Thanks AA, I'm still trying to make up my mind whether I can pluck up the courage to modernise and replace my XP with another Windows box at all. I'm not feeling any more enthused.
We do have a need for windows as we have a couple of websites to maintain and I don't feel you can claim a website to be 'tested' until you have subjected it to at least a few browsers, including at least one browser under at least one version of Windows, Linux, and OS X. There's also a few Windows toys I have grown to like, such as Corel's 'Paintshop Pro', that may not be available for other OS's. There are equivalents, they might even be superior, but better the Devil you know and all that.
I begin to think that the 'pain' of doing without windows might just be less than the 'pain' I've read about with W10, or even W8 , which it seems can become W10 if you turn your back on it .
I could go off topic and start harping on about how much better Apple are in this respect with OS X, how they appear to have the simple rule that you can install/reinstall/upgrade/downgrade to any version of OS X you like, as long as it is no older than the version that shipped with the computer. But this is a windows area of the forum, and mentioning Apple would be insensitive, so I won't do that.
Ta again.