Now I can finally play Baldur's Gate 2!

Finished 'Baldur's Gate' - copy that I got from 'Good Old Games' = gog.com. It took 8 tries to beat the final boss and his cronies, but I did and got a final save. [My old copy of the game refused to do the final save.] So I installed the copy of 'Baldur's Gate 2' - also from gog.com - and was able to import my character.

I was able to keep all stats, xp [and with the 'cheat' of pausing at game start and dumping all equipment I was able to keep all of that, too]. The final save import ALSO kept the stat adds I gave to Minsc [CON] and Jaheira [WIS] - and they also retained their levels, as did Imoen. So = very much yay!