Abby Normal

​They backup companies and payers every time you exit a return and the data has changed, and apparently there's no limit to how many they keep.

To backup settings, from Return Manager, click on Returns menu, choose Backup and check the Setup Data box. You can also backup the other items there. I don't use form rates and hourly rates so I can't tell if they are included in the auto backup or not.

Cash basis. Can't claim it until 2015.

Was looking thru ATX 2014 Backup folder and saw that ATX had made over 800 backups of Companies (not even sure what that is) and over 1,300 backups of Payers. I checked with ATX and each backup contains all companies and all payers, so you only need to keep the last few. I wish they would give us an option to just keep the last 10 backups.

If you're low on diskspace, this saved me about 600MB.

Reminder: if you want your Settings backed up, you have to do that manually.

​If Microsoft had just made this point and given users the option to make the start menu full screen or traditional, 8 would have been much more popular. Everyone was saying that it had no start menu because it looked different.

Page 9 of pub 4681 has an insolvency worksheet.

I emailed my sales rep about enhanced fixed assets and he called and left a message that it was 279. I emailed back and said no thanks. I wouldn't pay more the 100 for it. He called back again and said he could do 100, so I signed up for it. This way I can evaluate it for a year and see if it's worth having.

​I have 7 at home and 8 at work. I HATE 7. I think 8 is easier to use. Things I do easily in 8 I struggle with in 7. I look forward to all the new features in 10.

This is not what you were asking for, but it's a pretty nice 1040 calculator.

http://www.dinkytown.net/java/Tax1040.html

As for tracking ytd income, I think you're looking for a Quicken or Mint product.

No one's sure what an upgrade from 7 to 10 will be like, because the release date is 7/29. I'll be test upgrading an old win7 laptop and report back here. My suggestion would be to wait until later this year to have the computer built to see what's being reported both about win10 and about upgrades from 7 to 10. As others have pointed out, sticking with 7 for the next 5 years is a valid option.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is very useful for customizing windows.

Win7/Vista: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-v2-a-tweak-ui-for-windows-7-vista

Win8: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-3-windows-8

​Yes, you definitely want to disable some stuff in 8, like all windows versions. SnapTo is one feature I have zero use for. Customizing software is something I always do.

​There's usually a button right above the touchpad to turn it off. Mine is always in the off position. Like Jack, I much prefer a mouse.

​XP didn't have a home page, so I'll assume you meant menu, which is where those tiles are. You can remove those tiles so you have none, or replace them with ones you use like Word, Excel, ATX, etc. And 'tiles' is just a fancy name for icons, except that these icons can be 'live', meaning they change based on content, like news, weather, stock market, etc. They can be quite useful.

There is very little difference for me running 8 than XP. I use Control Panel. I have icons on my desktop. I have a QuickLaunch toolbar on my taskbar. And, like 7, I have icons pinned to my taskbar, which is an improvement over XP.

I rarely use the menu in windows because I find it inefficient. I'd rather have an icon on my desktop or toolbar to launch programs I frequently use.

People freaked because 8 didn't have a menu they recognized, but if they would haven't gotten over their shock, they would have found that the start screen gave them everything their menu did, and more. Making the start screen into a menu of sorts and running modern apps in windows instead of full screen may give some comfort, but it changes very little.

Eventually, we'll all be on the same version of windows.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/what-windows-as-a-service-and-a-free-upgrade-mean-at-home-and-at-work/

​I love how they say you only need 3-10GB of drive space. My data folder with 2 years of about 400 tax returns is 18GB.

​7 is on extended support, not full support. I wouldn't want to be using 7 in 2017, much less 2020. The sooner you start learning the new ways, the better off you'll be. I've been on 8 for 2.5 years and I think it's the best OS MS has ever made.

​Yes, you can upgrade to 10 from 7 and even from Vista.

Driver changes occur constantly. Check with the hardware vendor.

Stay tuned on 10 running ATX but 12 thru 14 run fine on 8.1, and I see 10 as more like 8.5 than a whole new OS.

​If you have win7 your computer is at least a couple years old now. I never plan on more than 3-5 years from a computer, and it doesn't make sense to put an outdated OS on a new computer.

​The start menu will replace the start screen in 10 but you can change that setting.

Touch screen monitors are more expensive. Which ones did you buy?

I waited for 95 before I switched from DOS.

I don't have, nor do I plan to have, any touch screen capabilities. I just tried and I can't even reach my monitors when sitting at my keyboard!

​Yes... and no. Personally I don't find 8's interface that drastically different from XP.

​10 is probably more like 8.5 than a new os, so you should be fine, but wait until October-November to see how the roll out goes.

Win 8.1 is actually less buggy than 7, plus it's feature rich and easier to use. I don't rush in and change immediately. I like to lag a bit with any new technology, but win 8 came out in 2012, almost three years ago. And with 10 coming out next month, 7 is getting to be quite old.

The newer operating systems are more secure and more user friendly. I know because I cuss the one win7 machine I have at home, every time I need to work on it.

I will likely test 10 this fall on my one part-time workstation to test ATX, QuickBooks, etc., and if successful, move to 10 before next tax season.

One plus is that I can help my clients with XP thru 8.1, and soon, 10.

If you're planning on downloading the free win10 upgrade, and you currently have a 32 bit version of windows installed, you might want to consider upgrading to a 64 bit version of windows, so you will get the 64 bit version of windows 10.