged battery (some models even have two batteries, so you don't have to power down in between). But I think the suggestions of a battery pack is probably a less expensive option. Toughbook would be overkill for you I think.

I would not go with less than 16GB of RAM, and I would not go with less than 512GB of hard drive space. Any modern processor would probably be fine. Though the AMD Ryzen 5 and Intel Core i5 are sort of the middle of the road for processors.

You can do this! It seems like a big thing now... but give it another 10 years, and you will be back here talking about how much you love your old laptop and don't want to upgrade :) haha

John Weiland wrote:Just want to slide in on this conversation in a way that may help Pearl and possibly answer a question I've had about laptops in the past 8 - 10 years.

First, if the place that you are purchasing from can offer you a 'loaner' of the machine you hope to buy, I would advise doing that.  I've had several laptops over the years issued at the workplace that ranged from Dell to HP to Micron.  For my work needs, nearly all did what they were supposed to do and I grew accustomed to the functionality of the offerings.  I think I got spoiled!.....because they tended to be higher-end, workstation replacement laptops.  Now retired, I've gone through several laptops, some died from hardware issues, some grew obsolete with respect to Windows upgrades, and yet admittedly, most were mid-range price point in what each company offered (Gateway, HP, now LG).   Perhaps the most frustrating aspect to me....which may be user error....is the 'wigginess' of the wrist rest and the trackpad.  I use 17" laptops for the greater screen size for aging eyes and opted fo the 'over-sized' trackpad relative to most machines.  It just seems like some movements throw all kinds of unwanted commands and page changes.  Should I not be resting my wrists aloing side of the trackpad?  I've already adjusted the pad sensitivity to its least sensitive level, but still little improvement.  I'm hoping this spurs additional commentary on how Pearl may be able to 'pre-test' a machine before purchase to see if any strange irritations arise within the process that may help to guide the purchase.  Thanks....

Nope you should not be resting your wrists along side the trackpad it makes it do crazy things.  IF you don't mind using a mouse you can turn that track pad off which will remove that irritant totally.  A friend showed me many years ago since my hands tend to make random movements and it was driving me crazy trying to use a touchpad.  There is a setting in Accessibility  then go to Mouse and Touch, open Touch and there is a setting you can use to totally turn off your touch pad OR tell it to turn off when a mouse is attached.   I tend to use the turn off touchpad if mouse is attached that means if I forget the mouse or it dies or needs batteries I can still work on the laptop.   While in Accessibility  Mouse and Touch  I also enlarge the size of my cursor AND use the option to make it change colors depending on what the background color is.  Nothing worse then losing your cursor on a matching background...    Yeah aging eyes and hands make those laptops harder and harder to use... I have a laptop for use when I am on a 3  to 5 day trip for shows but  at home I currently have a underpowered All in One.   Of course somehow we ended up with a Mini PC attached to the TV as a monitor and with the wireless mouse and keyboard set it makes it easy to use that big screen for many computer projects.
It is set up with local accounts for dh and I plus sigh I messed up and said I had internet during setup so was required to sign in with a Microsoft account.  OF course that means we use the local accounts for most things and some day I will get around to deleting the Microsoft account.  

Thank you all! I have a pile of tabs open  to sift through this morning!! I think I need another cup of tea before I get into that pile....

As far as the touchpad, not sure if I put that in my post, I only use it in an emergency, I have a piece of card stock taped over it, with tape that's easy to peel off if I need it. I can't stand the things. And the shape of my hands makes my thumb drag across it when I type. Card stock works for me to disarm the thing as there doesn't seem to be a software way to shut it off on this machine.

Matt McSpadden: please define

They will probably come with Windows 11. I still like Windows 10 better, but they will be dropping support for it this fall

Part of why I need to upgrade my tech is I can't access bank accounts etc, can't comply with their security requirements, as I'm running Win 7.
Does dropping support mean that I'll not be able to comply with the requirements?

(I HATE this crap. I get no viruses etc because no one puts out viruses for systems this old, why would they? There are two ways to be secure, on is to stay bleeding edge, the other is to drop back so far no one bothers you, I'm a big fan of back and slow and not bothered.)

For what it's worth: current laptop is a Dell Latitude D820 that was absolutely not a new machine when I got it in 2014. I don't know how long it's support services was good for, but the service expired in Sept 2011.  I never meant for it to be my daily use machine, I got it for keeping track of things while we were moving.

At the moment, I need to get my act together to get back to dealing with the cahos that's upended my life. I'll be in a city today, I think I'll walk into best buy and look at form factors of various things, see what I am physically comfortable with.
I'll keep this tab collection marked for more thought later.

Part of the problem with a custom thing is I have no local places. there may be geeks who work out of their homes, but I have no clue where to find them. The closest city is 40+ miles, and then I'm into all the city crap, basically if they aren't on a main street, I haven't noticed them, and if they are, I can't afford them.

Maybe I need to check craigslist for local computer reseller type geeks.... Hm...



I just want this all to stop...  :(  I don't have energy for all of this on top of everything else I'm doing.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Matt McSpadden: please define

They will probably come with Windows 11. I still like Windows 10 better, but they will be dropping support for it this fall

Part of why I need to upgrade my tech is I can't access bank accounts etc, can't comply with their security requirements, as I'm running Win 7.
Does dropping support mean that I'll not be able to comply with the requirements?

To maintain a secure connection to websites, they use complex math (public key cryptography, and ciphers and whatnot). Your computer and the server on the other end have a conversation to see which ciphers they support. They find the strongest cipher that both devices support and use that to create a connection. Sometimes old ciphers get hacked, and so they take it off the list of possibilities. Sometimes they come up with an even better cypher and they add it to the list.

When Microsoft stops supporting a version of Windows, (among other things) they stop adding those new ciphers. Presumably the servers DO get updated. Eventually the server list gets too new, while your computer list is too old, and they no longer have any matching ciphers. This is probably what you are running into.

A lot of the security happens in the browser, but the underlying operating system (Windows, Apple, Linux, etc) also does a lot. Since Windows 7 is not being supported anymore, it is not getting any new ciphers, and the servers probably finally got rid of all the old ones that are available. With Windows 10, you will probably be good to go for a long time... but if you want the longest stretch before you need to update again, you may need to get Windows 11.

Good luck and please note... Most stores will not have Lenovo T Series available off the shelf. The business class of laptops are built physically stronger and less flashy than the consumer class, but are less likely to be in a store.