Good idea with ebay. I'll look there in the future. I have a more immediate need that I don't think can be satisfied with ebay shipping, but I'll keep it in mind. I do worry a little that what I get will be legit. I guess the usual ebay cautions apply though.

I personally favor Windows 7 over all other versions of Windows (though I liked 2000 quite a bit). I could mostly take or leave every version of Office, but I agree that the ribbon was a downturn. I liked 2010 pretty well, but 2007 was pretty bad and I hate 2013.

I think the main thing I dislike about the ribbon is the absurd amount of space devoted to "Styles" on the main tab. None of my clients have ever used those styles, yet it doesn't seem possible to remove them or devote the space to something else. Dumb.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to be putting together a very cheap system for a client who just wants something really inexpensive. In the end, it's going to be around $300 for a [refurb] Core 2 Duo PC with 2GB of RAM and 80GB hard drive.