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Oh well, maybe I want to have a dual-boot system for nostalgia. Don’t mind me, bacause I am the last of a dying breed. I have no disposable income with my disability check. I get 20 GB a month usage with my USB broadband modem. I use a mouse and keyboard with PS/2 connections, because I have PS/2 connections on the back of my tower, and it frees up 2 USB ports. My monitor is an old 600 x 800 flat-front CRT with an 18 inch rear end. When it goes bad I will upgrade it, but so far the graphics and colors are outstanding. The big JBL Platinum Series speakers hanging on the sides of the monitor sound awesome. I have inputs on the front and back of the tower and I have my computer connected to a printer, joystick, webcam, USB turntable, stereo VCR/DVD recorder, FM tuner, home theater, and cassette deck. I can record and play music both ways to any component. I got a 32-bit machine to save on memory costs, and I will eventually raise my 2 GB memory to 4 GB (the max). I have two multi optical drives, and I may fill the empty floppy drive bay with a multicard reader. I bought a USB external hard drive enclosure and put my old 160 GB ATA hard drive in it. I have a 320 GB and a 250 GB SATA drives inside my huge tower. With my 20 GB slower broadband, I won’t be downloading many videos, but that is fine: I watch my movies on a big old- fashioned, 100 pound Stereo TV, with a converter box, and rabbit-ears antenna, for FREE. Why should I pay to watch my own TV? I get Acme Classics, and I watch good old, old shows. Most are black and white, but the shows were better back then. I still have a land line phone, and only use my pre-paid cell phone when I go out, for urgent business. I get my water out the faucet, and not in a bottle. So you kids, stay off my Windows XP yard!!! [Waves real-life cane] But seriously, thanks for the info.

To F.U.N. downtown:
I had a dual-boot system in the past. At boot up I could choose either Windows XP or Linux, which were on separate drives. I intend to put Windows XP Home and Windows 7 Professional on separate drives. Now, if I can have a computer, with just Windows 7 on it, and run it in Windows XP Mode (or have a part of that drive devoted to XP mode), then logically thinking, I should be able to put Windows 7 on one drive, with that XP Mode . . .partition or whatever, and have Windows XP on another hard drive, and choose which one I want to use when I boot up. I only intend to get Windows 7 as a safeguard for the future, for my online activities. I have a whole bunch of pre-Windows 7 games, programs, music editors, USB Turtable, etc., to keep me entertained offline with Windows XP for the rest of my life. Isn’t this amazing? >.> Market Share: Windows XP = 38%, Windows Vista = 5%, Windows 7 = 44%, Windows 8 = 2%. It’s very strange that so many people are still using such an old OS, and that when I go to get my taxes done, to the auto parts store, and even in the operating room when I has minor surgery, that Windows XP Pro was the OS they use.

Well, F.U.N. downtown, I am clueless. I will indeed be dual booting, with Windows 7 on one SATA drive, and Windows XP on another SATA drive. I will get a few more SATA drives as spares, large ones over 500GB. I will never buy an expensive, smaller, Solid State drive, I don’t care how fast they are. I put Solid State drives in the same “Improvements List” of things I won’t get, like smaller touch screens and cloud computing. Paying more for a smaller hard drive is going backwards, as far as I am concerned.

Product keys and OS versions are the Great Mystery to me. I bought my computer from a computer shop, and I got no restore disks or OS disk. I know when I first bought my old computer in 2001, it had 5 restore disks that put a ton of mess on my computer, no true OS disk. When I took my new computer back to the builder, he removed Windows 7 and put Windows XP on it. My version of Windows XP is legitimate and I have all the critical updates. I have no disks, or product key for Windows 7. I rely on Easeus Todo Backup Home (Free). Before Easeus Todo Backup, I had no clue how to make a backup. Now I make regular weekly backup images of my entire C Drive, and it had saved me a dozen times so far (I play a lot of online games, plus I deleted some things I should not have). Windows XP System Restore is turned off. Soon I plan to get Windows 7 Professional, which can run in XP Mode. It will be on a separate hard drive and will be a dual-boot XP/7 system, but I will always have Windows XP. I will have to purchase Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, and I have no idea what version of it I should get: Branded, OEM, Retail? have no clue. Sorry I cannot help.

It seems that everything is getting ruined, especially when something is “improved”. I used to get my programs from C-Net and other free download places, not anymore. Even legitimate programs want to add toolbars and other crap. Gone are the days when I would just click the default or recommended installations. I choose Custom Installation and actually read the agreements now. Plus, I have completely uninstalled JAVA, and all remnants of JAVA left behind. It’s been many years since I have had an infection.

32 bit Windows XP, 3.2 mHz dual-core, 2 GB RAM

avast! free antivirus
COMODO free firewall
Advanced System Care Pro
C Cleaner
Malwarebytes
Easeus Todo Backup
X-Ray PC
Smart Defrag 2
Mouse Trap (Gibson Research Corp.)
ShootTheMessenger (Gibson Research Corp.)
Unpnp (Unplug and pray, Gibson Research Corp.)
SocketLock (Gibson Research Corp)
abine Do Not Track Me, and AVG Do Not Track (add-ons for Firefox)
Trend Micro Online scanner
PC Pitstop (online)
Securnia (online)

Let’s see some malware get through all that!

I cannot remember the last time I had a virus. In fact, I just warned two of my friends that their email accounts were hacked. I have common sense with downloads, links, and attachments, and many programs to defeat malware. When my old computer bit the dust (motherboard capacitors were swollen and leaking), I bough a new, fast, Windows 7 machine, and hated it so much that after a week I uninstalled 7, and went back to XP. All of my precious programs worked again. Right now, I am in the process of making backups, collecting components, like hard drives, and storing updates, because I will have Windows XP forever, even after support is gone. I will never have an iFad, tablet, Windows 8, and my unsmart cell phone only makes voice calls.[/FONT][/B]

Yes, I agree, please give us Windows XP users a separate newsletter for the best OS that will never die. I recently had a minor procedure done in the operating room of a hospital, and guess what OS was displayed on the start screen of the monitors; it was not Vista or Windows 7. Everywhere I go, hospitals, auto parts stores, income tax places, they use Windows XP. Over 60% of the world is Windows XP . . . “outdated” indeed.

Thank you for still paying attention to Windows XP. My old PC died and I purchased a 3.2 mHz 32-bit Windows 7 PC with 2 GB of memory. I struggled an entire week with it; I could not find things, and my beloved paid programs did not work on it, like my wav editor. I took it back to my builder and had Windows 7 removed and went back to Windows XP, and I am delighted now. It was a struggle to find the stereo mix and inputs, they hid them very well. The powers that be just want you to surf the web, email, move pictures, text message, and buy things. From what I have seen Windows 8 will be nothing but a glorified touch screen smart phone. I intend to keep Windows XP forever, whether it is supported or not. I also have a Dumb Phone, it just makes calls. There are still a lot of us out here.