Thus spake Mixture:
I still have difficulty believing you have a genuine reason for running XP though .... print & file server is no excuse.... ;-)
It probably seems that way. However there is a reason - it's to do with space in the domestic office. The only physical option for my Canonscan 9000F is where it is. The only computer which can drive it in that location is the one at the amateur radio desk on the other side of the room. It presently runs on XP under which regime it operates the scanner.
Next month it will be a dual boot linux mint machine for the online AR requirements. But XP is still needed to operate the scanner and also for a very few quite specific offline AR requirements which W7 could not accommodate if it were to be installed.
Scanned files need almost always to be fed back to the (wired) local network printer which is connected to the new W7 machine at the main desk.
There is one other XP computer which has six years of emails on it (this one actually). They ain't being copied to the new W7 box which is getting a clean install of T'bird and Firefox. Only the AD book and the bookmarks are being imported to what will become the primary online desktop - running usually 15 hours a day. I still need access to those older emails from the older XP box from time to time - with facilities to produce hard copy. That machine also needs to be available to the local network, but nothing beyond that.
There might be other ways of doing this, but that's what the domestic situation will stand and I need to work with that. (I can't cook)
Apologies for the complexity, I can work with it, indeed I have to. And thank you for your helpful comments.
Rgds
FOR