justme4now -- I just noticed the ehow.com link. (I must have missed it yesterday.) Thanks ! At least it verifies again that this set-up is possible if done correctly and carefully. kudzu9 -- At the moment, it's the "each person has his/her own mouse" option that I'm looking into. :-) At the same time, it's only going to be practical if we don't have to keep plugging/unplugging. Having one in the regular mouse slot at the back of the computer and one in a usb port is probably the way I will go. Re: your comment about "many mice with all the features you both want," I have been perusing sites to see what kinds of mice are out there, but so far the only mice that have 3 buttons and a scroll wheel are like the one ravencajun mentioned: vertical and/or ergonomic mice. These are appealing but a little out of my price range for a mouse at the moment. It's going to be cheaper for me (and probably more practical all the way around) to just get another mouse -- if I can find any plain ol' 3 button mice out there that don't have a scroll wheel. (I don't know if any other scroll wheel mice can take my excessive middle-clicking.) :-) Anyway, thanks to all for all the input !! I'll be off to check out some computer accessory stores in the next day or so and take it from there. :-)

you can not use a plain usb cable you have to have a special cable that is used just for that. Step-by-Step Guide to Migrating Files and Settings USB 2.0 File Transfer Cable - USB Data Link File Transfer Cable Looks like that, just google for "file transfer cable" You do not want to hook up one pc to another with a regular usb cable! NOT good. YOu can also just get a usb flash drive and move you stuff from your pc on to the flash drive and then plug that into the other pc and transfer it over, they are great for that and cheap. Or get an external CD drive that can be plugged in to any pc and use it to burn cd, or a usb external hard drive, which is a great thing to have anyway so you can keep our files backed up to it. I have one of those cables but never much liked it, I prefer to use a thumb flash drive or a usb hard drive that is the way to go. I just saw a 4 gig Kingston flash drive on www.buy.com for around $10 with free shipping. be sure anytime you connect anything to your pc through a usb port that you always click on the safely disconnect hardware icon in the try by the clock and select to disconnect the item and wait till it tells you it is safe. Here is a link that might be useful: flash drives

Great, it is comforting to know nothing can be lost by a replace folder operation, XP looks inside and replaces only at the file level. In my picture application that is safe as pictures with the same name in a given folder are the same picture. Still, I'd like to not waste time copying X over X at the file level. I'd like the copy process to give me a chance to say "no" on replace at the folder level. I think it does, and I hope at the "for all" not one by one.

I have both One Drive and iCloud installed. I own a PC and an iPad and iPhone. I was told by an MS person I had to save received documents twice by, once in One Drive and again in my libraries. So two manual saves. I learned just recently Microsoft will save to both places automatically. I can now sync my pics from my iPhone to the PC in one library called PC>pics and don't have duplicate places. I also don't want folders in folders so all the pictures are opened and it is simple. The MS guy who set it up had different pics in several of One Drive/Pics locations and I added to confusion. Up to this point I was saving anything in two places on my PC because I knew no better. You are right I have very little in my saved places on my PC and thought this USB external drive that will work with my HP 2.0 or 3.0 USB will take care of everything but my music on iTunes if you all approved of this particular drive. This is for home use only and I have a lifetime of space. The One Drive is still on here but hidden from me. So this will back up my whole PC computer?