Memory cards do not wear out like tapes. But they can fail. And, more typically, they can get lost. It will not hurt your memory card, your camera, your computer, etc., to transfer pictures from the camera to the computer. I would do that anytime I did not want to lose the pictures I took. If that's 33 pictures taken at a birthday party, fine. If that's two pictures of a UFO, fine. Once it's on your computer, find some way to either copy it to another computer, burn a CD or DVD with the picture files, or copy the pictures to the Internet. You don't want to lose your only copy of a picture.

We have a Nikon D40X, which has been discontinued in favor of the D60. You know you can't beat a DSLR. Not only is the picture quality amazing at the fastest iso settings, there is absolutely no delay when you take a picture. As a matter of fact, if sports are important to you, 3 frames a second in continuous mode is what you'll want. It delivers. It's also nice to be able to change lenses. I look at it as upgradeable. There is a drawback, size. Because of the size and weight of the camera we actually just bought a compact to supplement. We use the compact for everyday type events and the Nikon for the bigger ones (as long as I'm the one carrying it around). Okay, why'd I tell you all that when your looking for a compact? Because our compact is an Olympus Stylus 1010 and the picture quality rivals the Nikon. Both are 10 megapixel cameras (actually the Olympus is 10.1). Of course we can do much more with the Nikon but the Olympus is much more convenient when traveling or just taking everyday shots. The Olympus cost us $400 with extended warranty, 2x 2gig xD memory chips, and bag. You can get a Nikon D60 for about $650 is you look hard enough. And D40X for a little less than that. Either one is under 4 digits. If you haven't already, take a look at the Olympus. Klaa2

Yes, you could take the camera to a photo store and see if they can download your photos, might cost you a little money. If they can't do it, maybe there's something wrong with the software, camera, port, communication with Win XP. I understand your frustration. So many times I have struggled with a problem, lived with it not working right, sometimes paid a shop to troubleshoot, only to find that in most cases it is something simple. Sometimes I did well to pay the shop because it turned out to be something I could not fix without new hardware. I had to have a new USB card installed for all the stuff I plug in, the ports on my computer were not accepting whatever it was, can't remember, I've had to do so much the last few years. Sorry I don't have the answer for you. I couldn't find anything on the net or google archives of people with a similar problem. Don't mess with some of those driver sites, they have an agenda. Email the company. Some don't answer. Persist. They have a website and should have customer support. I hope I picked the right url for the corporation; they certainly have enough different models of cameras. I just cancelled the language pack window that popped up. There is a contact and support tab in the upper right. From that link, you should be able to get to their main page if that page doesn't have anything helpful. Here is a link that might be useful: This looks like the manufacturer w/install info for your cam

Gosh! I forgot one of the more severe problems with SLRs that using digitals resolves ... All the dust, speckles and other contamination of both negatives and the scanner used to scan negatives. Digitals do not suffer this problem.