What is the best PC Desktop to buy right now for...

I highly recommend Lotus. Their build quality is the best I've seen and the support and service is short of amazing. Be sure to contact them. They'll help you find the right computer every step of the way, and you'll be sure to get exactly what you're looking for.

Check this desktop out. It has everything you want, but the sale ends today:



http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=4459602&sku=A180-1792

Probably best to go to a membership discount store like Sam's Club or Costco. You're right on the edge at a ceiling of $600. But Dell, Gateway, Hewlet Packard or Compaq are all good names. Out of the four I'd lean more toward HP.



Most desktops you buy today have two gigs of dual channel memory and a quad processor. And you're right, Office 2000 probably won't run on Vista.



As far as staying with XP, Microsoft are cutting the support for XP off soon. With Windows 7 almost ready to go, the best bet is probably Vista Home Premium, unless you happen to luck out and find Ultimate on a machine.



Watch out for older machines on close out. And you definitely don't want Vista basic. With ram at the lowest price ever you can always upgrade to 4 gigs. A 32 bit system will only use a little over 3 gigs, but a 64 bit will use it all and more. Make sure whatever you buy has room on the motherboard for four sticks of ram so that you can always add more.