I should mention as a univesity alumni I can still get OS software from them at a reduced price. So this system even with say Windows 7 is still pretty inexpensive. But if they are supporting XP for another 4 years then I will continue to use that, I used Windows 2000 until 1 year ago. I try to get my mileage out of my OS's
Thanks for the advice and I will try find out more about a dual OS machine.
Cheers.