Hoople - 10:59 pm on Jun 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

+1 to PortableApps dot com.

Lots of solutions there apps wise with some depth in versions available for some programs.

I use their Firefox 4 as a fall back when a Firefox production release 'version bump' ends up disabling a needed plug-in.

Another possibility is to use the Remote Desktop [technet.microsoft.com] (app) to connect to the old box and have it stashed elsewhere but on your local network. There are Linux clients for this Windows service.