I bought two copies of the Win8 Pro upgrade, one for myself and one for my elderly mother. In my case, the upgrade program found one incompatible application on my Windows 7 computer; once that’s removed (the upgrade program does it for you when you tell it to go ahead and remove the application), everything went smoothly and it took less than 20 minutes to upgrade. Then my mother upgraded her Win7 machine, too, and reported no problems.

I have successfully installed Windows XP on over a dozen computers without a single glitch. The new OS is simply a beauty to behold and a joy to use. It’s fast (on par with Win2k), stable, and, best of all, compatible with both Win98/ME and Win2k programs. A lot of hardware drivers are built-in. The only caveat is you must have the right hardware before you upgrade. According to PC World 90% of upgrade troubles occur because people don’t heed the system requirements.

TaxCut enables you to cut down the number of hours you have to spend on tax prep, but its confusing instructions often leave you frustrated. I find the free TaxAct (taxact.com) actually more user-friendly and more flexible when you want to enter information on the forms yourself.

While I’ve used Adobe Premier, Adobe Premier Element and also iMovie in the past, I’ve largely relied on the simple and basic Windows Movie Maker for my home video editing needs. (I put together a lot of home movies showcasing my kids doing silly things all kids do.)nnCorel’s Video Studio Pro X6 really surprised me. First of all, it’s really easy to get started. I had been expecting something complicated, having used Corel’s other creative products before.

No idea why people are trashing SP2, since it introduces a lot of stability and security enhancements. In the latter dept. it’s still not robust yet; you need a firewall (e.g., a router or ZoneAlarm software) and a free anti-virus program (AVG, from grisoft.com) to beef up your security. But in many other aspects SP2 fixes stability and security holes and it installed seamlessly on my PCs and has made things soemwhat better.

This is the third version of Quicken Willmaker Plus I have used. I liked the 2009 version. Unfortunately, starting with the 2010 version, Nolo, the publisher of self-help legal books that produces this software, took away the living trust feature, which was a terrible move. (Also, you’re supposed to upgrade to a new version every year. If you don’t, the software won’t update itself after the end of the version year – i.

Bought a cheap Toshiba laptop with Win7 Home Premium installed and really liked Win7. Fast, stable, nice eye candy, and great search service. Decided I also wanted XP Mode and encrypted file system, only available in the Professional (and Ultimate and Enterprise) editions. (Other additional features from Home Premium include presentation mode, network projector support, network backup support [wow!], offline file support, Windows domain support, and remote desktop host). Bought the Anytime Upgrade key online at a discount.

I work with PDF all the time, even though I really dislike the file format, because its behavior is unpredictable even when you work with the same source file, for example, a Word document with a few graphics embedded. PDF Fusion is a very versatile PDF editor and creator and convertor. It’s powerful, although the learning curve beyond the very basic is steep. Upon installation, it ran smoothless on my i7 laptop,

I did my 100th upgrade to Windows XP Pro today, for a new client. All 100 installations went smoothly without a hitch, and the 60+ that have been running for over 2 months have been running rock solid. If you are coming from Windows 2000 Professional, expect a slight speed increase (assuming you have at least 256MB of RAM) and better stability. None of the installations I have done, ranging from single desktop workstation to servers to WiFi-enabled laptops, has experienced any crash.

This year’s Turbo Tax has an annoying anti-piracy lock that won’t let you print if you install it on more than one PC, so even if you want to buy it after reading the revealing reviews here, be sure to buy a fresh, factory-sealed copy, not an open package!