I have applied SP3 to someone's copy of XP where I have had doubts to it's authenticity and been successful.

Your mileage may vary.

You might also try VLC Player to play DVDs.

If anyone is curious, the VLC player works wonderfully on the laptop. Thanks, DC.

You're welcome.

ION, I'm finally free of my 1999 Power Mac G4 450. I am currently migrating to a G5 Power Mac 2.0 Ghz Dual Core we bought from Drew and Kristin.

It's only a 6 year leap, but what a leap! In the current millennium, again!

So, I may have to replace my current home computer quicker than I thought. Suggestions?

I've only owned 3 laptops in my life (all Toshiba) because they've lasted me 5 or more years each, but I'm open to other PC brands, netbooks, etc.

Money is not really an object. But since I just need it for Word/Excel, email/Internet, and iTunes it seems silly to pay out the nose (I don't watch video or play video games and I don't intend to). Also, I'd like to keep using Office 2003, which I assume wouldn't be a problem regardless.

Also, I'd like to keep using Office 2003

Make sure you have disks and CD Key. I did a netbook thing but it was out of desperation. This meets by immediate needs, but I know damn well it is likely to die in two years. If I had money I would have gotten either a decent notebook that would take 8 Gig of Ram, a decent side solid state disk and a version of windows 7 that could accss that much RAM. Decent speed now, decent speed even after 7 gets patched over the years and starts eating more memory. Alternatively I might consider a MacBook air, but the office 2003 thing might be a bit expensive - might have to go to one of the pricey places that specializes in getting people legal versions of older office versions.

Sorry for disappearing. My laptop fan is not working and I'm using the 15 minutes or so of computer time to back up everything in stages.

Make sure you have disks and CD Key.

I only want to keep Office 2003 because I own it already and see no reason to upgrade when eveything I've heard about the newer versions is bad.

I hadn't really considered switching to a Mac. I would love something small, but I don't really know what netbooks can handle and what they can't. And I think that ultimately I do still want a DVD/CD drive.

Is there any reason I shouldn't get this at Best Buy?

I quite like the newer versions, but I'm not sure what feature changes there are. The UI is vastly different which I think the source of the unpopularity. I particularly like the navigation pane of Office 2010.

You can compromise between netbook size and notebook speed with something like this:

[link]

Not as small as a netbook, not as powerful as a larger notebook, but should be fine for most tasks and still not real expensive.

Not as small as a netbook, not as powerful as a larger notebook, but should be fine for most tasks and still not real expensive.

Oooh, I really like that one! And I could get a DVD/CD thing as an attachment (or whatever it's called) to burn and rip CDs, right?

And I could get it in red.

t /shallow

Yeah you can get an external drive like this one:

[link]

I adore my 11" Macbook Air and you can get an external DVD drive for it as well.