As already mentioned 7-Zip does everything WinZip and WinRAR did but is open source freeware. WinZip and WinRAR linger because of brand recognition rather than actually being good.

Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the best free antivirus products at the moment and has no paid version to push on you; it also automatically upgrades itself to new program versions (via Windows Update) rather than requiring user intervention every time like most other products (whether free or paid). Hitman Pro is great as a secondary on-demand scanner; it has a 30-day trial for removal but doesn't start counting down until the first time you actually use it to remove something (removing tracking cookies and other non-malware things it detects doesn't start the trial).

As for data recovery this is one of the most prevalent categories for the lingering shareware model. I have used Recuva in the past for this. On Vista and 7 you can often recover files and folders from a restore point or backup with the Previous Versions Properties tab (some Vista editions lack this tab but you can use ShadowExplorer to achieve the same result).

A proper backup strategy is still the best approach, ideally through a program that is either free or backs up in a way that doesn't force you to use that same product to restore your files (for Vista and newer Windows' own backup feature is perfect for this).

Mounting as a raw drive will let the virtual machine write directly to the real drive.

In case you don't feel like buying a seperate pen drive if you own a PSP with a decent amount of storage you can actually use it as a USB key...because that is what I am doing right now :P.

Been there, done that, got the scars. If I put Windows 7 on it, I will just be in for slightly less of the same crap. No vanilla version of Windows addresses nearly the spectrum of hardware that the better Linux distributions do. They all depend on the manufacturers' proprietary interest in putting out tailored versions and proprietary drivers that lock you into exactly what the manufacturer provides and nothing else.

Linux when I can, Windows when I must.

Ok now that I've set up the new Ubuntu for my gf, an update to couple of the issues I noticed earlier with Fedora Linux:

1. Certain web bank I use not working with the default Java: same problem in vanilla Ubuntu as was in Fedora, ie. the default (Open?)Java must be replaced by official (Sun) Java before some finicky Java sites like this work.

Fortunately, in Ubuntu's case this was much easier and straightforward. Googling for +java +ubuntu +site (bank) name showed straightforward instructions how to replace Java, after which it worked fine. I found instructions both how to do it using the GUI (Synaptic), and with terminal. I think many Linux instructions usually tell the command prompt way of doing things because it is much easier to explain what commands you need to type, rather than which menu options you must choose in which app etc.

2. Certain "web-TV" service not working: the culprit in this case seemed to be the reliance of that site to Microsoft's Silverlight. When I entered that site, Firefox offered to install a Moonlight plugin, which is apparently the Linux version of Silverlight.

After that some of the videos from that site (www.katsomo.fi) worked, but many still didn't, apparently because Moonlight doesn't currently support Silverlight's DRM-functionality. Googling for it, apparently the authors of Moonlight are still trying negotiate and persuade Microsoft to grant the DRM functionality into Moonlight.

Apparently people who use e.g. Netflix are affected by this, ie. it can't be used on Linux systems until this is resolved? (unless it is possible through Wine or something?)

At the same time, a couple of other similar sites here I tried (areena.yle.fi, www.ruutu.fi) seemed to work fine, maybe they use some different system than MS Silverlight?

Other than that I haven't noticed any issues not to take it into my gf's use. Even Skype was readily available through the official Ubuntu software center, one click and it was installed. So, there are still issues, but it wasn't quite as bad in Ubuntu as I remembered from earlier Fedora release. But, you must still be ready for the situations when something doesn't work out of the box (or even at all).

I stopped using OO because users would send me Word docs and when the templating gets screwed up and you send it back it goes to hell in a handbasket. This is especially problematic when the Germans send us stuff as they use certain templates that OO just decides is bonkers.

The main issue is that if there is an incompatiblity in Word you can blame Microsoft. If it's because of OO, they blame YOU. There's a huge difference.

And again you can't get rid of Office because Calc is horrible and Impress is... unimpressive. If you're JUST using Word then you can probably get away with OO/LIbre. If it's just for you, then OO/LIbre is fine. But the moment you have to interact with anyone else it's best to stick with what everyone else is actually using.
Yeah I agree here. I'd much rather throw Ubuntu 11 on an old laptop than XP. Good luck getting XP to run assuming you can find drivers for it and such. If you're going to go with an MS product throw Win7. There is literally ZERO reason to go with XP, unless you have some super esoteric software that runs off a serial card and an external parallel port dongle that ONLY runs in XP. Anyone who things XP is 'better' is really living in some dream land.

I'm in this situation as well. OO might be ok solution to me if I didn't need to send Word documents for editing to other people who are using Word as well (I make technical stuff (content) to the docs, and the documentation people then do the exact formatting etc.), and of course we rely on esoteric Word templated that I also have to use.

On the other hand, a bit earlier (before I got my Win7/Office2007 laptop) I had a major problem with my older XP/Office2003 laptop because I couldn't open their 2007 documents at all (I guess it was too much of a hassle for them to use the backwards compatible format). I was just about to install OpenOffice to that machine just in order to see their docs, but just got Office2007 (+Win7) in time.

If I was a student or an owner of a business, I might look into OO/Libre as a cheap solution. I guess that is why MS is handing out discounts or even free copies to students, just so that they don't try and get used to the options.

Games may be one reason (comparing 64bit Win7 to 32bit WinXP), but not much I guess, besides saving money of course (Win7 replacement costs money, well over 100€ here for upgrade version, close to 200€ for standalone retail).

My experience with drivers etc. for old hardware is a bit different from yours, though. At least it seems to me that for older HW the vendors are not offering Win7 drivers that much anymore (while XP drivers are readily available), so Win7 seems to be mostly geared to users of new HW.

Linux is a bit of opposite, ie. it takes time before drivers for spanking new HW appear, but on the other hand the newest Linux distributions seem to retain quite a vast support for older HW. So from the driver support point of view, IMHO Win7 seems to be a better option for owners of new HW, while Linux for older HW (for e.g. replacing the XP OS with a more modern OS).

That has been my way for quite awhile, ie. new PCs have the latest Windows OS, while older machines are turned into Linux machines (unless it is specifically for running older Windows games, in which case it may have XP, 2000 or even Win98SE). When I get my next laptop (maybe next year), I'm not necessarily in a hurry installing Linux on it, even on the side of Win7/Win8. Let's see again when Win7/8 are once again considered obsolete and insecure OSes, and everyone should make a jump to Win10.