Thanks Doc.  Drivers doc looks like gold.  Thanks.....

I'm going to save the migrating docs.. as i may (will) need them for my old PC....who knows?   To netweork the two PCs, do they need to have the same OS?  IF so, then migrating the XP to win 7 would cost fewer dollars than a straight up 7 install, and let me keep my files / aps intact, yes?

Networking? No, they're both Windows, so there shouldn't be big problems. Just that Home Premium doesn't have the ability to run XP apps (although W7 Professional and Ultimate do).

Your second question is - again, depends which W7 you're asking about. Also, you probably should give the details about the computer you're getting like cpu, ram, hdd or ssd, video card, etc... 

Wiz is also correct, 7 Forums is a very good info source. 

I was referring to this -  

There is a download to make Home Premium work this way at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Which is what you're referring to, I think. But Home Premium doesn't come "as is" with the compatibility mode, which is what I was referring to... no biggy, though. 

Buy 64 bit version and pack it with RAM. I did that with mine and running The Wither 2 with almost max on HD res;> Of course it needs neat CPU and GPU but not latest.

Weird things - where are the firewall settings (wf.msc). Where are network connections (network center and 'change the network card settings' - reverse translation). You need to do a little research if you want to use it with current media types (X264/DTS in mkv with srt) but it's doable - force Direct Show and use MPC with ffdshow.

My Win7 doesn't like my 300 GB IDE HD and few times a day it says it's gonna crash soon.

Cool things - show pulpit at click in the right bottom corner, slideshow as wallpaper (but I can't change background colour - it reverts to gray), libraries of pictures, video, music, Live package which is free and contains mail program, Media center (listen to music and watch random pictures, and movie maker. I recommend instant download. Vista shake and Windows+Tab application changer. Defraggler, Ad-Aware and NOD32 are working fine with it.

Crappy things - New Quick launch bar is now mixed with taskbar - and I can't use it effectively (in XP I've had bout 20 different shortcuts there with autohiding taskbar). We still live in 32 bit world so some old application wouldn't work and there's no 'stable' Flash player for 64 bit IE (but I encountered the problem once or twice only.

Heavy modded Oblivion (maxed, HD resolution) is running very similar on this two machines

Q9650, GTX8800, 3GB RAM, XP Pro 32

Q9650, GTX560Ti, 8GB RAM, Win 7 Pro 64

I guess the bottleneck is decompression of  high res textures packages. Certainly not because horse armor:)

Quad Core 9650 3 GHz CPU (on Socket 775 in my case)

In Oblivion I use OOO and QTP3  and bunch of unofficial patches, nature wildlife, natural weather HDR/water/vegetation, harvest, economy, brighter torches/loading screens.

I've tried to make a benchmark for you from some playing but the game quit on me when Alt+Tabbed I only managed to notice 143FPS in some small dungeon with torch on.

One more thing about W7. For a few months running it never hard freezed on me. Ctrl+Alt+Del always works!

If you want to be able to run XP apps in a real XP enviorment, you are better off installing XP into another Virtual Machine or using VMWare Player to run XP Mode instead of Virtual PC. Cause Virtual PC is not that good compared to say VirtualBox.

Tried that...doesn't work with Home Premium.

@flymar  thanks for info, and attempt to get benchmark.  (i just learend about them..lol... its an education being here on these forums!)

alt tab works fine on win 7 x64 bit?  so u run oblivion [safe;ly] in windowed mode?  Cool!

do you use one of the RAM access extenders (that extend oblivion beyond the 2 RAm barrier - actually 1.8 -etc)?  One does 4GB ram, the other 'grabbs' 3?  Ive been using trescosi's web site for info and guild to new install of ob.  he recommends the 4GB ram patch.  BTW, i am planning to put ob on the D drive, (not c drive which is boot drive).  Will that work?  (Yes, running as administrator...)

@Gwenno1  I have no idea what a virtual machine means in this context.  I thought win 7 was backwards compatable re running Xp applications (oblivion).  Is not?  better with one of these virtually Xp machines?  Oh, are these emulators, like the old Windows-soft (soft-windows?), that allowed one to run a PC based program on an apple/mac?

@Gwenio!  Thnks, i understand now.  Appreciate the tip.  Glad I have my XP machine ... won't bring all programs over, leave some there, as they work fine.  Good idea.. thnaks!