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[Bigron]

I am still on an elderly PC running Winows XP, which Microsoft withdrew support from a couple of years ago. That in itself hasn't been problematical, but now both Dropbox and Yahoo Messenger will discontinue my accounts as of today.
Yahoo will not let me continue unless I upgrade to at least the Vista OS and Dropbox are much the same.
If I obtain either Vista or Windows 7, can I just install the OS safely, i.e. without losing any of my present files, or is it more complex than that?
Any help/advice will be much appreciated, gents.

Ron.

[Gaffers]

Personally I would backup all your files that you want to keep and throw the computer away, get a new one and restore the stuff you kept.  Anything that was running XP will likely not be able to run Win7 or 10.

[78bex]

I had elderly DELL dimension E520 with the intel dual core.
I backed-up the files I wanted to keep to a usb stand alone hard drive.
I bought a new 500 GB sata hard drive & with a windows 7 disc  it loaded itself up quickly.
I think the hard drive was £35 & the windows 7 DVD was an unused original bought some time ago.
Downloaded some compatible drivers fron the DELL web site for the audio etc
I finally added a cheap video card to suit the computer built in 2006, cos the onboard video chip was struggling.
I`m amased how quick & quiet it is 

[zirk]

You haven't said what your machine spec is, but XP, then its old, time for a new or decent second hand one.

If budget is an issue, then upgrade, dont bother with Vista, Upgrade to win7, dont bother with 8 if you know your way around XP, or if your feeling brave jump in to Win10.

[gbh]

If your computer is running XP then windows 7 is probably fine,Mirosoft have released an upgrade test so you could try that first! https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=20

[Bigron]

Thanks, gbh; it looks like I have too many issues with my PC and need a new one!
With the MOT coming up in a week or so, I'll have to wait and see how wallet-damaging that will be before upgrading/renewing my PC.....

Ron.

[TheBoy]

Replace the PC.  Anything from XP era is going to be more troublesome on a modern OS.

[Bigron]

OK, ok - I'm getting the message! My PC is long past its use-by date, but sadly my pension is not elastic and I have an Omega to keep in relatively good health.....

Ron.

[annihilator]

might be of use

http://www.getonlineathome.org/#

John.

[ronnyd]

I,m running a Dell Latitude D630 laptop on Windows XP. Mostly it does what i want it to but sometimes find i can,t get on some sites when i use a link. Any comments would be appreciated.

[ronnyd]

PS, am using Opera as well.

[TheBoy]

Oh dear.

[aaronjb]

Oh dear.

It's OK, Opera is bulletproof. It's not like they leaked 1.7 million user passwords recently, or anything.