Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft ever put out, if you like XP you’ll love Windows 7. Really, it is fantastic.
You will like Win 7 more than Vista and it works more like XP did. That being said, you might want to just install Linux on your old hardware and get another few years out of it — for free.
Windows 7, better than XP and far far far better than Vista.
Windows 7 is stable, so if you are stuck on windows then that is a reasonable choice. Better is Linux ubuntu or mint or your favourite distribution.
I agree that Windows 7 is a very good OS, and if you like XP you will like Win7.
As long as the old hardware is intact, you could probably wipe it and install a Linux distribution like Fedora as a separate web/email box and/or file server.
I have both WIN XP SP3 and Win 7, plus my GF’s Apple.
I prefer Win XP, call me a dinosaur and I;m not even 30 years old.
Took a deep breath and got a new machine with Win7 Home Premium; fortunately, hardly any hiccups at all other than compatibility for some of wifey's card game CDs.
My wife and I have been on Win XP since it was first released, and we love it. However, my wife did a job for a client last year that required her to have a computer running Windows 7, so we got an HP laptop with 7 on it.
By the time she’d finished the job for her client, we had become familiarized with the Windows 7 operating system, and I can tell you that if we could afford it, we’d upgrade in a heartbeat.
If you love XP, you’ll really love 7.
It’s possible that you have a hardware issue and a new operating system will not fix that.
I don’t care for Windows 7 at all, nor did I like Vista. I’d go back to XP in a heartbeat if it would run my hardware - or 2000 for that matter.
Every new OS iteration takes less and less GUI control out of the user’s hands. Some of it may be necessary, but the rest is just condescending and annoying.
I think you can buy xp desk top at tigerdirect.com
Windows 7 is fine. The key insight is that the HW and SW move together. You would not like Windows 7 on HW that is 5 years old and you’d probably not like XP on brand new HW.
But get a new machine with 4 Gig RAM a nice video card and a 1 TB Harddrive (and make sure you get at least Windows 7 Home Premium) and you’ll be very happy indeed.
Windows 2000
Huge improvement over NT, especially in the GUI department. Still prone to the NT blue screens though.
XP
Win2k taken to perfection. Very intuitive GUI wise, and very very stable.
Vista
Hog and totally non-intuitive GUI wise.
Windows 7
Windows 7 is Vista with the DRM hog stuff whittled down. The GUI menus and path to various objects is flat out non-intuitive. Hell, I’ll even go far as to say it’s a freakin flat out mess.
I think Windows 7 represents what happens when you’ve finally done away with any an all creative and smart American software engineers in the concept and development departments and replace them with Indian H1-Bs who simply do as they are told.
Sad think though is the Mac OSX is getting the same affliction. Even worse, it just seems more and more that you are getting locked out of the underlying NeXT Unix system running the Mach kernel.
=8-)
Find it interesting that once again Microsoft has extended support for XP Professional to 2014.
=8-)
Windows XP was a good OS but had significant security problems. 7/10
Windows Vista,for a variety of reasons, was a piece of crap. 4/10
Windows 7 (I have the Home Premium Edition, 64 bit) is a very good OS, stable and, for the most part, secure. 8.5/10
Do you really need a new computer? Sounds like you may just need a good anti-virus program.
Have had no problems with Windows 7. (I also had no problems with Vista — used it for years — until it forgot how to update itself.)
Back to factory settings restore might bring new life.
How long has it been since you reinstalled the operating system. In general you should do a rebuild about every year. How ever W7 should be very good. Download the W7 compatibility utility, and see if you can get W7 to work on your system. If it will work, get a family pack W7 upgrade. You can do 3 computers on 1 license ($130ish). Right click my computer, then properties, hardware, device manager, take a look at sound video and game controllers. If anything is yellowed or red delete and reboot.