OS for Thinkpad 600E PII400

[Martin]

Anyone care to comment on a suitable version of Windows for a Thinkpad 600E?
It's a Pentium II 400MHz model with 163MBs(!) of RAM and a 4.3GB hard drive.
(Not sure of it's exact spec as i'm expecting it's delivery later today.)

Should i stick to a Win9x OS, and use my copy of WinME?

Would XP (or Win2K Prof) be usable on this machine?
I'd have only essential services running and then use XPLite to strip the OS
of loads of surplus extras.
I'm hoping to add both PCMIA wifi and a GPRS modem at a later date and a
larger hard drive is a definate upgrade.
I'll be wanting to network it with my main PC too which runs WinXP Pro SP2.

I'll be using the 600E for various tasks - a bit of programming with Delphi
(that'll eat up nearly 300MBs of disc space), watch some VCDs too hopefully
and web browsing and email.
Nothing too intensive.

Thanks.

Martin.

 

[Mike Walsh]

I have not used WinMe, but it is reputed to be the worst OS Microsoft has ever released. Better to use Win98SE. WinXP works well (compared to most OSs) but is extremely bloated. It requires at least 256 MB RAM to run acceptably. Win2k should work OK.

 

[Martin]

WinSE is one OS i don't own a copy of.

I'm experimenting with VMWare and created a virtual XP pc - just the clean
install of the OS.
Ran XPLite on it last night and stripped masses of unwanted stuff from the
(now) optional components.
Left it just as i'd be wanting it on the 600E.
The streamlined OS now takes 1.21GBs of disc space - and that's with a
system managed pagefile that's currently 233MBs in size.
My 600E will have a hard drive of just 4.3GBs i beleive so i'd like to
further reduce the size of the XP OS - but maybe it's not really necessary.
I expect to get a larger hard drive in it pretty soon.
I've allocated the virtual XP pc a maximum of 156MBs of RAM (allocated from
the real pc's memory).
VMWare is running on my pc - a Duron 1800 with 512MB PC133 RAM - and the
virtual pc runs very smoothly.
Looking at Task Manager it looks like memory and pagefile are more than
adequate for what i'll be using my 600E to do.
So i think i'm going to try XP with SP2 slipstreamed to begin with.

If XP crawls then i'll try Windows 2000 Professional.
But i anticipate a problem with both the 600E's tv-out and VGA out. I read
that the 600E configures these additional output as multiple monitors.
Win9x and WinXP both handle multiple monitors well - but i ditched W2K ages
ago because of it's lousy multiple monitor support.

I'm eagerly tracking my 600E order online - it was on the delivery van at
7:42am today!
Will keep the thread updated.

Martin.

 

[Mike Walsh]

I don't know anything about XPLite, but it sounds like a good idea.

 

[Martin]

XPLite is a utility from http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html which allows you
to trim your OS and remove stuff that you know you'll never need or use.

It disables the Windows File Protection, then a lot of the OS becomes
available as optional components which you can add or remove just like with
the standard Windows Add/Remove Components wizard.

Once you happy with any changes that you've made then Windows File
Protection is reactivated and that's it!
A streamlined Windows customised just for (and by) you.

Martin.

 

[Martin]

Will keep the thread updated.

Well my Thinkpad arrived - i'm very impressed with
http://itdealers.co.uk/catalog/ (plug plug!) excellent service and one day
delivery too.

It took me over an hour to just change the BIOS setting to boot from CD!
I sussed it out eventually.
Then it was plain sailing, it took a while to install XP from the CDROM (i
like to have the XP i386 folder copied to hard drive for a nice quick
install).
It's working very well with XP customised by XPLite it's got enough power to
do what i want it to do.

Martin.