I’m seriously considering buying a tablet. I’ve

[Frances]

I’m seriously considering buying a tablet. I’ve spent a good few hours browsing this truly excellent forum and I can see that I’m doing what many before me have done – dithering about the decision for months (probably 8 months now – is this a record?)!

I haven’t found any information on my questions here so I hope I’m not repeating earlier discussions. If I am, sorry - feel free to refer to me to an earlier thread.

The latest thing to have put me off taking the plunge is that I’m just changing jobs and the support people at the new place have strongly warned against a tablet (that’s putting it mildly they were extremely anti-tablet – I see this isn’t unusual). The reasons they gave for this were many and varied but basically boil down to the following:

(1) They say Microsoft are moving away from tablets [I’m not too worried about this now because, after a lot of careful browsing, I can see that it doesn’t seem to be true – if anything the reverse seems to be true judging from BETA versios of VISTA!]
(2) More important for me – The technical services (IT) staff at the new workplace offer no support for tablets so I’m on my own if I get one. I’m technologically inept so that could be a problem in itself! The biggest thing though is that I would need to transfer a lot of work from the tablet to my work PC in order to “use� it at work (e.g. word documents, annotated documents of various sorts, powerpoint presentations). My question is therefore about whether I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that (a) ALL of my tablet documents can be safely backed up on a desktop, should disaster strike and (b) my tablet-produced and desktop-produced documents will move between platforms without becoming corrupted. To put these concerns another way, I have two specific questions:

(a) Is it possible to backup and use documents created on the tablet (e.g. in OneNote) on a PC running a non-tablet version of Windows (I don’t know what version my new employers run)?
(b) If a tablet-created document has been saved on a non-tablet platform can it then be modified back on the tablet?
(I’m not asking about the mechanics of doing this, just about whether XP for a desktop and a tablet are totally and reliably compatible across a range of applications including those designed for the tablet)
I've got a related software question so I'll go and post that in the right place!

A bit of background: I’m a university lecturer (in language, linguistics and communication) so will use the tablet in all the ways that an inventive student might plus to deliver lecture presentations, keep student records etc. I’m probably going to go for the Toshiba M200 (for various reasons – I know I need to get an optical drive so no need to warn me of that) but also tempted by the Fujitsu-Siemens T4010 / T4020 or the HP TC4200.

Please excuse any incorrect terminology in my message – I hope it makes sense and isn’t totally stupid. Thanks for any help anyone can give.

Fran

[nalgae]

Everything is totally compatible; files are files and operating systems are operating systems (at least between the WinXP operating systems). There is no modification needed when you transfer files between a tablet pc and a non-tablet pc system, whether it be through CD, USB key or e-mail. The only thing you would need on your desktop to look at onenote files is onenote itself, which works fine on desktops, but without the intuitiveness.

The denial of support is regrettable, but understandable. I'm a tech guy for my office and my boss is never keen on supporting new software, as it means the whole tech team has to learn it tolerably well.

And don't worry about being technically inept; your tablet pc purchase is a step into the great world of geekdom ;)

[vaporware]

To give you a little bit more information about transfer of files, Microsoft has a very simple, very cool little application for doing just that. It is called SyncToy and it will let you do file synchronization between two computers very easily, all that is required is that they are on the same network.

-Vapor

[FeralBoy]

And amazingly enough, if you mark up a document in Word 2003 using your tablet pen (i.e., editing marks, comments, etc.), non-tablet users can open the document and all your cool comments are in place! It would be perfect for grading assignments if your students are creating their docs in Word...not sure about word processors that are compatible with Word files though.

As for support nightmares and differences in the OS, the Tablet OS is a superset of Windows XP Professional, I have been using my tablet for nearly 2 years and haven't found any issues between the OSes yet. The only minor niggle is that a couple of programs don't like the TIP and won't open it automatically so I've had to use the docked TIP. These programs were both shareware though, so they're not major concerns.

Welcome to the Tablet PC world. It's warm and cozy in here, you're gonna enjoy your stay.

[jackholexxxx]

I would be embarrased to work at a company that hires such inept IT people. I say buy the tablet and quit the job.

[Jehtris]

Jack,

That's not always an answer. Alot of corporations would not support "non-standard" OS's.

To the OP:

A tablet machine runs Windows XP Professional, with a few added functionalities. It will sit on the network just fine, and look like a XP Pro machine on the network. You can use all USB devices (hard drives, optical drives, flash drives, etc.) without any problems.

I would buy the machine, and if you need IT help, tell the IT guy it is XP Pro.

[moore]

This is a reminder of one of the reasons I left the corporate and academic worlds and went to work for myself. I realize that's not always an option. Nearly every sysadmin or computer support person I worked with was (1) very knowledgable about core computer issues and security matters, and (2) very conservative about supporting anything out of the norm. They always had to be dragged into each new technology by a flood of users demanding it. I'm sure it varies, and I didn't work at any computer companies.

[skinny_fat]

Frances,
Ha ha! You have nothing to worry about. Like Jehtris said Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is Windows XP Professional. I does everything XP Pro does, but a little more. I myself transfer files from my tablet to a XP Home desktop and even to Mac OSX computers without problems (granted there are only a few types of files that transfer well to a mac. Such as Word docs, pdfs, and images.) You can even store any type of file to any other type of computer for later retrieval.

Again, I agree with Jehtris. If you have trouble with something other than a tablet-specific program like Journal, tell the IT guys it's XP Pro. Their troubleshooting will be the same for you as for someone who uses a non-tablet XP Pro machine.

One thing to keep in mind. Because XP TPC is a "superset of XP Pro", as stated above, there will be programs you can run on your tablet, but not on your desktop (ie: Journal again, although there is a "Journal Viewer" program that lets non-tablets open, but not edit, Journal files.). The reverse is not true. Anything that runs on XP Pro will run on a tablet. Hope that helps.

One more thing. If you really need tech support, this is the place to get it. These guys are really knowledgeable (not just about tablets) and very helpful. All you need to do is be very specific about your problem. And it's free!

Welcome to the club.

[Pingmeister]

While I've worked with my share of inept IT people I think it's fair to say that most I have dealt with were very interested in new technology, but already overwhelmed with their current workload. It's understandable that they hesitate to take on new technologies.

I'm lucky that the folks at this company are true IT nerds who flip out when you have something new to show them. Just grab it back before they take it apart!

[Frances]

Well here I am, waiting to (hopefully) take delivery of my shiny new M200 this very day! I am in equal parts very excited and very nervous. :-) Hopefully I'll love using my machine as much as some of you folks do yours as I'm not thinking of parting with that much cash again in a hurry!

Thanks for all your help on this thread.

Fran