Laptop wiped

[chinup2011]

My laptop has been running painfully slow for a long time so decided to give it to my DS to sort out. He's a clever lad and promised me he could sort it.
Although he has backed up all my info he has managed to delete Outlook and Microsoft word.

He thought we had discs to re- install it but we don't, any ideas as what to do next, do we have to buy them again?

If you have the licence numbers you can reinstall them by downloading them.

If you haven't then you can either buy them again (using your sons student status to buy cheap) or you can download free alternatives

Chrome or Firefox for crowsers
Thunderbird for email
Libreoffice for ms word, excel, powerpoint etc.

Is the laptop prompting you to upgrade to Windows 10? That comes with a mail programme so you wouldn't need Outlook.

What's your internet connection like? Google Drive and OneDrive both have free office tools, OneDrive (being Microsoft) has Word Online, which is a reasonably good replacement for the real thing and is free.

Thank you. I have documents already done in word, will I be able to access them using the alternatives?

Yes. Also look at Google docs if your office needs are basic docs, spreadsheet s and slides.

Yes - slightly easier to edit existing Word documents in OneDrive than Google.

Just install Open Office to read the documents. Its free and works very well and is compatible with office :)

Say I did have the product key there is nothing on the laptop at all. When you look at Microsoft it says it doesn't support outlook 2003, I can't seem to see where you can down load it, so have I had it with this and should just install the free stuff?

Yes you won't find a download for something as old as Outlook 2003.

Thank you Tribpot can you suggest an alternative for Outlook?
I really don't understand this but I use it for a business email, so it looks like me @ chinup.com for example.
The mail comes from a googlemail account then into Outlook - I hope I'm explaining myself correctly as I really don't understand the setup. I just need it to look like .com rather than googlemail.

So it's a business account based on the Google mail platform? I have one of these too. You should just be able to log into Gmail and manage it all in a web browser, you don't need Outlook. However, if you want to manage it in a desktop app rather than a browser, you can use Thunderbird as cdtaylor suggests. I'd see how you get on with the browser version first, and save some hassle. That said I'd also be handing this problem over to your ds to solve since he said he knew what he was doing! :)

That sounds good. I'm assuming I manage all that in settings in gmail? and I can set it so that it looks like it sends from a .com address?

Yes DS will be doing it, I just want to get a handle on it myself before things go even more pear shaped.

If your email address is provided by Google, you should just log in to mail.google.com using that email address and password, you don't then need to do anything extra to set it up. So I can use the Gmail web interface in exactly the same way for my personal account (which happens to be @gmail.com) as I can my business one (which is @another-company.com). Just log in and I think all will become clear.

My personal email is on Google but the business is (or was) on Outlook. I thought I could manage both through Gmail, but when I go to settings then accounts and import it just says that Gmail couldn't identify my POP server. I'm copying the details off my phone but I'm aware that I'm out of my depth with this and am obviously doing something wrong.

Yes, the Outlook bit is kind of irrelevant. That's just the application you chose to manage the email with. Is the work account a Google for business one? If yes, you need to log in to Google with your work email address.

If no, you can manage it through your personal Gmail account but you will have to get the server details right. Is there a web interface to your work email account in its own right, i.e. without importing it into your Gmail account?

tribpot I must be trying you patience but I don't know what you mean.

I want to manage it through my personal email account. The set up is very complicated: Mail received through my business account gets collected in a separate gmail account, separate to my personal gmail account then that process is reversed to send mail out. It looks like it's coming from my business account It was set up like that because it worked better with my ISP. It is so confusing.

I've managed to get Gmail to send as if it were my business.com account. What a break through! but it will not import mail.
I've done 'Accounts and Import' but it says - this cannot be done at this time, try again later.
It's taking the mickey now!

If both accounts are on Gmail it has nothing to do with your ISP, I hope this isn't more advice coming from your ds :) However, let's assume the work email isn't a Gmail account but from some other provider, you want to manage it in the Gmail portal along with your personal Gmail mailbox. Sounds fine. When you say it won't import mail, does that mean new mail sent to your work address is not showing up in the Gmail window, or that you can't see the current contents of your work mailbox?

This Google forums thread has a couple of useful pointers - is the work domain one of those listed as valid for import, and if the work account is a Google account, apparently Mailfetcher is the preferred way of sharing data between the two accounts.

This seems to be Google's standard response on the issue.

Thank you tribpot I've done it! Hurrah! What a break through!
Once I understood what I was doing it became clear.

Thank you again for your directions.

Great stuff - hope you can now get the benefit of increased speed on the laptop since it was wiped.