open source software page
Open source software is virtually free, of course you have to pay for the disc it is on and a small fee for the effort of providing the disc. Also it is usual to make a donation to the programmers to help them to continue the good work but that is up to you.
I use 'open office'. This is equal to Microsoft office and considered by users far superior. It can handle all the files produced by Microsoft office and is well worth a try.
Internet explorer is a big problem with windows, Microsoft have never got it quite right. I use Firefox as my web browser with brilliant results.
Very soon your windows xp is going to be out of date. Windows vista is about £250 for the full version and when you upgrade most of your other software you have bought will be redundant. People who use Linux don't have this problem - all upgrades are free and all additional software is free.
I am a bit stuck with windows but I do use Linux on my laptop and I am waiting for the day I can close the shutters on windows.