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

Yes, I do know you're not suppose to shut computer down with the power button but is was an all else failed situation and even that didn't work. Step two for me was to unplug the thing to shut it down and that's probably a terrible thing to do. But eventually it did start back up after several scary seconds. I just hope I don't have that problem again but it does seem to be an issue for some with windows 7.

Support has been, or will be dropped for all versions of XP except for service pack 3. However, XP remains my favorite windows version. My wife moved to Vista on her laptop and hated it. She now has Windows 7 and says it is an improvement over Vista. Some day, I plan to move to Windows 7 and skip Vista. This requires a complete clean out of the system - reformat of the disk. I dread that move, and expect some applications and hardware will no longer be compatible. If certain applications become incompatible, I'll resist the move as long as I can. These would be applications that are too expensive for me as a retiree to replace. I have an old finite element analysis program that is no longer compatible. To buy a new version is $16,000 the last time I priced it, so that will not be done unless I land a consulting job that needs it and can pay for it - not likely in my remaining life. If you are having difficulty in finding your pictures, use the "Find" command to search your hard drive. If your disk has been subdivided into logical drives, you may have to search each logical drive. The find comamnd does not need the entire name of the file to find it, just part of the name will do. It will, of course, list all files matching the same fragment. For example, if you searched for all occurences of *.jpg, you'll get every file having extension " jpg", not necessarily an efficent thing to do. Suppose you have the followiong files: 1998 Joey 1.tif 1998 Joey 2.jpg 2000 Joey 1.doc You could locate all these files by searching on "joey" and very likely would not get many extraenous hits. File names that contined the string, joey, would also appear such as jumpjoey.tif . Recommendation: In the future, create folders with meaningful names in which to store your images. That way, you'll know where they are. Folder names such as: Vacation Jun 2000 Year 2001 pic Year 2002 pic 110Canon 111Canon are examples. Tip: Its a good idea when you set up a new computer to set aside a data drive for documnets and images. If you have one hard drive, a logical drive could be created on it. You would have 2 logical drives: one for the system files and the other for your personal files. I have 2 physical hard drives in my computer which becomes a natural thing to do. This separates your data from the system and application disk, and makes for more efficient use fo the "Find" command. On first pass, you need to search only the data drive, and if not found there, search the other drives. System and application files are humungous these days and requires much needless search time.

Sounds like a MITM (Man in the middle) attack. MITM happens when another person intercepts your connection between your computer and other servers/websites. Pretty much, they sit in the middle. Try the free version of CCProxy software and you should no longer have this problem.