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I recently acquired a HP Pavilion N3410 Laptop. It's running an AMD K6-2 550MHz processor, with 160 MB of RAM, 8 MB dedicated to video, and a 4 GB hard drive.. I was wondering what would be the best version of Windows to run on this thing. When I got it, it was running the factory, shot, version of Windows ME. I reformated it, it was unsaveable. Right now, I have Windows XP running on it, Service Pack 1, and it's running pretty well, but I'm not sure if I want to keep it on here. I'd like any suggestions I can get. Thank you.

That system BARELY meets the minimums for XP. If you turned off every uneccesary feature in XP it would probably be okay (kill all eye candy, disable desktop themes, turn off system restore).

The ideal OS for that system would be Windows 2000 (not Millenium).

Ditto. Win2k.

second the win 2k or maybe win98lite modification Google should be able to find it. WinXP can very easily take all 4gigs after a short time(apps will do it in a fraction of that time).
win98 can be installed as small as 400mb if you turn off most the install options

Gonna have to agree with Win2k, seems like less of a memory hog than Win98

Yaaa, 2k

Greg

i would of went xp pro myself.... ive got a friend thats got a laptop(200Mhz) with xp pro and it runs fine, and i installed xppro onto my dads old 486 and that worked fine too(even with all the colour crap on) although i would recommend disabling one thing and thats the show blue rectangle when selecting items.

EDIT

got the laptop Mhz wrong its 366 with a 8MB GFX, seriously i know you guys dont believe me try it out it works.

XP Pro on a 200Mhz and a 486? LOL! What kind of crack you smoking?

Originally posted by 123cool
i would of went xp pro myself.... ive got a friend thats got a laptop(200Mhz) with xp pro and it runs fine, and i installed xppro onto my dads old 486 and that worked fine too(even with all the colour crap on) although i would recommend disabling one thing and thats the show blue rectangle when selecting items.

:lol

it works

Riiiiiiiiiiiight...

Okay, I have another one. I run a small computer repair business in my town. Anyway, 350MHz Pentium II, 12GB HD, 256MB of RAM, 16 MB Diamond Monster Fusion, aka 3dfx Banshee. When I got it, it was running XP Home SP2. I just put Pro SP1, and it's running pretty well. Posting on it now, as a matter of fact. My friend wants to upgrade it, and going by the manual, if I flash a new bios on the MB, it'll hold up to a 900MHz Pentium 3, and 768MB RAM. AGP1x slot's no good, so I figured I could stuff a GeForce FX5200 PCI card on it. Any takers?

BTW, thanks for all the suggestions. I think I'll set up 2K on the lappy for a while, cause I already killed all 4 GB... >.< I can't even fit one bloody game on it... not like it would play much in the first place.

i have the same lappy with 98 installed which works fine...actually my wife has it...as to your firend I have seen some amd sempron + integrated mobo combos for ~125 - you'd need to add a stick of ram but you'd end up with a whole lot more in the end and not have to worry about a legacy mobo going south, usb2 compatability, etc.

given the real low price of the lindows pcs (senn the for <$200 on the deals boards) and the sempron/integrated mobo combos it might make more sense to spend a few bucks now

Shouldn't windows XP work on a low-end system if you:
- Disable themes
- Disable all effects
- Disable all services, other than necessary ones
- Disable system restore
- Edit SYSOC.INF to remove unnecessary applications (Ie; WINDOWS MESSENGER)
- Disable automatic update
- Disable remote assistance and remote desktop
- Disable fast user switching
- Disable error reporting
- Finally, alter page file depending on RAM
- Some other stuff I'm forgetting

I've done all this on my main computer, and it works extremely well compared to all my friends.

If you do all that you basically have (drum roll please) Windows 2000, but it'll use more memory than Windows 2000. Win2K ran just fine on 128Mb (even 96Mb). I dare you to do the same with WinXP no matter how much you turn off.