I should have tried to save my old computer

I think that some of us that came from XP, Vista, or whatever had the same kind of experience.
The slow start up and numerous programs on booting up you can thank the vendor for that.
Now that I have had 7 HP for over 3 months I love it.
You will learn a lot about Win 7 from all the tutorials and great knowledgeable techs we have here.
So, Welcome NavyFemVet, to Windows 7 Forum.

You cannot install IE7 on Windows 7 unless you use XP-mode or virtual os options but if you really want it you can look at this site for alternatives: how can I install IE7 on windows 7 - Super User

I personally use FF myself and have for many years now.

Windows 7 takes a little time to learn your habits so as to cache your most used programs at startup.....give it a little time and it will speed up.

You can install "Windows Mail" if you want it: Windows Mail or "my choice" Thunderbird makes a satisfactory email client substitute...try it and you may like it. If you want calendaring, appointment management and reminders be sure to install the "Lightning" add-on.

I would recommend that you make a bookmark to the Tutorials section of these forums:

Tutorials - Windows 7 Forums

Hope this helps you with your issue. Give Win7 a chance and I think you will come to like it.

1. I can't say much about Windows Email because I never used it. I use AOL since day1 and was always well served with it.
2. The startup programs are easy to manage. Just disable those that you do not want - in fact, other than your AV program, you can disable all. I use WinPatrol to manage the startups because it has such an easy interface. But you can also do it with msconfig
3. I happen to be very happy with IE8. Maybe you can describe the nature of your problems so that we can try to help. FF is a good browser, but I had no luck with it. Some people also recommend Google Chrome.
4. I would bet a bottle of something that you will like Windows7 after 6 months and never look back to XP - just stick around and make use of the fantastic tutorials on this forum. Maybe you can start with this one.

PS: I think bobtran had the same idea - a couple of minutes ahead of me, LOL.

NavyFemVet said:

First off, I don't understand the reasoning behind not providing an e-mail program in an operating system, that's just plain stupid.

Actually this one is quiet easy. There is no default e-mail program since the majority of users utilize a web browser and yahoo, gmail or hotmail. Secondly, MS takes lots of heat for bundling of software...so why provide something to just fuel this fire when most people don't use it.

It's a simple download of Windows Live Essentials which is free.

NavyFemVet said:

Secondly, too many programs automatically starting up on loading.

Nope, on a clean load of Windows 7...there is very little running. Anything you have running was either installed by you or by the vendor who put the machine together. This is not the fault of Microsoft.

NavyFemVet said:

And thirdly, IE8 has to be the most frustrating piece of do-do I've had to deal with since Windows ME. I did all the adjustments I could think of, and read in tech posts to get it to work right, to no avail. I finally downloaded Firefox. It is a very good program, and I will be using it exclusively. Internet Explorer is no longer in my vocabulary.

You never mentioned what the issue was with IE8. What problems were you trying to resolve. As far as using IE, I haven't used IE in years. There are many other choices out there. Glad you found one that works for you