Newbie ques on converting to Win 7

I have a Dell xps410 and it's about 5 yrs old. I use Win xp, need guidance on convert to
7, as I do not think my pc will be able to use 8 and it's "touch" feature.

I don't even know exactly how to download and back up files, but I probably could. Just wanted u to know my "shallow" knowledge base. sigh.
I don't want to buy a new computer, but might get harddrive if that was workable..
With my lack of techi-ness, should I take it to a shop and let them do?
I will go to Win and use their upgrade advisor.
As part of converting, is there an easy way to SAVE info off my existng harddrive?
AND, would that info then be safe to upload back to new OS.
I will ask some more ques after I get this done, hope u don't mind a completely vague and simple question. Thanks in advance.

 

after you run the Win7 upgrade advisor, it will tell you what hardware you would have to buy to make your pc compatible with win7.

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get a flash drive, copy all your music, documents and pictures to it and then you can just copy them back to your account in the new os.

programs will not save, you have to either download from the internet or install with your program's installation cd.