Well, Win7 is not due out till nearly the end of October. I don't think you should wait that long for an experience of a new MS OS. Sides XP's pretty much the Plus pack for 2k. If you do it right, you should be able to shenangle a voucher for a free upgrade to Win7. Neweeg's MS Pro OSs
As for handling the backup, grab a copy of Acronis as it's a fairly user-friendly backup, image & disk migration tool Newegg's list of Acronis. I've copies of it, which I've misplaced but it's been handy when I've used it. If you know anyone who does IT refresh projects, they should have a few copies on hand as Fujitsu gear seems to have a Acronis disk thrown in.
Dell gear....if you don't use it, steer clear of their OEM disks as they're locked to the hardware. I've experimented with a Dell OEM copy of PowerDVD from time to time, just can never get to work.
--Rod.H
As for handling the backup, grab a copy of Acronis as it's a fairly user-friendly backup, image & disk migration tool Newegg's list of Acronis. I've copies of it, which I've misplaced but it's been handy when I've used it. If you know anyone who does IT refresh projects, they should have a few copies on hand as Fujitsu gear seems to have a Acronis disk thrown in.
Dell gear....if you don't use it, steer clear of their OEM disks as they're locked to the hardware. I've experimented with a Dell OEM copy of PowerDVD from time to time, just can never get to work.
--Rod.H