Your current PC is a laptop? (Implied in your comment..)
Couple of thoughts for you. Depending on the hardware of your XP machine, you might want to investigate loading Win7 on it as a way to extend its useful life. If the manufacturer lists drivers for Vista for your present machine, odds are really good that you can get Win7 to install and run properly. You can also run Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and it will pretty much let you know whether that is a route you can take. My last remaining XP laptop will be getting a Win7 install (when I get to it..;-) and Vista drivers are available for it, but the upgrade advisor indicates that Win7 has suitable Win7 drivers available from Win Update.
As you indicated later re:WinAte, I plan to wipe and fresh install Win7 (actually, I'm putting in a new hard drive and putting the old drive in an external USB case so I keep my files. After I transfer my files off the old drive - again when I get around to it - I will wipe the old drive and have it as an external backup drive.)
Concerning your later comment about buying a WinAte machine and wiping it for a Win7 install, keep in mind that if you have a concern about warranty, you might be forced to hold off on that until the warranty expires. Having said that, that is exactly what I would do with any WinAte machine that crossed the threshold here.. ;-)
Another route with your older XP machine to extend its usefullness would be to go the Linux route. Most current distros are easy on the eye but there is a learning curve. Again, most distros have a forum with loads of info and help. If your present machine is a single core processor, that might be your best bet. My oldest former XP laptop is now a Linux box for that reason. I was fairly certain that I could get Win7 to run on it but due to the vintage of the hardware, the usability would be impaired (translate: SLOOOW) with Windows 7, but seems fine under Linux (I used the Mint distro - your mileage may vary.. ;-)
And finally, if your present machine is a desktop, consider it an opportunity to do 'I'll build me a brand new box' thing.. You can get barebones collections of stuff from places like Tiger Direct and since you seem to be comfortable with op-sys installs, you can build it any way you like. Put your present drive in as a secondary drive and your files are right there. Again, my process is to copy off the files then wipe the old drive, reformat it and use is as storage. Keep in mind if you do that that many manufacturers have their restore stuff stuck in a second partition on the main drive. If so you will need to delete all the partitions on the old drive and then create one primary partition and format it..
Hope some of this was helpful to your decision process.
Great info., NoCmpormiz. Thank you.
I was referring to our desktop. The, “...yet another...” was a morph of the whole desktop/laptop/replace desktop w/laptop idea I had swimming around in my head. You must pardon me. My brain’s running on fumes.
Our second child needed a laptop for college several months ago. Along with this fact, we’re in need of another PC. Rather than replace our desktop with another, I wanted to purchase a laptop instead. You can see how my thread mixed and matched.
The DIY sounds great, but I’ve visited sites such as Tiger Direct. I’d rather stick with the laptop plan. It’s financially more feasible for us at this point. My better half and I don’t have a laptop. Our kids do, though, along with their iPods and iPads. :^) So I thought it would be a more useful/flexible option.
I don’t wish to put another dime into this desktop. I’d rather save all that for a decent laptop. The Mac would be my first choice, but I refuse to drop that kind of money.
I had forgotten about the warranty issue. Thanks for mentioning that.
“...you might be forced to hold off on that until the warranty expires.”
The thought of using Windows h8t causes me to twitch.
I'll second that.
I've got an old Dell Precision workstation with an early Pentium Core 2 CPU. Win XP had become just about unusable on it. I suspect that Microsoft updates purposely slow their OS's down a little with every installed patch to force people to buy new computers (with a new version of Windows pre-installed, of course).
Anyway, I had an extra copy of Win 7 Professional and decided to give it a try on this rather dated box. I was pleasantly surprised with how much better it runs now. Win 7 breathed new life into this machine. I haven't even added more RAM to it yet; it still has the max that WinXP could use- 4GB. I can go up to 8GB on this system, and the 64-bit OS can actually make use of it.