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W2K on an XPS Pro200n???
Hi,
I have a friend who's recently got a DSL hookup in her small office. Her primary PC is an old XPS Pro200n which has done remarkable service for her, but it's time for an upgrade. Rather than just terminate the old box, however, I'd like to see her continue to get some use from it. I have in mind setting up a little peer-to-peer network so that she can have an easy file "backup" service, and a spare / backup PC, too. (Her business absolutely depends upon her PC, and I have been nagging at her to set up an office system with at least SOME redundance.) The new machine is going to run W2K for sure. I know the old machine can run NT4, but I'd like to simplify matters for her (and for me or whoever else winds up helping her out from time to time) by running the same OS on both machines.
I've looked at the download pages for this model, and the ONLY W2K-related files I see are for monitors that are commonly used with it. Not looking good. Has anyone seen W2K up and running on one of these old boxes? It's pretty easy for me to research the peripheral devices, but the CPU, MB and Dell-specific BIOS revisions I'm not so sure about.
My friend and I would greatly appreciate any help you might give us!
Best regards,
Jim
I have a friend who's recently got a DSL hookup in her small office. Her primary PC is an old XPS Pro200n which has done remarkable service for her, but it's time for an upgrade. Rather than just terminate the old box, however, I'd like to see her continue to get some use from it. I have in mind setting up a little peer-to-peer network so that she can have an easy file "backup" service, and a spare / backup PC, too. (Her business absolutely depends upon her PC, and I have been nagging at her to set up an office system with at least SOME redundance.) The new machine is going to run W2K for sure. I know the old machine can run NT4, but I'd like to simplify matters for her (and for me or whoever else winds up helping her out from time to time) by running the same OS on both machines.
I've looked at the download pages for this model, and the ONLY W2K-related files I see are for monitors that are commonly used with it. Not looking good. Has anyone seen W2K up and running on one of these old boxes? It's pretty easy for me to research the peripheral devices, but the CPU, MB and Dell-specific BIOS revisions I'm not so sure about.
My friend and I would greatly appreciate any help you might give us!
Best regards,
Jim
DELL-David
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August 23rd, 2000 02:00
James P. Wallen
5 Posts
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August 23rd, 2000 10:00
I appreciate the fact that this system isn't ideally suited for use with W2K. My friend isn't planning on using it as her primary system, but merely for backup storage and use as an alternative machine if / when the primary system needs maintenance. I've wanted her to have a redundant office system for the three years she has been in business. Fortunately she's been using a system, the XPS Pro200n, which has been absolutely reliable. I hope she's as lucky with the upcoming purchase! But I'd just like to outfit this system with the same OS as her primary -- if it's feasible. NT4 will certainly do the trick for me, but it won't be as friendly up front for her to deal with. If it were going to be used by myself or another techie, I wouldn't hesitate to go with NT4. That's the machine side. The human side is that supporting this woman on NT4 will be more difficult, for me and for her. (Support will have to be mostly by phone.)
As we all know, though W2K will certainly work better on a more powerful system with later processors and ACPI compliance, there is a cutoff point for any device (including, presumably, motherboards and on-MB features) where W2K simply refuses to co-operate. I'm hoping to find out if this system has any built-in issues on the MB that will prevent W2K Pro from loading and running.
I've ascertained that the disk controller subsystem is W2K compliant, and that the CD-ROM is not. Obviously, her original 32 MB of RAM is going to need to be boosted to 128 MB. I'd probably install that much, or at least 96 MB, for use with NT4, too.
Do you suppose anyone at Dell, or anyone reading this thread, has upgraded a system of this class to W2K?
Many thanks again for the link. I hadn't stumbled across that one before!
Best regards,
Jim