Off-topic: Apple

[DTS]

...Before I switched to a new computer with Windows 7 at the beginning of the year, my son and I did some brain storming for the necessity, since he also said all you need to buy is a new hard drive and upgrade your memory. I decided against it because of the speed and my first argument above.

Plus switching to Windows 7 is a big chore including replacement of of other hardware and maybe software, depends on what you use. I surely wanted to be in control of when to tackle this. I still have my old (4 years) XP computer and will keep it as a backup. First I thought I would sell it since it is a real good machine, but exactly for that reason I better keep it.

Dennis, you are lucky that your computer is still working at that age. New computers are so inexpensive nowadays. I encourage you to jump into Windows 7.

Gretel, you did with your son what I'm doing now, which is trying to figure this out. I'm weighing the cost of upgrading parts and software vs all new pc. I have not called Dell, but my guess is I would be limited as to what and how much my machines could be upgraded. I just quadrupled my RAM, but I noticed little by way of performance. I will get online with Dell and see what upgrades I can do and make a decision one way or the other. Having 8 year-old machines is pushing me toward new. Like you said, I would just save the old ones as backup.

Again, thank you all for sharing.

[David1980]

I hear, see and know of people buying new PC's all the time. My confusion most of the time is WHY!??

Why not? If I can buy a computer that not only meets the required specifications, but also the recommended specifications of all my software, (even high resource software like Tax Works), for all of $200 or $300 at the local Walmart why wouldn't I buy a new one every year? Especially if I can get a deal for the computer that comes with 1-year support or something like that.

Yes, I can clean up the computer after each tax season, do upgrades, make sure everything is up to date, etc... But then again, maybe I'm not very technical and need to pay someone to do that for me.

And if you start calling geek squad for computer cleanups, upgrades, etc... You're going to spend more than the $200 or $300 to replace very quickly. I always wonder why people are using such old computers in tax businesses. Something that barely meets the minimum requirements for their software, that's slow, has tons of adware, perhaps viruses... when they're spending $1000+ for tax software plus whatever other software they use every year? It just doesn't make sense.

[erchess]

Gretel

Gretel asked why it is recommended to put security software on a VM since every time you turn it off you erase any malware and since to date there is no way for an infection on a VM to reach your hardware.

I don't actually know the answer so I want it understood by all that I am speculating. Note that malware can still steal info you have on the VM and I would think that you would want some protection against that. Also a lot of people run the VM a lot while away from computer and who knows what havoc the malware could do to the VM. Finally, I do not know why an infection of a VM cannot reach the system hardware but I expect that we simply have not yet figured out how this is done. The baddies will be the first people who figure out how it is done. In the long run there is no un stoppable invader and no shield which cannot be breached.