Hello again!
Many thanks for your latest messages, DonnaB, Paws and Terry1966.
I must apologise for not replying before, it has been an incredibly stressful week with problems ranging from computers that wouldn't boot, to an invasion by an army of mice (live ones, not the computer kind!
) To round off this perfect week, I went for what I thought was a routine eye test, only to be told that the pressure in one eye is slighty elevated and that I might have to go to the hospital to have it checked out. I guess that at the end of such a week, all you can do is laugh and hope that next week will be a little bit better! 
DonnaB, it is great that so many countries are represented here.
With regard to buying a secondhand computer, I am not sure I know enough about what is a good buy and what isn't to do that.
Once again, knowing somebody else who knows a bit about such things would come in very useful at such times! 
Paws, the North Downs is lovely. We were at Box Hill (which I think is part of the North Downs) at the beginning of July and had a meal in a pub not far away to celebrate my birthday.
I am still investigating ways of getting to the Computer Club I was interested in. It would take me so long to get to it though, as I would need to get 2 buses and the connections don't work out too well.
I don't know anything much about Linux, although I have used Puppy Linux. It is a bit of a pain though, because I couldn't find a way to use my printer from it. Extremely annoying!
I don't think my husband really knows how serious the consequences of running XP could potentially be!. To be fair, we as a family have had so many different problems over the past year or so, that new computers are way down at the bottom of his list of priorities.
As regards to Scannow, we discovered back in 2014 that it just was not possible to run it on this computer. This from my 2014 topic:-
When I attempted to run the System File Checker, I got the message telling me to insert my Windows XP Professional CD Rom. Here's the thing.... when we got this computer, it came without a disc but we requested (and got sent) one later. So, I got out my 'Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Version 2005' disc and put it into the CD Rom - only to be told that it was the wrong disc! Then I realised that when we had the new hard drive put in last year the guy in the shop didn't take our CD, but presumably used his own. It wouldn't let me proceed any further without the correct CD.
I subsequently contacted the computer shop about this, but they told me: -
Us using our own discs should make no odds to your PC – any disc will work on any system; then part that makes it unique is the license code affixed to your machine.
I too have been faced with similar problems in the past when running SFC scans, where it will not accept the disc, when it is more than clearly the correct version of Windows. Over time we have just put this down to a bug within XP that is sometimes present. As I’m sure you are aware, support for windows XP is stopping in the next couple of weeks, as it has come to the end of its existence. Over time, and since Vista, 7, and 8 operating systems have come out, it has become harder and harder to make a PC work from scratch with Windows XP.
Godawgs then got me to copy some registry files to the desktop and we tried to run the scan from there, but I was still asked to insert the disk.
Whatever the reason, we had no success in getting Scannow to work!
Terry1966, hello again. I suspected that you were probably another Brit when you helped me a month or so ago!
I often look at tech review sites. Not sure I am anywhere near being able to build my own computer though. Scary thought!
don't be afraid to experiment, pc's are usually hard to break and of course you'll always find someone here to help with a problem if you do.
Maybe a good day for me to read that again! I have acquired my daughter's old laptop and was hoping to put a new hard drive in and upgrade the OS. Got cold feet earlier today though, as Phill told me the following: -
the reason that notebook repairs and upgrades are normally expensive is because they can be time consuming and tricky, an incorrectly placed screw on reassembly can short out and ruin the MB and that is one good reason that the task should only be undertaken by a suitably trained/competent person who will be obliged to put things right should they make a mistake
Am definitely not in any way a suitably trained/competent person..... so this scared the living daylights out of me! 
Perhaps I should take up crochet (or some other old-lady type interest) instead! 
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Once again, thanks to each and every one of you for all your replies.
Chris.
Edited by Channeal, 30 July 2016 - 09:23 AM.