My mother in law is 92 years old and lives in Flor...

My mother in law is 92 years old and lives in Florida; my wife and I live in Madison, Wisconsin.

My mother in law reported to us that her laptop computer was no longer working. Her son, a retired computer administrator responsible for the mainframe for a major city, was visiting and speculated that the power switch was broken as the reason for why the machine would not turn on. We contemplated purchasing a new laptop for her but the learning curve would be, we thought, too great versus a machine she had been using for more than three years.

We told her son to ship the machine to us as our experience with Madison Computer Works was so positive last year we were convinced that they could fix the laptop and if not they still could retrieve the data (including numerous files of family photos).

In the interim her son kept insisting she really did not need the laptop, she needed only to learn how to better use her cell phone; she in turn started repeating this position stating it was easier for her to see the cell phone than her 13 inch screen on the lap top; wanting to be like everyone else she saw sitting in waiting rooms with their phones, not knowing that they most certainly too owned laptops along with those phones.

She recently had a stroke and was a bit blind in one eye so the proposition that a 4 inch screen of a cell phone was preferable to a 13 inch laptop screen was ludicrous to say the least.

Despite all the resistance and opposition the son sent the laptop to us. We met with Mr. Peter Michalski outside of Madison Computer Works and outlined the issue.

Even as the machine was at Madison Computer Works both the son and mother in law told us not to spend money on a repair and simply throw it out.

Three days later I received a telephone call from Mr. Michalski letting us know the laptop was up and running. The battery was bad he said. I replied that the machine never ran off the battery only AC. He explained that when the machine began to start up Windows detected that the battery was dead and as a result would not start. He removed the attached built in battery, deleted all the bloatware on her laptop, updated all the programs and installed an anti-virus program that would run in the background seamlessly.

We were almost ecstatic at the news and when we brought it home it was running as new, and this is a machine that is running Windows 7!

Since Florida, my mother in law moved into an assisted living facility in another state; she now has her as new laptop and is receiving emails with pictures attached and let us know that she now no longer likes her cell phone because it is too heavy to hold up to her ear! She acknowledges and recognizes now how much easier it is to see pictures on her laptop screen. Moreover we created and installed many new filles in My Pictures for her, so she can view as slide shows, before returning the laptop to her; she is delighted with it.

The moral of the story is even if you have a family member who is highly computer savvy and perhaps even earned his living working with computers, if that person tells you the case is hopeless, and to throw your computer to the curb, I highly recommend getting a second opinion from Madison Computer Works. Brian Lisse is the owner; ask for Peter Michalski. There is a very good chance they can resurrect your machine from seeming death.