I'll stick to Windows XP and when XP becomes obsolete I'll
switch to Linux because direction taken by Microsoft with Vista is
not for me.
--
Edvinas
I assume that you have already tried Linux. If not, doing so is very easy. Just download a CD image for one or two popular distributions, burn the image into a CD, and boot your machine with the CD. I recommend PCLinuxOS, SimplyMepis, and Ubuntu, in that order.
You can move to Linux now and continue using XP for those programs that you need and that do not run in Linux. There are several ways to do this:
-Dual boot. The tricky part is making room in your hard drive for it. Linux comes with programs that will resize your Windows partition and allow you to make room for Linux. I have done it two times, and fortunately, both times it worked flawlessly. However, there are no guaranties, and there is a chance that you will loose some data. If you do decide to go that way make sure to defrag your Windows file system thoroughly before doing so. A probably safer option is to use a program like Partition Magic to do this step. But, and even safer way is to simply add another hard drive to your computer and install Linux there. That route is very easy.
-Transfer your XP installation into a Virtual Machine and let Linux take over your hard drive. VMware works very well for this as you can see here:
Yes, that is XP and Vista running simultaneously under Linux (using Beryl).
This is not too hard to do. VMware has a tool that helps you convert your existing XP installation int a VM very easily:
http://www.howtoforge.com/vmware_converter_windows_linux
I tried it and it works. But, in the end I decided to just make my own VMs from scratch using VMware server (available for free).
Any way, just some ideas.