I guy who I hesitate to call a client but more someone who badgers me unbidden for advice has just made me aware that he's still on XP, so I am obviously advising an immediate upgrade. But to where?

Usage is general purpose Office stuff, which must not break, web and email. Hardware is generally modest - from memory his main PC is an dual core Athon 64 of some sort.

Am I right in thinking that his older version of Office (I think it's 2008) will not work natively in Win8? And considering the modest hardware would 7 (or even Vista) be a better option?

And then, which version of each? Why is it such a minefield?

Thanks in advance!

Far as I know there wasn't a 'PC' 2008 Office, but a 2007... that works on 7 and 8 it seems

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ ... quested=14

Personally, I'd go with 7, especially on an older machine

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download ... aspx?id=20

Doh, I meant 2007 - had my Mac head on

Thanks for the link, I'll run that on his machine.

Windows 7 uses less resources than Windows Vista and Windows 8 uses even less, 8.1 Update reduces the requirements yet again.

The question will be more, does the manufacturer of his PC (and his peripherals) supply drivers for Windows 7 or 8? It might be a case that 7 or 8 would "run" on the device, but it might not work properly. Given that a new entry level PC will be much faster than what he currently seems to be using, I would say buying a new PC for a couple of hundred quid would bring him more than spending over a hundred on upgrading his existing machine.

That would also give the benefit of keeping all his old configuration and data intact until the new machine is up and running, so he has a fallback in the event that something doesn't work properly.