i accidentally posted this in the windows me section, meant to post it here. so, here's the question!

i came across an old dell LS laptop, and i want to revive it for my own use. i'll play snes games, gameboy games, check news, email, chat on msn, and watch youtube videos.

here's the specs:
pentium III 400mhz
256mb SD RAM
12GB Hard Drive.

what i want to know is: which version of windows should i put on it so i get good speed (boots fast, operates well), and does what i want it to do well (i'm pretty sure it'll run snes games and stuff fine, but i'm worried about youtube videos). would it run youtube videos well (not fullscreen), and which windows should i put on it so that it'll do what i want the best? thanks!

Right you are if you think you are

i run xp on my laptop. one can tweak xp to run faster by going to system icon, advanced, open the first settings and optimize for best performance.
the videos should play okay, however , video ram will be important.
if its only 4 meg, ouch!

I agree with mountain, I would use xp, but your system my play dvd or youtube very bad. because of video ram and sound card.
I had the problem with sound been very bad on older laptops. But try as you may...

hmm. what about windows 2000 or (dare i say, lol) me? i think me would run great, and when configured right, me is a great os!

and actually, i don't need it to run dvds, i got a dvd player for my tv! lol.

but 2000 and me require less resources, so it should run better, no?

Right you are if you think you are

W2K or Windows 98SE would be a better choice for a PC with only 256MB RAM & a 12GB HD.

i_Xp/VistaUser

You have a Pentium II not a pIII if it is running at 400 and no sse instructions so I would keep away from win xp and win me(buggy). The pentium II mobile only uses a 66 fsb (Although the level 2 cache runs at full speed) which will further handicap your xp performance.

Windows 2000 all the way, its just a non shiny version of XP thats all. That laptop should be fine. I have a 400MHz Celeron with 256MB RAM running xp and its not too bad for general stuff, so your laptop should be great running Windows 2000

Mattwizz3 :
My Take of the super P3:

P3 Tualatin @ 1.58GHz
SL-65DVB Motherboard
640Mb PC133 @ 150MHz
Sparkle 6600

well, i bit the bullet, and decided to get a much better laptop. the ibm T41, a little more pricey, but way faster, and it'll handle youtube just fine :)

Do not try. Do, or do not. There is no try.

better yet! i decided to get a compaq NC6000. a little cheaper, way better graphics, and it'll run OSX86 perfectly! :]

Do not try. Do, or do not. There is no try.

Windows 2000. If you use win98, you ought to use a browser other than ie, maybe seamonkey or another stripped-down mozilla browser.

Puppy linux, or Damn Small Linux will work much better, but you'll have to go through some work to get the nintendo stuff working. You won't have to sit through three hours of updates or install drivers, and you'll be able to do modern stuff, like use flash drives (near impossible on 98). No need for virus scanners with Linux.

Puppy linux is easier than easy. Damn small is harder to use, but there are nes snes and gameboy programs available for damn small that can be installed easily.