it had had 4 operating systems installed on it and it was just screwed up beyond belief. i reformated the hard drive and reinstalled windows 2000 professional on it. my next chore is to go to windows update website and download all the service pack updates that they have. tomorrow i will bring home an old version of windows office from work and then reinstall my office xp update over that. then it's just a matter of installing any programs that i want on it and maybe a little upgrading (bigger hd, add some ram) and/or installing a network card to put it on my network. this gives me three computers in the house plus my clie and palm! cool!!