Resolved Best thing to do with an old XP box

Thanks for the info, Paul. I think I'll go looking for a second-hand Office 2007 or 2010. I assume Microsoft no longer sells those programs. Many of the people my wife communicates with in her knitting group send documents with ".docx" identifiers. It's a nuisance to have to run a translator before she can read them on my XP/Word 03 machine.

Since she's now using an iPad (a gift from family), I have no idea how she gets those messages to where she can read them. Apple software is totally alien to me, even though I've worked with ALGOL, FORTRAN, Honeywell DDP and Singer-Link GP4 assembly languages. I have no plans to learn anything Apple.

I've found a pretty powerful lap-top with Win 7 at Amazon (a Lenovo) for less than $450. so I think that's the way I'll go. I really don't like dealing with a Chinese outfit, but it seems that their box is the closest to what I need.

 

If your only reason for upgrading to Office 2007/2010 is to create, edit, or read .docx files, then you'd probably be best off with a docx converter utility made by MS, for people who only have the 2003 or earlier software.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3

Don't get me wrong--I like Office 2010 better than earlier versions, but I found it rather difficult to get used to. If all you want to do is save or read docx files, you can still do that on 2003.