Buying a new PC may beat upgrade

Tons of letters have stuffed my inbox, along with many requests for help. I can't answer the thousands of notes individually but let's get to the general topics.

Question: I am considering a Windows Vista upgrade, but my friend said it isn't worth it and to get a new PC instead. What is your take, since you did both?

Answer: If your PC is older, I would get a new one. By the time you upgrade the RAM and video (and maybe hard drive) you may as well get a new PC. Just don't buy the "Basic" version of Vista. Get the Premium version, which may cost a bit more. The issue with upgrades is that you never really know if a driver will be available to make your hardware work correctly. In my case I have done a half-dozen upgrades, and only one worked out of the box. In the remainder of the cases I had to really look to find the right drivers. (And in two, I never did find drivers. One was for a Dell laptop and the other for a Dell monitor.)

Question: Is there a decent, free program to view photo files?

Answer: I like two. One is Picasa (picasa.google.com) and the other is Irfanview (irfanview.com). Both are free and do what you need them to do (view and thumbnail tons of photos).

Question: In an earlier column you mentioned that there are cheaper versions of Microsoft Office available for students and teachers. Where are these versions available?

Answer: I have seen them in stores such as Sam's Club, in college bookstores as well as online. If you Google "Microsoft Office Academic," you will find many retailers. You may need to provide proof of your academic standing when you buy. If you don't need the Microsoft product but just need an office suite, you can download one for free at OpenOffice.org.

Question: Is there a product out there that will back up the entire computer, not just the data files? With hard drives getting so big, I can't find where my data files are stored; they seem to be all over the place.