Our home PC is older running Windows XP, as well as IE 8 with Outlook Express.

Love Outlook Express!  Our home users all use that still.

But I realize that when our old PC dies soon, we will be getting Windows 8.  I have another personal laptop running Windows 7 and IE 10, so begrudgingly getting used to Live Mail for email on that machine (and getting used to Windows 8 on my new Surface, but it has a useless mail app). 

Seems like I read a lot of problems experienced by XP systems downloading Live Mail.  And in fact, it doesn't list XP as a supported system.  But it would be nice if I could do that on our old PC, because other household users besides myself could get used to it and transfer data, before the machine dies.

Of course, I'm thinking that Live Mail can store information in the cloud, so it's easy to set up a new machine? Is that true, or is information stored only on the machine?

Anyhow, should I try and download it to XP, too much risk to bother with it? 

I'm using Windows 7-64 bit and just updated to Windows Live Mail 2011.  In the previous version of Live Mail (the one prior to the ribbon), all open emails and the main window were on my task bar (I have them joined, but they were all visible when I moused over them).  This is no longer the case.  If I try to reply to a note, I see that note on my task bar; but I can't access the main window.  The only way I can get to it is to minimize the note I'm writing.  Is this no longer possible?
In Outlook Express I can have accounts in different names (e.g. my wife's and mine) with the same email address and unless I change it, in mail all goes to the same In Box.  In Live Mail, there are two In Boxes etc. and in mail goes to both.  How do I get around this?
Windows Live Mail 2011 hangs when I start my Windows 7 PC.  If I don't access mail for a half hour or so, I get a message "Windows Communications Platform has stopped working."  It crashes and restarts itself.  Afterwards if I restart the Live Mail 2011 client it works.  I also can get it working if I kill the process wlcomm.exe.  Looks like a bug in wlcomm.exe is the culprit.  What is rereally bizarre is that the same thing occurs on my Windows 8 laptop running Windows Live Mail 2012 .

The instructions say to click the "start" button and search "mail"

 Win 8 has no start button.

We just got a new computer at work.  It now has Window Live Mail instead of Outlook.  All our contacts from our Outlook express transferred, however, so did my personal Hotmail Contacts.  I do not want my personal contacts mixed in with the work email contacts.  How can I stop this.  Are they linked?
i have win 7 ,i use live mail i went to send a e mail and it sent me to get a digital ID.How can i get this to stop thank you
i have win 7 ,i use live mail i went to send a e mail and it sent me to get a digital ID.How can i get this to stop thank you
Details as per title
I just signed up for Windows Live mail a short few days ago and imported all of my email from my other email account (phone company internet mail system). I had it set up to import email from my other email account and it deleted both of them. I am in a panic because I deleted them yesterday or today and have nothing left in either my original email account or the Live Mail account. I thought they operated separately. Help, help, help! Sobbing hysterically! Any help?