Steve, stay away from the geeks! being in the computer communication career, i've heard ALOT of bad about them! Anywhere from replacing stuff that didn't need replaced and charging for it, to stealing peoples personal information. granted, one bad apple spoils the bunch... i'd stay away.
My recommendation is this. If you aren't into buying a new computer (and if you only use it for word processing and internet, you don't need to), go into your local electronics store and buy yourself an external hard drive. You can get them online from places like
www.newegg.com. Chances are, you don't need a huge one. new egg has a some nice ones under $150. Then back up all your data that you don't want to be lost (pictures, word documents, personal stuff, etc). Now check your system for processor speed, memory capacity, hard drive size, etc and see if you meet the minimum to upgrade to XP. you most likely will meet the minimum. Buy the software. Format your current drive and then install the new software. don't buy the upgrade, we want to start fresh! haha I'm confident that you could do all of this yourself. Now that your computer is back operating clean again, you can either copy the files from the external, back to your computer or do what i do which is keep ALL of your saved files on the external drive and you can access them anytime you want. i like to keep the files on both so that if one should fail, i haven't lost everything!!
Now, I ALWAYS recommend having an external hard drive! They are life savers! i work at a computer all day, so I carry my external in my laptop all the time. if I need to copy a file from my work computer, no problem. I pull it out, plug the USB cable in and it's ready to go! i had my hard drive in my laptop go out a few months ago and I didn't lose anything!
Now about Vista. SOOOOO many uneducated people claim vista sucks!!! FALSE! The only major problems I've EVER seen with Vista are some programs not being compatible. That was old news! Vista has been out log enough now that MOST all of the more popular programs have patches that you can download. Alot of them will do it automatically when your computer does it's automatic updates. When i lost my hard drive a few months ago, i had Vista. i installed my new drives and inserted HP's fantastic restoral disk... it did nothing... Like there was nothing on it... So, being in iraq, i made due and installed XP on my computer. I HATED IT!!!! After a month of frustration i broke down and ordered a copy of Vista. I personally LOVE vista!!! But there is now way your old computer would have the resources to run it. At least not very efficiently. I would consider Vista the "BIG BLOCK" of operating systems. XP is your mild 351w and 98 is like oh... a stock 289! haha
NOW... in todays computer market... for the most part, there is no need for the Geek in most cases. Computers are disposable items. If a new computer costs me $500 and hte Geek is going to charge me $300 to fix a 2yr old computer... it's really simple. With that said, you don't NEED to go out and buy a whole new computer system. unless that's what you WANT.
If it were me, buy the external hard drive and get your file backed up... JUST IN CASE! then, if you've got the cash, buy yourself a new computer. But that is not necessary. i know a new updated computer will only run you maybe $500. If you want some help, PM me and I'd be more than happy to help you out. I can get some discounts from some of the major manufacturers.
Case in point $449 after $50 mail in rebate, and vista will already be loaded. the only thing you would need is the Office suite if you use it, and the external hard drive to transfer your files. Granted, this is not top of the line, but you don't need top of the line unless you are playing games on it or doing some serious work. Not necessary for MOST home computers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883107493