I know it's popular to slate Microsoft  But  they do make old software 
available via there downgrade program,
this means any oem can get older versions of the software. I needed to 
get VB6 for a project, all I had to do was
 buy a version of VS through an authorised reseller and buy 4 other 
items (mouse licences) and then apply for a downgrade.

Just put windows 2000 into google shopping and there are places still 
selling it.

Its not in Microsoft's or the end users interest to keep selling old 
versions of software.

Generally vista works,

just don't change the  Temp environmental variable unless you make ALL 
the changes necessary !! this did catch me out

when you install software especially old software, right click and run 
as administrator.

We've only had one piece of software that wouldn't work and that was 
understandable as it uses Real time extensions.
 That would test for vista and block the installation.

Richard

Alan B. Pearce wrote:
>> We had three Vista machines that we purchased from Dell, so we got XP
>> CDs from Dell support, and reinstalled XP on all three. Since that time,
>> we only purchase XP machines -- fortunately, Dell continues to offer
>> the choice of OS.
>>     
>
> This will only last until June or July - Microsoft will stop all XP sales 
> then, they were going to stop it last January.
>
>   
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