Hi - I notice some of you managed to run W2003 server on a Dell Inspiron. I have just failed miserably to install it on a Dell D800 Latitude with Internal Ethernet/modem. The OS doesnt recognise these by plug and play - Were you successful immediately or did you need to load drivers or install new networking hardware ? Many thanks.

See Wilko's message above

I have installed w2k3 enterprise server on Acer Aspire 1353xc. it has Mobile AMD Athlon XP 2400+. works fine when it works but i keep on getting BSODs with 0x0000008e (0xc0000005, 0xbf8f3bf9, 0xf9938c3c, 0x00000000). i could not find display and other drivers for 2k3 and hence i installed the xp ones. i am thinking of reverting to xp. please help.

geeze,,, what part of SERVER do you not understand? ms makes win2k03 SERVER for SERVERS not laptops, hence you cannot find drivers for the hardware. some people can find something that works, but they got lucky, or used subsitute drivers that may work most of the time. win2k03 SERVER is not a plug and play OS which is why it don't "see" the hardware. win2k03 SERVER software is not a gussyed up version of XP, it is tuned specfically for SERVER work. use the tool for what it is made to do and you won't have as many troubles.

oh... and i thought server is a mere logical connotation and does not need to be a big gray box. what which serves is a server, i assumed in my naivete! anyways, i believe somebody out there got similar problem and found a way to solve it. waiting...

you could download every possible vga driver on the planet and try them one at a time, until you luck up with one that will work, hope you have a few decades of time to waste doing it. ms does not make server software to work with every possible hardware so they could make it do what it is designed to do better. they know that a laptop video card is not going to be in a server, so they don't make it compatible with it. what would be the point? a laptop file server? a laptop database server? a laptop print server? if your just screwing around trying to break it or just bored, fine, have fun. but don't complain that the os don't work when your not even using it for what it was designed.

Well i work for a major company and we use laptops as demo servers to take to customers several times a month. what was particularly interesting was the demo including a microsoft programmer, when we mentioned the problems we were told that win2003 is perfectly capabable of working on laptops, just not optimised for laptops. The definition of a server is not a big chunky machine with set hardware, its more like "A computer on a <nobr><a class="iAs" style="border-bottom:darkgreen 1px solid;text-decoration:underline;color:darkgreen;background-color:transparent;" href="http://itxt.vibrantmedia.com/al.asp?ipid=7&cc=uk&cf=1&ai=15318628&di=166231&ts=20040123074950" target="_blank" oncontextmenu="return false;" onmouseover="kwE(event,166231);" onmouseout="kwL(event);" onmousemove="kwM(166231);">network</nobr> that is dedicated to a particular purpose and which stores all information and performs the critical functions for that purpose. For example, a Web server would store all files related to a Web site and perform all work necessary for hosting the Web site" I think that if you cant help the poor guy find his drivers dont even both posting, especially when you have such an ill conceived view of what a server is.