Dell Precision M4400 compatible with Win2k Pro?

I'm looking for a new notebook, and was wondering if by any chance anybody would know for sure if the new Dell Precision M4400 series is fully compatible with Win2K Pro? I went to the support driver section, and there are only 5 drivers listed under win2k, while there are 15 and 16 drivers available for Xp and Vista respectively.

I could also consider other Dell (and possibly other brand) models, as long as they are win2k compatible. No offense, but I want nothing to do with either XP or much less with Vista. I want to be able to format the HD and install Win2000 Pro (FAT32), and possibly in the future have Linux as a second boot option just to thinker a bit.

As a reference, my aprox base needs are really quite modest for todays standards, so I know its impossible to find them in a new machine, but here they are: P4-2.4~2.8GHz, 80-120Gb 7200RPM, 1~2GB Ram, 256~512Mb Video, 15" 1280x1024 LCD, CD/DVD-RW drive, Floppy (must able to boot from it to DOS), 10/100 Lan, 56k int modem, and dear I ask for it, but besides a couple of USB ports, a serial port would be nice to have too (I know USB-RS232 converters exist so this won't be a deal breaker). A 811b/g wireless access card would also be a welcomed plus.

Thanks.

 

Curious why you are sticking with Windows 2000? Why don't you look into Windows Server 2003 at least?

I doubt you will have much luck with drivers, especially for wireless cards and graphics cards.

 

You can strip XP to be as close to W2K as possible.

 

Hi, just got used to win2k, it does all I need on my desktop pc, and I managed to fine tune it to the point that my machine really sings, so I really don't want anything to do with newer OS like XP which I consider just a bloated up version of 2K anyway. Honestly I cringe every time I have to deal with a XP machine, so slow, so much filler and nonsense in there, at least from the technical point of view. Oh and don't get me started on that silly dog in the search function. I guess Xp is fine for housewives and beginners, but my personal opinion is that it eats up most of your system resources with useless gimmicks.

Nothing like a well setup win2k machine. Makes a world of difference to me.

Never tried server 2003, is it similar in any way to win2k, or any resemblance of XP?

Thanks.

 

Seriously, why in the world would you want to save your system resources anyway? You spend $100 for 4GB of RAM, or $1000 for 8GB of RAM, and 364 days out of a year, 50% of your RAM is just sitting there doing nothing.

What do you use your machine for anyway?

By the way, I don't think Dell's supports Win2K anymore. But you can always ask Dell (live chat, e-mail, or call) to be sure.

 

Because I like my machine to be fast and responsive at all times (boot up, app start and execution, shutdown, etc. I hate having to wait minutes on end at boot up (just to cite ONE annoying example), and XP does that every time, even on a 2.8GHz 768Mb 60Gb machine. I hate a machine that feels sluggish and bogged down by a resource hungry OS like XP or Vista. Kind of reminds me when Win98 came out and it was a real pain in the rear just installing some new apps because just having to do a couple of reboots took seemingly forever. Never mind trying to troubleshoot some driver conflict, it took hours just because of reboots. And we just had gotten used to Win95 that felt so agile with just 16Mb of Ram.

I also like Win2000 because it was the last OS to be designed primarily with an interface for technically knowledgeable operator, with easy access to all administrative tools, not crowded with silly animations, wizards and cosmetic carnival effects (resource hogs) just to make housewives and beginners feel a bit less out of place. I understand MS needs to market to the mainstream consumer, but give me a break, they should have included options for the rest of us.

I will continue to use Win2000 as long as I can, why give up something that has worked so well for me over the past 6 years? And if the time comes where Pc manufactures will no longer allow me to use it, then maybe I'll just go with Linux, or perhaps even give Mac a try.

Maybe its just that people have gotten used to wait for their Pc's, instead of it being the other way around (like it's supposed to be). Just to give you an example, my P4-2G 768Mb 80Gb Win2k machine takes exactly 1:20 to boot up until its ready with my 3 startup apps loaded, plus a couple of resident background apps on the tray. It takes between 10-15 seconds to full power off shutdown. That is why I hate to wait minutes on end for any Xp machine to just finish loading the carnival OS.

BTW:

Win2000 aka NT v5.0
WinXp aka NT v5.1

 

Server 2003 is a pretty popular replacement for Windows 2000. It is based on the same kernel as XP, so it will be compatible with everything, but it doesn't have the consumer oriented feel to it.

I agree though. You buy a lot of high end hardware to run an obsolete (in terms of security and features) operating system. My old T23 (1.2Ghz Pentium III M, 1GB DDR, 40GB HDD, 32MB graphics) runs Windows XP extremely quickly and only bogs down when running flash applications (like Youtube). XP / Server 2003 can be quite fast, and so can Vista. Windows 2008 is really snappy, even on old hardware.

 

I'm only resorting to buy "high end hardware" because I have no other choice. If I could buy a brand new plain P4 laptop with a floppy drive (which I use quite often to boot directly to DOS) from a reliable source I'd go for it in a heartbeat. I have specific needs because of certain applications I need to run, and I've been doing it on Win2000 for over 5 years now. Before that I was using Win95 and only upgraded to w2k because new versions of the applications I use would tax the Win95 system resources to the limit. I skipped Win98, ME and XP altogether because I didn't need them at all. Every single machine I saw running these OSs was so slow in comparison that I stayed away from them for good. And I saw my share of those machines because I'm usually the computer guy in my circle of friends and family, so everybody would ask me for help. Then this expanded to the friends of my friends, plus some commercial customers, so I really saw a lot of those 98/Me machines and for the most part they really where awful because the majority where migrated original Win95 hardware without much upgrade if any at all.

Maybe I'm the last person on this planet that hasn't fallen on the merry-go-round hardware-OS upgrade fever everybody seems to be so excited about nowadays. Every single time a new MS OS comes out it seems no one really needs it but simply wants it just to be "up to date". Then it turns out your hardware is not up to the task and your machine now actually runs slower with the new OS. Then you can either choose to upgrade your current machine, if possible at all, or dump the hardware all together and buy a new machine. This cycle seems to happen every single time a new OS comes out, and obviously makes hardware manufactures very happy because they see a surge in sales. Granted my needs are really very specific, and I don't criticize others that like to be on the cutting OS edge, but so far I've been perfectly happy for years now with my Win2000 (SP4) system because I really don't need more, so WHY do I need to change. Just wish I could stay as is. But manufactures are really making it very difficult because they assume everybody will catch on to the new OS fever, which seems unfortunately to be the case.

Maybe I give Win2003 server a try, but doubt I can live with the XP cosmetic carnival wizard consumer oriented feel interface. BTW, I recall that before I started using Win2k Pro I had installed 2K server, and it basically felt the same, but would impose limitations on the installation of certain apps because of license limitations. That is why I ultimately went with the 2K Pro version. Hope that won't be the case again with 2003 sever.

 

Latitude D-Series support W2k drivers and still available. I would just snatch used one and call it the day.

On a side note, Vista on my home/gaming PC loads faster that w2k on D600 laptop. But, if you don't want to be bothered with new interface learning curve, w2k is fine by any means.

 

I was looking at the D830, and yes there are still Win2K drivers available for download at the Dell support site. Since I've never done this on a laptop, and provided I have all the required system drivers, if I get the Vista machine, can I just format the HD to Fat32 and install win2k? Or are there any other considerations one needs to take into account? For example, since there is no floppy drive from which to boot, how would I be able to start FDisk and Format? Can one boot from the CD drive?

On the other hand, thing is with a used laptop, unless it's from someone trusted you never going to know how long it's going to last. Laptops as opposed to desktop pc's have a limited lifespan due to the wear and tear they are subjected to, limited parts availability, and other factors. How long it will last mostly depends on the most part on how well (or badly) the previous owner handled and used the machine. So basically it's a big gamble, even if one finds a cheap one, or from a trusted person. A NOS (New Old Stock) P4 laptop would be great, but obviously not easy to come by, if at all.

How long does your Vista machine take? My Win2K system only takes 1:20 with my 3 main startup apps loaded and ready to go. Shutdown only takes between 10-15 secs to complete power down.