Because my computer is more than 3-1/2 years old the motherboard will only support a 10 gigabyte hard drive. I have occasionally downloaded upgrades to system software like windows media player, and I've noticed that they tend to be grossly inflated in size compared to the original version. Therefore I suspect that the software goodies that comes with a new operating system like Windows Me or XP would gobble up hard drive memory like crazy. A good indication would be the standard size of hard drives (upwards of 120 gigabytes) and RAM (500-1000 megabytes) on new computers.

To be safe I recommend finding out if your motherboard will support a larger hard drive, and maybe RAM as well, before you upgrade your operating system, and consider the cost.

Another idea is compare the cost of upgrades with a totally new computer. If you already have all the common peripherals (monitor, printer, speakers, etc) then just buying a new box might be cheaper than upgrading an old one.

Let me know what you do, I'd be interested in finding out what your decision is and why, and if any of my suspicions are correct, or just paranoid reasoning.