Both MS DOS and WinXP were available on floppy disc. I've still got all the MS DOS discs, although i did buy XP on CD lol.
My main problem (as I posted about a couple of weeks ago) was Live Mail no longer worked once I'd installed Windows 10. Googling it brought up numerous people with the same problem, but no answer. Sadly, having gone back to W7, it carried on not working. Most frustrating. Now I've had a message from Barclays warning me not to use internet banking on W7 because it's no longer secure. Marvellous! And all this in spite of my 'O' Level in Computer Studies (admittedly it's from 1980....)
Windows 7 is end of life, no longer supported,so you need to move onto Windows 10. A lot of peeps are going over to Mailbird. https://www.getmailbird.com/mailbird-best-alternative-windows-live-mail/
Regardless of "Mailbird" or any other mail clients, Win7 itself will just become less and less secure as an OS. So as you said KIAB, Win10 is the only answer. Other than Linux or Mac off course.
I bank with Barclays and it has been obvious for a long time they are not interested in Win7. Once an OS is obsolete....................they will stop using it and accepting requests from it. Most peeps nowdays use a mobile for banking, not the PC. Mobiles are always up to date security wise and are more secure than most peeps think.
I only have a cashback credit card from Barclays. Due to some outrageous luck in having originally had an old Abbey National business account with no charges, my Santander business account also has no charges. But I'm sure you're all quite right about W10. I'll go back to it eventually, just not immediately.
and you can still run it as a virtual machine in Windows 10 Pro using Hyper-V, complete with XP drivers.
Now back on Windows 10. But a heads up. I didn't like their email programme and tried O E Classic, as I think I mentioned above. Having had to reinstall OEC on each of the three occasions I've downloaded W10, it has taken me a long time to finally realise it's a scam. Each time I've downloaded OEC, within two days, my email accounts have been locked by BT because they've been hacked. Last time (start of Feb), I changed all the passwords and left OEC with my old ones so it didn't work. I've had no hacking problems all through February, but I gave OEC a final go on Wednesday as I liked it and, yes, BT have just locked my accounts as I've been hacked again. The W10 email programme won't let me send a message to a group (something I need to do once a month) and OEC will, but clearly it's a compromised programme. To sum up, don't use OEC for your emails, however tempting it looks.