Thanks to all for the opinions and good information.   
      
    Well,  I surrendered and bought a (pricey) Dell 5530,   
   from deLL, with Win 7 Pro, 32 bit.   
     Could have bought a Dell locally at half the price   
   but loaded with Win 8 Home Premium.   
      
     It'll be hard to see XP Pro go away. It's been   
   by far the best OS I've ever used -----   
   and I started with one before floppy disks existed!!!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)