My brain hurts...thanks, DarlingNikki...

@Thor - not sure how it happened, or who started it, but sorry for the thread hijacking.

Good luck!

This website here shows that support for Windows XP Pro will end on 14th April 2009.

yeah, M$ is trying to force XP out, as well as they are trying to force the hands of all hardware vendors into abandoning XP.
But not everyone listens to M$, when they can listen to the customer.

To All Who Have Enjoyed This Thread--Update
Because of your insistence (good thing) I recontacted Dell, got another rep, received emailed quotes on two machines with XP. The speed of the dual processors was slower than what I had wanted but I'm working off a single 2 Gig, M4 machine now. Quote 1 was for a 15" laptop (strange how XP wasn't possible on the first go round), Quote 2 was for a 17" laptop but it came with Vista and a caution that maybe it would not work w/AutoCAD 2000.
So progress has been made. I wish the 17" did not have the caveats as I really just want to upgrade my own little environment and not have to problem solve glitch 1, then glitch 2, etc. I just thought I could get a better tool for the job.
Finally, being a new and casual user of daniweb I didn't know that it was up to me to mark the thread as solved. I have appreciated your patience and contributions. You have proved to be a valuable resource. I'm at niwenterprises@yahoo.com should anybody have any other flashes of brilliance. I see the "Mark as Solved" directly above this reply window so I will post my thanks first just to be sure it works and then return to mark the thread as solved (by you guys) Thanks, Thor

hey, no problem. the general XP compatibility guide would be to simply go to the manufacturer's offsite, and look for XP drivers. If there are drivers for the desired model - Bob's you uncle

Dell Lattitude D520 (the one I use) XP drivers page
http://support.euro.dell.com/support...&catid=&impid=

Compaq Presario C700T XP drivers page
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...632144&lang=en

Glad we could be of help, Thor. Again, sorry about the thread hijacks, but hopefully you were able to get some useful information from it.

I'm glad you finally got someone who knew what they were talking about. I know it's frustrating when dealing with people in sales who don't know all the facts...or conveniently forget certain ones...

Take care!

shrink the volume via vista and install xp on the second shrinked partition. worked for my friend!!!