Steve,
I am glad that you got the flash drives to work. It is getting hard to find a computer company that will still install XP, but Dell did it on my laptop. However if I ever decide to get another computer I am going to have it made by one of the local places that I deal with and they will use the cards that I want and build it to my way and load the OS without all of the unneeded crap that the main companies seem to think has to be on the disk. I am tired of spending a day taking off junk that is just for trial. I like the set up I have in this computer as it has two stand alone 500 Gig hard drives, one has the OS and the other I just use to store things on as it is faster than using a CD/DVD. Also a high end video card and lots of RAM.
You might check with one of your local computer places and they may custom build you one for what you want for about what the new one would cost. I think that with all of the upgrades that you listed and the cost, I would just pay the extra for a new one that already has the bugs out of it. Or is supposed to have them out.
Ron
