>Thanks Sergey for your comments. Question: how much longer can a person really use Windows 7 once it is no longer patched, etc.? I know we have a few more years I would assume.

My wife is still using Xp on her 7-year old laptop. We just maxed out the RAM on it and had it cleaned up (dust etc). I wish I ever found the time to clean up the software, though - I think she's still running some crapware. Even so, it still works just as it worked years ago.

As long as you disable updates, W7 should be fine for a number of years.