Windows 2000 realistic system requiremen

In my opinion, for Windows 2000 Professional, MS understates the memory requirement. 32/64 MB is not enough for standard office functions on Win2000. 128 MB is what seems to be right. With a good collection of applications, that yields reasonableperformance.

For hard-disk space, the 2GB Microsoft recommendation is OK, but the applications that are written for Win2000 demand more space, particularly for developers. Even things like Office XP are going to eat up a lot of that space. 10 GB will take care of things for a while.

Microsofts recommendation of merely a Pentium-based processor is insufficient. The slowest processor we use is a 650 MHz Pentium III, and that is more than sufficient for office folks. My guess on that would be that 500 MHz is a good place to start, with 750 MHz PIII's for developers.

The other standard Microsoft recommendations are OK.

BN

With 64MB there was a lot more desirable. The vendor suggested an upgrade to 128MB and we're OK with it. Office 2000 works fine with 64MB

- 128MB RAM
- 750MHz PIII or better (or equivalent: I prefer AMD Athlon) (Celeron or Duron? Not for "business" systems)
- 2GB for the O/S, but don't forget to plan for your apps and data, etc. (10GB minimum - for the price go for 20GB)
- 10/100 Mbps Ethernet (switched)
- high resolution video card and 17" or better monitor
- CD-ROM, FDD, kbd, mouse, etc.

Any less RAM and you will start to have issues with more than a couple of apps and the basic system services running.

As for the recommendations on the Ethernet and video: what sense is there in having a relatively high performance O/S with some piece of junk display, and slow network connection?

** Nice to have... **

If possible, put in 2 HDs. One about 10GB will be "C:\". The O/S and most apps can live there. The second can be at least 20GB, and is for user data. It may as well be one big "D:\" partition. If you don't have any odd requirements, format these both as NTFS. And configure generous swap files on each.This will make a real nice desktop system.

The real question is what are you going to run on the desktop?. You can always overcaptalise on the hardware. The real thin is what the user needs. If you can specify that i will be more than happy to respond.

pcs will be used in a classroom setting, used to train users on MS Office 2000 applications and training users in the use of Windows 2000 as an operating system

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