Thanks for the input so far. Mike, this is a PC born with Win7, not an upgrade from XP. Were it down to me entirely, I'd just keep going with XP for the duration, but seeing as they're phasing it out, and I badly do need a new PC. I waited long enough to avoid Vista, as I've not been hearing favourable reports on it.

John, this PC came with Win7 pre-installed and I'm not sure I've even got a system CD. There's a 'recovery disk' in the package, but no outright program package. The PC doesn't even have a label on it (anywhere visible) with the Windows system registration number the way my old PC has. Guess I shall just have to make do with what I've got for the time being..

I know about the .docx new file types, and I've already made a setting to save to the suggested Word format.

Re macros, the thing I don't understand is why Word claims a file that has no macros in it does contain macros? The file in question might as well have been saved in txt and would be equally useful to me in that format, so there's no fancy formatting in it whatsoever. And the fact that it does probably means that with the present settings Word will whinge over any file I try to open until I get it solved somehow..

Simon, the phone is what I've been fiddling with all morning. Someone (thanks, Giok) sent me this link: Philips homepage and the explanation helped me one step further. I managed to get the phone to show my Skype contacts. But the program icon still has a 'Windows alert' plastered on top of it (a blue/yellow shield), and when checking the device in the 'device handling' section of the control panel I get a warning saying it doesn't work correctly. (Code 10, device doesn't work). I then hit 'update driver' and Windows checked, came back and told me the present driver was the best available, but still the program is unable to work. The phone doesn't show up in the Skype sound device boxes, like it does in my old PC. I do wonder if it's by now a question of Windows for some reason blocking it? I left some feedback and my contact details in the feedback box on the Philips homepage, but I've no idea whether they actually take the time to respond to queries like that.

Did I mention I hate getting a new PC?

Thanks for the comments so far :-)

Best wishes,

Bente