I am up in southern Canada just an hour north of Toronto Ontario Last year I put broken bushel baskets, which I had around over the plants and had them stuffed with leaves Not all my hydrangeas but on some. I am new to growing these beauties that it is to cold where I am But fortunately we get a lot of snow and that I believe this protects them some. The plants though that I did not cover, other than with some leaves thrown over them bloomed earlier than the plants I had protected. This year I have only thrown leaves over the entire beds. Just let them fall and then watered in a bit so they do not blow around Pinkie winkie and limelight that where not covered really bloomed so nice and early and still have bloom on them now but of course it is fall colored now I am in Florida for almost six months and will not be home to uncover them That I believe makes a difference as well So will see what happens this year They sure are gorgeous plants and look good from spring til late fall

When you speak of upgrading "my Dell computer", you're not speaking of installing an upgrade over top of XP are you? If so, I misunderstand, so disregard the rest of my post. :) So I'm assuming you intend to purchase a retail version of Windows 7 and do a clean install. In the first line of your post you mention 512 MB of RAM, a date, and then 2.00 GB of RAM. Does that mean it now has 2.00 GB of RAM or maybe 2 1/2 GB of RAM? Either way, I'm no expert but I'd think 512 MB is less than enough, but either 2 or 2 1/2 GB would be fine. I don't know much about Office, but wasn't Office 2003 was the last version that had the old style menu, before the newfangled ribbon came along. According to this, your Office 2002 would not be compatible but according to this, Office 2003 would be. Would your 2002 macros work in 2003? I don't know. Would it be worth the expense of buying a retail version of Windows 7, as well as Office 2003(or at least Word)? To me, probably not, to you, only you can decide. Personally, since it works, I'd probably just continue using it. Continue running a good real-time AV, occasionally scanning with a couple on-demand malware tools(Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware come to mind), use Firefox or Chrome(lie detected), using the WOT add-on(trusting it somewhat less than fully), and being careful what I open(email) and what I install. Just my opinion though. Edit: GrammerGrammar Edit2: Spelling This post was edited by chuggerguy on Thu, Jan 23, 14 at 3:10

You have to have a 64Bit processor to run 64Bit. As far as I know, the main difference between the two is usable memory. 32Bit is a maximum 4 gigs of Ram whereas 64Bit can be up to (and from what I have read) beyond 128 gigs. 4 gigs is usually plenty for most folks. This vista pc came with the option to run 32 or 64Bit. That is because a 64Bit CPU (this one) can run a 32Bit or 64Bit system. A 32Bit CPU (processor) can't run the 64bit system though. Any of this make sense? LOL

That is good news Gene. I agree that when doing a download of a service pack a system maintenance should be conducted first. I know its an old school position, but you can never be too sure especially when you are on an antique DUN. I have even gone as far as disabling my AV and firewall while downloading significantly sized updates from Microsoft. I just want to get it right the first time. DA