any IT people who can answer really stupid questions?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

would really appreciate any advice. I have a 5 year old PC running windows and Word and a brand new laptop with windows xp. The only word processor on my lap top is Microsoft Works. I would really like to use some bibliographic software called endnote and need to be able to use it on my laptop. It's only partially compatible with Works and you need to muck about with RTF files - which is no good cos I need to submit the piece I'm working on in Word. Is tehre a legal way I can get the Word software that is on my PC onto my lap top? Or does the fact that my pc is 5 years old make that a bad idea? should I just buy word for my laptop? and - now this gets really stupid - how do I do it? how much will it cost? how do I know my lap top can cope with it? feel free to answer all the obvious questions I've failed to ask.

I think if it is the Word from Office 2000 or earlier (or may be Office 98 not certain) you can install it on as many pcs as you wnat as it doesn't do any sneaky web check things.

To buy word you can go to Amazon or other retailer. If you are a student or have a child over 5 you can get it for about a third of the price on a student licence I think

Also yes you can transfer licences legally between machines

never under estimate the depth of my stupidity. If I don't have any discs with word on it what do i do? can I copy it from pc to disk to lap top? god I am SOOOO thick

No you have to have the disks or was it OEM version (ie did it come pre-installed?) I think if it is OEM then is non transferable.

fairly sure it came pre-installed. Can I down load it from somewhere? or is it best to go to Amazon and get discs through the post?

I think get the disks as then you have them if this pc goes tits up or something