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

Ginny wrote:_ I am just very concerned about learning W8 when I don't have anyone nearby to help with that learning curve. That's a very big issue for me. Ah but you do have huge helpings of assistance really. Here is a link to eightforums where they deal with nothing but Windows 8, plus you can come here for help. Google is also a valuable friend when you need an answer right now instead of waiting for someone to reply on a forum. As Mickie notes above, once the initial screen is gone it is very much like Win 7

Here are the specs for the XPS ($1,088) SYSTEM COLOR Tuxedo Black PROCESSOR Intel® Core 2 Duo T5450 (2MB cache/1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB) OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition LCD AND CAMERA Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP Camera MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms) HARD DRIVE Size: 120GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD/CD read/write) VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS WIRELESS CARDS Dell Wireless 1490 802.11a/g Mini Card BATTERY OPTIONS 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0 FINGERPRINT SCANNER Finger Print Reader XPS M1530 ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE Trend Micro Internet Security 36-months PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE No Microsoft Office ADOBE Adobe Photoshop + Premiere Elements WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts Labor,24x7 Phone Support DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Included 10GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Year DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested Dell Printer Driver Windows Vista Premium Software - Adobe Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Processor This is the Latitude ($1.157): PROCESSOR Intel® Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.00GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 800MHz Dual Core OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with media LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel MEMORY 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS HARD DRIVE 120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM OPTICAL DRIVE 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card FINGERPRINT READER OPTION Standard Touchpad BACKUP OS DRIVERS AND SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers for Vista BATTERY 6 Cell Primary Battery PRIMARY POWER OPTIONS 90W A/C Adapter FLOPPY DRIVE No Floppy Drive SECURITY Norton Internet Security 2008 36 Month Subscription WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year Limited Warranty and 3 Year Mail-in Service Ship Group US - System Documentation, Power Cord OS Labels Vista Premium Label Internal Keyboard Internal English Keyboard

More memory is good but at some point there is a diminishing return on the investment and that point is a function of what you are doing with your computer. Things like first person shooter games, video editing, photo editing (of very large files) all benefit from lots of memory. Writing an email to Aunt Betty doesn't require very much memory at all because the computer can process information far faster than you can type. Same thing for the Internet, your computer can render pages faster than your connection can supply the information. So if you have a slow internet connection, you're not likely to experience much, if any improvement. With that said, 4 gigs is probably a pretty good number. If you really want a WOW factor, get a solid state drive and use that for your O/S and critical applications. To try and answer some of your questions: - Windows doesn't care about the physical drive or any logical partitions. It does make good sense to install Windows 7 on the newer, faster drive. You'll get the best performance that way. When it comes time to get rid of XP, everything will be on one drive and that, if nothing else, should help you keep things mentally organized. - My understanding is that you have two physical drives, one with a functioning version of XP and the other blank. If that is not correct, say so NOW. - When you go to install Windows 7, it will recognize that there is another operating system (Windows XP) already installed. Windows 7 won't do anything to XP other than to set up the dual boot. Essentially it's computer language that says, "XP is there, Windows 7 is here, which one do you want to use?" - Logical partitions to a drive a largely a function of personal preference. Understand that it is more difficult (but not impossible) to non-destructively repartition a drive after you put data on it. If you, for example, have a partition for music, another for videos, and a third for pictures and find down the road that you have a lot more videos than music, it becomes more difficult to rearrange things. My suggestion is a single, large partition and use folders to organize your data.