I would have thought a much newer but used computer would be the answer. In a year or two the Core 2 Duo may be struggling with standard browsers no matter what you help it with. i5 4th gen computers, even laptops, seem to be available for around 150 if you shop carefully. So you get a much newer computer all round. And if parents do not like the new o/s you can just install the old one for them. And the new ssd can be applied in a year or two - when the prices have come down a lot. And at that point if a lot of disk space is required the hdd can be installed in a usb3 caddy, also very cheap by then. But then I am addicted to the value of second hand.

If you are used to windows start with Linux Mint with MATE. Nice familiar desktop interface. (In MATE 1.6 to get windows key to bring up applications menu use dconf-editor, go to settings for org > mate > Marco > global-keybindings and set panel_main_menu to be Super_L )

Thanks everyone.

Can anyone tell me how to run a full screen app on two Screens in xp? App in windowed mode is fixed size, but will accept any resolution for full screen on command line, but the os only puts the full screen app on one screen. in windowed mode it ignores the command line resolution argument. Cheers