My computer was so slow among other things so I reloaded XP Pro from my original disk and SP2 from Microsoft. Now it's ALMOST like a new machine, fast, some programs that didn't work before now work. But now I REALIZE I don't have MS Word or the rest of the office suite. Can anybody give me a clue as to what happened?
Also the start menu looks like the-do they call it the traditional view?. How do I change to the view I had before? Thanks much! Well, the MS Office suite is not free. You either got Word from Office or from MS WORKS Suite, neither of which is free. So, if you want Word, you need a CD for Office or Works Suite; that's all there is to it.

Now, if you want to consider some freeware options, you could TRY OpenOffice; it's a full office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database, etc.). For just a word processor, one that doesn't have all the features you find in Word, I'll suggest AbiWord; it will read Word documents. And keep in mind for the future that anytime you re-install your OS you will lose any programs that were installed after you bought the machine...
Did you recieve any program CD's with the machine ? ?
If so re-install what you need.
You may want to check everything in Device Manager also in case there are some device drivers missing...these get wiped as well.