I have had minor problems with my emails, sending messages to contacts emailing me saying "email not received". But I am receiving them. I am on XP and run my emails through outlook.
I was told XP is going obsolete and Windows 8 means I will need a new processor and motherboard. Am I better getting a tower built OR buying a tower from a shop?
A few things:
Windows XP is not going obsolete; it's obsolete. Right now. It's flat-out ancient software. It has unresolvable security flaws. It has reliability problems that are solved in newer versions of Windows. New programs, and new versions of old programs, are starting to drop support for Windows XP.
You do not necessarily need a new processor and motherboard to run Windows 8. If you have a reasonably modern system that was running Windows XP for whatever reason, you could continue to use it, and just upgrade the operating system. But this would depend on how long ago you purchased your computer, and what kind of specifications it has.
If by "Outlook" you mean "Outlook Express", please stop using that old piece of junk right now. :-) There are much better email clients, even ones that run just fine on Windows XP. For example, Mozilla Thunderbird is a good email client that runs on Windows XP. You could also sign up for a web-based email service, such as Gmail or Hotmail, and send your mails through there. The advantage of doing so is that the mail client is always kept up to date and secure, because it is patched by the web application host (for example, Google or Microsoft). But if you aren't ready for webmail, using a traditional thick client like Thunderbird is fine.
In the end, it is not essential that you upgrade to a newer version of Windows or buy a new computer in order to keep sending and receiving email reliably. You just need to use an actually good (and modern) email client.
However, I would still recommend upgrading your version of Windows to at least Windows 7 for security and functionality purposes. You'll also receive a newer version of Internet Explorer; if you prefer to browse the web using IE, you will notice that the newer IE is able to handle new websites with enhanced HTML5 / dynamic functionality ("Web 2.0").
The last few people still running Windows XP are corporations that are very slow to adopt new technologies because it takes them a long time to move their business processes from an old system to a new one. End-users running Windows XP in 2013 are very rare. You are definitely way behind the times, but even without upgrading your computer or operating system, you could still take advantage of enhanced functionality by running some commonly-available free programs, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc. that can bring your old computer up to modern standards.
Windows XP went "end of life" (obsolete to the rest of us) in 2009.
Check out the Windows lifecycle fact sheet
You could probably run Windows 8 on an older machine, but may well run into compatibility problems with some hardware. Microsoft have a program to check that for you known as the Upgrade Assistant
Chances are though anything you buy these days for the same price as you paid back then will be a massive improvement as processors have gotten more effective and more powerful
Building your own vs getting a prebuilt is more about personal choice now, the price difference just isn't there anymore, especially if you catch one of the major suppliers cough Dell cough when they've got a sale going.
Correction, Windows XP will go "End of Life" on Mid 2014, where Microsoft will stop releasing new security and functionality updates. (but even after that period, people will still be able to secure their Windows XP boxes by using 3rd party non-microsoft security software such as a really good non-microsoft firewall and a really good non-microsoft based anti virus software such as Avast AV. Keeping the hackers out with 3rd party still supported firewall software will help keep still Windows XP users very secure.
We have a 7 year old P4 2.8 Ghz with 2GB of RAM that is used with no Virus Scan and my wife refuses to let me upgrade it because it runs faster than most of her friends computers (that are MUCH newer and with multiple cores). It is unlikely you NEED to install a new MB or CPU and RAM unless your computer is MUCH older than the one I mentioned; your hardware setup should support Windows 7.
We use the older computer for business (we actually need it) and it runs GREAT. What are your hardware specs; better than what I mentioned above? Just have enough RAM (minimum 2GB), and good disk I/O (Western digital HLHX drive for cheap, or SSD) and you should be good to go, no upgrade needed.
The biggest thing you should do is upgrade to Windows 7 for active support and updates and patches; call us crazy but we see no need to upgrade though and are not... yet. The next issue up and coming is software will stop supporting windows XP and you will be forced to upgrade or find different software (or move to Linux, not the best desktop OS for office work though)
So I would recommended reinstall your OS or do a new install of windows 7. Add RAM, upgrade your disk, and get a business class 2D graphics card like a Quadro NVS. Then optimize your software to run on older hardware (condense partition, defragment using third party with smart defragment, or defragment by access times, turn off indexing, and keep background processes down to a minimum).
