Thanks for the replies.
Arakasi, please elaborate on the following remark: "If you discontinue use of your browser, email, and usb storage devices on your XP machine..."
All my data is on USB hard disks. I have two... one for primary data and the other is a backup copy which I make frequently, When I travel with my laptop I take the backup copy and if I make changes or additions to it, those I put on a USB flash drive for carefully writing back to the primary data drive. In other words, under my plan for going off the internet with my XP machine, the primary USB data drive would be isolated. So what about posting back to it any changes I may have made to the backup drive while connected to the laptop and the internet? Can you elaborate on the risks of contamination of the Win XP machine through use of USB storage disks as I have described?