Hello, I have got this IBM thinkpad R30 and i just got rid of xp professional because the thinkpad was not powerful enough to run xp. my main question is that will windows 2000 be suited to a computer like mine and would an external cd rw drive function alright with it. I bought a usb 2.0 pcmcia card for it. please give me advice. regards, andrew.

look at windows hardware requirements on the microsoft side

Depending on which model R30 you have, Win2000 probably came installed with it so it should work fine. Also, depending on model, it should have came with a DVD/CDRW combo drive. If not, the PCMCIA should work fine as well.

Your CPU is more than adequate, inadequate RAM is what would make it sluggish. WinXP system requirements: • Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended) • At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended) • At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk Win2K system requirements: • 133 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU. • At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM; more memory generally improves responsiveness. • 2 GB with 650 MB free space. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5BLN%5D;304297 ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

Before I even saw jams post i was gonna write the same thing, that PC (with enough RAM will not only run 2K Pro very well) but will run XP fine as well barring a hardware problem or just a poorly configured PC