Ladychipper:
we have seen so
many reports that it will be dangerous to keep XP and that there are
people just waiting for April 9th to send out viruses to XP users.
They say that to make you upgrade, not gonna happen...besides it isn't XP that gets hacked, it is IE browser, Office, Outlook Express, etc.....
If you have an older PC make sure it will handle Win7 and plan on adding more RAM...Win7 is a very good OS but uses a lot more of your resources...
If you have a newer pc with a huge hardrive look into a dual boot system, install Win7 and keep XP on it too for gaming...
Also keep in mind that NO TECH guy would tell you to do a dirty install, at some point you usually have problems if you buy the upgrade disk and install it over the existing Operating System, and if you have to reinstall it you have to put xp back on and use the upgrade again...buy the full version.
Good Luck
Microsoft reportedly planning Windows 9 release in April 2015