I bought a new laptop yesterday. Actually a USED Dell Latitude. It's a refurb, but it looks new and everything works well. I spent a hundred bucks and I've got a system that should be able to run 24/7 for the next few years.
It came with Windows 7. That makes it worth it right there.
I'm planning to keep this system clean. I'm not going to install much on it or surf the internet with it much. Its purpose will be to host my music files. So I'm going to download Firefox, AVG (free anti-virus), Apple iTunes, and not much else.
Then I've got 50,000 songs or so on a Terrabyte drive, so I'll load those into iTunes and have a great little music server.
This might be up your alley, Nemo, since you're obviously a huge music buff. Would you like about 50,000 songs? Probably more. I haven't tallied them up in a while. Send me an e-mail if you're interested and I'll tell you where to mail an empty Terrabyte external hard drive. (So it will cost you around fifty bucks.)
I have eclectic taste, btw. Styles range from pop to classical, rock to bluegrass. Lots of blues.
Now that I think about it, the easiest thing you could do would be to order a new 1TB hard drive on Amazon or wherever you want and ship it to my address...