You're right -- I asked for advice about some specific solutions
without fully stating what functions my wife wants the system to
provide:

1.  Output text to a laser printer.  I've already had a separate thread
here about trying to obtain the 64-bit Windows 7 drivers for the printer
she already has (and installing them), and although I cannot yet report
success, it turns out there have been suggestions I haven't tried yet,
so hope is not dead after all.

2.  Our local low-vision resource center sells machines which basically
have a small video camera and a big screen, to show magnified views of
things like book pages.  Typical prices are around $3500 -- i.e., about
twice what they're really worth.  I have not yet found a USB camera that
actually works with her new computer (and OS).

3.  Text-to-speech input.  I got a nice deal on the latest version of
Dragon Naturally Speaking, but haven't yet had a chance to install and
test ir yet.

4.  3D games.  She has loved the EA(?) Harry Potter PC games, at least
until the recent "LEGO" ones.  This will probably be the most strenuous
use of the nVidia graphics card, and so far my hope is that anything
that will run Win32 games with driver support for that card isn't going
to have a problem.

  So far I've attempted to achieve the first two without success,
failing in ways that may be specific to the 64-bit Windows 7 OS.  So my
question on this thread is about punting to a more familiar and mature
OS, *possibly* retaining the ability to boot into this wonderful new OS
sometime in the future if solutions become available.

  Oh yeah -- being able to play DVDs would be nice, too.  I don't think
we've actually tested that, but I'm not expecting any difficulties
there.  Then again, I didn't expect most of the issues that have come up
so far either....

  Radio Shack were very nice about refunding my money for the garbage
Microsoft USB camera.  At first they tried to say I was two days past
the deadline to return it, but when I pointed out that I had only bought
it two days earlier, they realized they were mistaken about that.

David Gillett



-------- Original Message --------
From: mike stanz <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, February 01, 2012 7:10 am

simplicity.. you never said what the problem was, only that your wife
couldn't do what she wanted. what does she want to do? once you explain
this then
maybe someone could help find a solution.




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