Do I need windows 7

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I need a computer to write cv's on word and use WiFi to send emails and look for jobs on the internet.

What minimum specs do I need? Could I get away with a CRT monitor computer and windows XP?

I am definitely not a Windows expert, but the HP Stream laptop is now very popular, and they are down to about $225. They have all you would need.

What is your budget? A Chromebook can do all of those.

Yes (but not preferred). I used a Windows 2000 + CRT long after Windows 7 was released. It worked out just fine for me.

Just make sure not to update Microsoft office anytime soon. Windows 7's minimum specs are XP's average, that being 4GB RAM and 120GB+ Hard drive storage.

How much memory and free HD storage does your computer have now ?

As you intend to use the internet with this machine, you should be aware that Microsoft has dropped all support for Windows XP - that means that they are no longer releasing any updates for XP, including security. That is roughly analogous to sleeping with every person in New York City without a condom.

Microsoft is releasing security updates - but basically nothing else - for Windows 7 for another year or so.

Get whatever's cheapest and upgrade to 10. As much as I hate it, it's better than using something as outdated as XP.

ESPECIALLY since XP will only run up to IE 8, and while there was a time where many developers felt Microsoft had their balls in a vise and they were obligated to legacy compatibility that far back... now mobile is way more of a priority for most and considering how difficult old IE made cross platform development it just gets ignored.

So... you really actually might need something better than XP to actually access the websites you need to in order to look for work. Not to mention the software to download job applications from those websites, etc.

CRT screens, that ancient history. Today laptops come with Windows 10 pre-loaded. It is really easy to setup one of those computers. All you need is 4GB of Ram and 500 GB of storage and you set to write those CVs. Each laptop and most desktop computers comes with built in wifi adapters. You might need to pay for the word subscription ($99) and that it. Me I would just go straight to windows 10

It would help if you told us what specs your computer has. If we're talking 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive and 700Mhz processor, it's time to upgrade your hardware. If we're talking 4GB RAM and a dual core processor, I would suggest installing Linux Mint which will do word processing and internet no problem (can also be done with 2GB RAM but you'll need the 32-Bit version of LM rather than 64-Bit).

I wouldn't recommend XP for anything beyond specialist legacy applications (preferably offline). And CRT isn't a problem - as long as it's got a VGA port and it's still working you might as well carry on using it.

Honestly, as long as you have a good antivirus and some common sense, XP should be just fine. A lot of newer programs don't support XP anymore, but thankfully Avast and Firefox still do, and they're both good programs.

Now, for specs, the MINIMUM I would recommend nowadays would be 4GB of ram and a half-decent dual-core CPU, like a Core 2 Duo or one of the Socket AM3 Athlons; older dual cores like the Pentium D or the Athlon 64 x2 are junk. Ideally you should be shooting for 8GB of ram and a more recent CPU, but at that point you'd have to have a more modern operating system to really take advantage. Windows 7 is a bit heavy on older systems, but overall I'd say it's one of the best operating systems out there for casual users, since it supports almost all the programs a normal user would want (Microsoft Word, iTunes, etc.), it has good hardware compatibility, it has a familiar user interface, and it's fairly stable.

Now myself, I use Manjaro Linux as my daily driver, because my machine has some problems with Windows 7, and I'm not a fan of the newer versions of Windows. It's a good OS, but you definitely need to have some technical expertise and experience to use it. It's also prone to bugs and quirks like any other Linux distribution, but the one thing I like about Linux is that if you have a problem with something, usually you can dig in there and fix it, as opposed to Windows where the only real solution to some things is to reinstall the OS.