A good response then, thank you all very much...

even though I could hear the disguised sneer in the Mac user's comment! ;)

It seems that Win7, 8.1 and Debian are all contenders for a Therion user.

This may be getting off topic...

My needs are;

-low risk, I cannot afford an interruption that requires me to focus my whole attention before 'life as usual' can resume,

-resistance to change, I have many spreadsheets with embedded VBA that run only on Excel 2000-2003 for Windows (and some other apps) (thanks to my misplaced trust in Microsoft's forward compatibility). I need to dump my existing XP environment 'exactly as is' into a virtual machine,

-low intensity, a migration that enables me to trickle my many applications to the new os at my leisure over time (unless it can do it automatically in one go),

-for the developing artist in the family; to run the latest wacom drawing tablets (which XP does not)

While the Windows options might seem to be the natural choice for a Windows user of 20 years, my testing of the waters to date suggests that Debian may not be much more of a shock than the new Windows.  Apart from my legacy of Windows knowledge, and data that depends on Windows apps I would go there in a moment. I just lack the time to do a lot of relearning and a local Debian mentor I think.

I am a bit worried though, about the amount of time it took Therion 5.3.11 to turn up in Debian!

I'd like to 'upgrade in place' on the same machine, but I think that violates my first point above, so I guess I'm up for a new computer, at least for the duration of the migration.

Wookey, can Wine or Virtualbox receive an intact XP system? It seems to me it requires a fresh reinstall of Windows and all the apps?

Currently I'm hunting around for solutions like zinstall, but any suggestions welcomed.

Bruce

PS - I see two Notepad++ users - is that coincidence because it is good software? Or because of the entry in the Therion wiki?