[RWebb]

thx - figured out that the red icon was a permissions issue

I do have a USB ext. drive but Win 7 uses it for a system image or some such. I'll save your post re iTunes for later. My main task is to determine if I can do useful work on this thing or should can it and get a better Windows laptop instead. My ancient Thinkpad works, but is slow & heavy nowdays, not to mention the difficulty of seeing the keyboard under conditions I often need to use it.

I won't be able to move all the 360 Gb over - the Air is too small, but I can move half or so. The iTunes files are in Apple Lossless which makes them larger. Although I am less crazy than Ian, I am sufficiently crazy to make it create big files to get better fidelity. The actual work (non music, non jpg) docs type files to move are mostly just MS Word & Excel, and pdf's. I won't be able to use the big ArcInfo files on the Apple nor the datalogger files.

I just burned a couple more DVDs and will just copy those docs type files over to the Airhead -- I mean Air book.

re EBCDIC - I do remember the trials & tribulations of that conversion; also dropping punch cards (esp. in a rain puddle), and the gawdawful file conversion involved with early GIS...