various response
> I need a Windows 2000 SP5.
You're not alone on this. I recently replaced XP on my laptop with Windows 2000 just for kicks. It's really more responsive than when it was running XP and I ended up deciding to permanently use it for the lappy. I hate to think of what will happen if I should plop Vista on that machine.
> come reinstall time, guess what you'll have to install?
Well, I already run Debian, and I don't want Ubuntu due to it's feeble nature of lacking a root account, so I'll probably try Knoppmyth on my Media Center and Mandrake on my gaming rig. My old laptop will either stick to Win2K (for those just-in-case conditions that may arise) or run OpenBSD. Win2K couldn't be that bad. I even still run Mac OS 9 on my PowerMac instead of plopping a PPC Linux or BSD distro on it.
Too bad I'll probably end up with a printer I can't use and a useless PhysX card (Where's the Linux driver Ageia promised years ago?!?).