VPC will run quite happily in Home (XP or Vista) - but the networking (and
some other) capabilities are restricted to those of the host OS, so running
(say) XP Pro in a VPC on XP Home, you're still limited to the networking
capabilities of Home, rather than Pro. MS only says that it's 'Unsupported',
not impossible

Bulging capacitors? - bad news!. I've never tried replacing them (and don't
intend to start now), as although I have the equipment, my skills are so old
that I'd be sure to mess up the first few attempts at it! g - I usually
advise clients to get a new mobo, but they are becoming harder and harder to
find, so the economics of new/repair are changing, and I suspect that soon
someone is going to be stupid enough to insist that I attempt the repair!
g
I've never liked buying second-hand boards (or machines for that matter) -
you can never tell the history - unless I've known the machine for a while,
or know the owner well enough to trust what he says.

--
Noel Paton
CrashFixPC

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
www.crashfixpc.co.uk
"Mart" wrote in message
...
Yes Noel, I seem to recall that last time I installed WinMe (perhaps a
year or so back), I chose NOT to install IE6 first and 290700 was
certainly a front runner - if not the leader - in the download order.

I've never done VPC before as I've only ever had XP Home. Now I've
(nearly) got XP Pro up-and-running to my satisfaction, I'll probably dip
my toes in the water. Just a little concerned about one or two capacitors
on the 1.7GHz mobo, though 8^¬ Hmm...

Mart


"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Interesting, Mart - IIRC, every time I've been to WU for updates in ME,
it's always insisted on installing 290700 first - then IE6 (but maybe
that's because I usually delay IE6 for various reasons, and I may have
missed the fact that it came down first the few times I might have
installed it direct from WU - or I might have assumed that I'd already
installed 290700).
Hmmmm - clean ME VPC... (accepts ActiveX download) - gets Administrators
only warning??? - refresh gets to the right page...
review gets 24 up-dates, and IE is top of the list...... click on
'Install Now', and up pops a warning that IE6 must be installed
first!.... cancel out, and remove IE6 from the list.... click Install....
and 290700 has to be installed before anything else!! (unless you
'Remove' it)


--
Noel Paton
CrashFixPC

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
www.crashfixpc.co.uk

snipped for brevity