Windows 2000, yes or no?

[SwamiJi]

Hi all, I'm working on a Compaq Presserio 1220 Laptop with 80 megs of ram and 200 megahertz speed. (64 mhz bus). I need to reformat it, but i dont have windows 98. What do you guys think about installing windows 2000? will it totally crash, or will it work with some decency? thanks for youre help

 

[Electrode]

Well, I'm using Win2000 on my Compaq Armada 7750MT lappy (P-MMX 166, 144 MB RAM) and while it's not "fast" by any stretch of the imagination, it is usable. Be sure to disable unneeded services, kill off the eyecandy (fading menus, etc) and all the other speed tweaks you normally do.

I suggest that you try Linux. If it works with all of your hardware, it is WAY faster than Windows on old hardware. The only reason I'm running Win2K on my laptop is because my 802.11b card won't work in Linux.

 

[SwamiJi]

ok great thanks, i was also thinking of going with linux, but the computer i'm configuring this for is non-geek. So i think i'll be better off going with 2k and disabling the fancy-dancy features. thanks

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: SwamiJi
Hi all, I'm working on a Compaq Presserio 1220 Laptop with 80 megs of ram and 200 megahertz speed. (64 mhz bus). I need to reformat it, but i dont have windows 98. What do you guys think about installing windows 2000? will it totally crash, or will it work with some decency? thanks for youre help

The biggest issue is going to be the memory, any chance you can bump it up (even to 128 will help in this case)
Bill

 

[SwamiJi]

i looked for an upgrade, but the highest that this perticular memery goes to is 64mb. I'm having issues formatting the computer right now. I'm trying to boot off of the disk and it tells me that setup failed because file hidusb is corrupt. I tried 2 different boot installers (win2k and winxp). Same problem on both (i know both of these cd's work perfectly fine.) anyone have an idea about this problem? thanks

 

[Abzstrak]

usb controller may not be compliant somehow... maybe its trying acpi? did you flash it to the newest bios before trying the install? Also, you can try loading the standard pc HAL rather than acpi

 

[SwamiJi]

this computer is too old to have a usb controller. Don't think it was invented when this computer was made. anyway, im trying to boot off the cd, will i be able to do that if i load the pc HAL instead of acpi? also, i checked compaqs driver site, and there are no bios updates..
.


if i need to load pc HAL, how do i go about doing that?....
thanks

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Abzstrak
usb controller may not be compliant somehow... maybe its trying acpi? did you flash it to the newest bios before trying the install? Also, you can try loading the standard pc HAL rather than acpi

He's not even getting that far, for some reason the OS is having trouble reading the CD...
Bill

 

[WarpSpeed]

Try booting from the floppies that you can create in Win2K.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'd recommend you stick with W98 unless you can put at least 128mb in the machine.

 

[igiveup]

Make sure the CD is clean. What part of the install do you get that message in? When its copying files and still in teh blue screen section of the setup? Or is this when the graphical portion of the setup begins?

 

[Abzstrak]

guys, its failing on hidusb which is the driver for USB, hence why i asked about USB... I've seen this before with 2k, it was due to USB in all four cases, not the media. I may be barking up the wrong tree, but seeing as he's tried multiple media, I think its worth further investigation.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Abzstrak
guys, its failing on hidusb which is the driver for USB, hence why i asked about USB... I've seen this before with 2k, it was due to USB in all four cases, not the media. I may be barking up the wrong tree, but seeing as he's tried multiple media, I think its worth further investigation.

Actually its the driver for human interface devices running over USB, it's only being read from disk at the point he receives the error, I find it highly unlikely it's actually related to USB at all (since the driver hasn't been started yet)

Bill

 

[SwamiJi]

thanks for all your help guys, i just tried booting for the 23rd time and ta-da; it worked. wierd...stupid computers. anyway trhanks

 

[Kubla Khan]

I have Win 2K installed on 3 or 4 older machines (P200 MMX to P233 MMX with 64 to 96 MB RAM) and they work well, as long as you take the time to disable any and all unnecessary services, unnecessary network protocols, and ALL GUI special effects. They work well for internet machines. I've been keeping them on IE 5.5 too, and that seems to work a little faster on my configs than IE 6. Check out the Win2K tweak websites for more info on service configuration & such.

The result is much more stable than a Win98SE config, and it's an especially good match for a dialup setup. You may notice the slower HTML render if you have broadband though.