>I have an old IBM laptop A20m running a Celeron 500MHz with 512 MB RAM,
>running Windows 98SE.
>
>The laptop is a hand-me-down and it is not actually registered to me in any
>way. I do have the original IBM disks.
>
>I would like to upgrade to XP.
>
>Here comes the dumb questions...
>
>Do I purchase an upgrade, or a stand alone XP full version? And what about
>which service pack#? And Home Edition or Pro?
>
>Where is the best legitimate place for making the purchase? What should I
>expect to have to pay?

That's plenty more than enough to run Win XP but only for very simple
thing like Internet browsing and typing up documents. RAM is more
important that CPU speed to running XP well in my experience. My next
door neighbors have an old 700Mhz Celeron PC that used to have 128MB
PC100 RAM with XP home and ran like a dog. I upgraded their RAM to
512MB PC133 and the difference was night and day. For them at least.
XP Home SP2 Upgrade should suffice in terms of what you would want to
invest in an old laptop like that. $109 from CDW
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/def...spx?EDC=676008

Since you do have Win98SE on there and the media, it's a much cheaper
option. SP3 will be released for XP soon and it will give the system a
little bit of a shot in the arm and last you a bit longer. A laptop
that old should have all it's devices found by XP SP2 I would think.
Or, you could always install Kubuntu Linux with Open Office. Those are
both free.

Good luck.

(I'll give this post a few hours before someone from Microsoft tell
you your should not install Linux. ha ha ha.)

- Thee Chicago Wolf