I Surrender, Almost

Mac and Windows have finally won.  They've beaten me.  They have sent my computer life out of my control.  I don't say that lightly.

A month ago, I confidently downloaded the lastest version of the Mac O/S.  Catalina.  But it prevented me from using my Mac version of MS Office Word and Excel.  Huh!  Well, OK, I'll revert to the previous Mac O/S.  I can't.  It doesn't want me to.  There are suggestions on how to do that on some sites, but I can't make them work.  Catalina really wants to stay active.

I've spent hours on and off for the past week trying to get rid of it.  No luck.  So last night I sat down determined to restore the entire computer to a November version. 

Macs have that capability through something called "Time Machine".  I've done it before.  You go to a timeline of external drive backups, choose the one you want, hit the "restore" button, and you have the old version from that day.

Guess what won't work anymore?  Time Machine.  I spent several hours trying to do the "restore".  On the few occasions I even got the restore button to be active (most times it was greyed out), my password wouldn't work.  Catalina is actively thwarting my attempts...

Mac has moved from 32 bit to 64 bit and it wants you to stay there!  THEY KNOW BEST, after all...  They are creating a consistent world of users that suits their conception of the  future. 

So, while persistence in the past has usually worked, there is evidently a wall I can't get around now.  I've tried everything I can (with an exception I will get to later).

So, I suppose I have with Mac O/S Catalina.  And if you haven't, don't.  Unless you love buying new apps.

One of the things I lose on Catalina is my old MS For Mac Office.  MS Word and Excel are much better than Mac's iWorks Page and Numbers apps.  I do a lot in both Word and Excel that Page and Numbers won't.

So, I said I surrendered.  That means upgrading to MS For Mac 365.  And that means a yearly subscription fee of $70 rather than just buying the program.  I hate that.  The previous version was Office 2008 for a reason.  Lasted 11 years, no problems, cost about $40.  Until I find something really better, I'm perfectly happy with basic programs tat do the simle things I want them to do.

So, I went to the Mac App store to but MS For Mac 365.  It sends me to Microsoft.  Microsoft wanted me to set up an account.  OK.  I was kind of pissed off, so my password wasn't really "friendly".  Nothing "nasty" but It violated some rule.  

So the site said I had to send them my phone number so they could text me a temp password so I could get into my new account and change it.  Guess who doesn't have a smart phone?  And guess who didn't offer me any options to contact them?

THEY (MS) WON'T EVEN LET ME BUY THEIR DAMN SOFTWARE!

And apparently, even if I can figure out how to buy MS Office For Mac 365, it is in "the cloud".

Mac and MS are doing their uttermost to take the least bit of control I had away.

Now, given ALL THAT, I may have an "out".  I have a new mac mini I bought last year because I misunderstood how much RAM I had left on the current one.  And I have the previous one too.  The newer one might not have Catalina.  And I know the older one does NOT!

I'm going to set both up offline tomorrow.  See what O/S the new one is on first.  If it is Catalina, I will set it aside (it may have MS For Mac Office 365 on it and some other good programs).  And if so, I will check the older Mac Mini and hook up the Time Machine external drive to see if it will do the "restore" function.

If it does, maybe I can migrate the old computer  to the current one (not the new one) and keep going from there as I've been doing.

I'm not a computer geek.  For me, many changes are like beating away a crocodile with a baseball bat.  I don't even understand why some changes are made.  Mac Photos is probably an improvement over Mac iPhotos for some people, but I was perfectly happy with iPhotos. 

Photos just keeps saying it is rearranging things (anticipating my desires, I suppose) but I don't WANT it to do that.  If I want rearrangements, give me the option to tell it to do that.  Don't force it on me.  Ah but Mac knows best...  And so does Windows. 

When I was younger, I used to read a lot of science fiction.  Some of the stories "predicted" dystopias where Government or Business would force people to do things a certain way or act a certain way, or people would just learn to all act the same. in the "future".

The "future" is now.

I bet I can get around Mac and MS for a few more years.    But there will come a time when I just plain CAN'T. 

DAMN!