2nd Question

Here is my opinion. Your specs are too slow. Run a virtualized environment on one of the new Core i7, i5, or i3 systems and watch it fly. But the real requirement is RAM and with oly 4GB, you have enough to run maybe 1 client OS in a virtualized environment. You are sharing resources with the host and guest simultaneously. You'll need something bigger. And laptops are inherently slower than desktops.

However, the Core 2 Duo can still pull off virtualization, and you can pull off a 1-2GB virtual machine, provided nothing CPU intensive is running on the host.

Now, for this type of productivity I recommend using VMWare Workstation. It is the best for home and business use on a single workstation. The snapshot and auto-save features for preventing problems go above and beyond what the free offerings will do. Unlike Microsoft's virtualization, you can run Linux, Mac, and pretty much anything that can run on physical hardware on a virtual machine.

The price is up there, but to give Microsoft credit, they try to do too much. Would you have a car wash install an engine modification on your car? Obviously not. VMWares entire business platform has been based on virtualization. Having tested both the Virtual PC (free) and VMWare, of course I have noticed a big difference. And the unity feature of VMWare would allow you to natively incorporate foreign operating system applications into the OS, and make them appear like they are running on the host computer.

For DOS, there is an emulator called DOSBox, which also gets the job done with DOS applications.

"Give Microsoft credit" - I find Microsoft very intiguing. I am suspending use of Windows 7 in Dual mode; will continue to work on migraion from Windows XP to Windows 7; have downloaded Office 2010 Professional Plus Beta; installed and activated on two mobile platforms; one has an Atom processor the other a Core 2 Duo; have Windows XP, Office 2003 running on several other PCs.

KC