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

what kind of antivirus and sypware protection do you have on your pc and is is fully updated and have you run scans. The things you describe can occur from some types of infections. Lets run some free scans and make sure you are clean. Get superantispyware free and install, udate, run full scan let it clean what it finds. SUPERAntiSpyware next run this online virus scanner FREE Online Virus Scan run ATF Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune from http://www.atribune.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=25 . Save it to your Desktop. Run ATF Cleaner * Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program. * Click Select All found at the bottom of the list. * Click the Empty Selected button. * Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program. * Shutdown/restart the computer. http://www.atribune.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=25 Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to your desktop. * Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program. * At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish. * If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. * Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan. * When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. * Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware I really do not like the use of registry cleaners, if not done properly they can cause serious damage. Therefore I can not suggest their use to anyone other than a registry specialist. Do those steps please and let us know how things are.

I haven't used WW in years (Win98 and still have it out on the system in the garage) and have up to recently used ASC (stopped because of the pirating software claim). In my experience they are arguably of the same efficiency in cleaning. In fact, I found ASC's cleaning capability on a current par with CCleaner. I've always done some non-scientific efficiency tests for system cleaning utilities and found none of them to be 100%. I would rate the three of them at 98%. I guarantee if you run any one of them and then run the another you would find some very minor leftovers. Unless you use some other available features of ASC or are emotionally attached to it, I would recommend you save your money and use CC. DA

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.