I run both my desktop and laptop using Windows XP with a dual-boot to Windows 7. I also use VM Ware for quite a few bits of software and stiff I don't want to contaminate my main area but I have used both Elsawin and Etka in the main part of my desktop for many years without any problems.

Only once have I had to re-install Elsawin because of a problem and that only affected Elsawin and not the OS. If your happy using a virtual machine then fine but if you not there should be no problem installing it into 32-bit XP or even 32-bit W7. If the Microsoft virtual pc is not free, look at the VM Ware website. You can download a free copy of VM Player which is actually better that the Microsoft version and it is free. I have a copy on my both my desktop and laptop and it works very well. You will need some media to install the OS into the virtual machine and once installed it's very easy to swap between the host and the virtual machines. I current have several virtual machines running with Windows XP as the OS and various versions of Office as I still prefer Office 2000/2003 (Excel in particular) but the charity I do some work for as a volunteer has just changed to Office 2007.

Hello there andrew, i had the same problem trying to run Etka on W7.64. Try installing windows XP mode, its brilliant! Got etka running here right now!;0.

Acronis True Image Home V13 En Build 5055 more. With VM Player it allows me to design the spreadsheets for them in 2000 and then check everything is OK when it is used in 2007. Works like a dream.