Thank you for your reply; it was both prompt and helpful. Refreshing. I am now reading up on how to partition a hard drive, but if I understand it correctly it means I'll maintain my old XP Pro OS after I "clean install" W7? (Did I mention I'm a newbie?) I am actually getting a huge software pack dirt cheap from my employer (a university) under their faculty/staff share agreement:
Office 2010 Professional for Windows (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Publisher and InfoPath)
Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection
So I am also upgrading my RAM, should I put new memory sticks in before I do W7 or after?
Again, thanks for the advice, it helps.