JoAnn H
If your CPU is 2.0Ghz or better and you have over 1GB of RAM you should seriously think about it...it runs great on my mom's 4 y.o. laptop....
If you want to start fresh...Got get a new 1TB hard drive and install on that one...Win7 will install on a clean drive and allow you to dual boot. That allows you to move out of your old OS slowly. You can keep XP running and just boot over to Win7 when you have time to configure it. Everything on my son's PC is still there in Vista...He is slowly moving out of Vista and onto Win7...When you are done blow away the XP....
It is faster...Very stable...
Greg