Considering Windows Vista again...

I've been using Windows 2000 for almost four years now and I'm slowly starting to become fed-up with using the OS as the primary machine, in light of the fact that Windows XP will lose all support next year.

While I found a retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate (x86 and x86-64) on eBay for under $80, I found some motherboards (16 GB and 32 GB versions) that will support it, but while some of the 16 GB motherboards are priced reasonably, they have only one IDE connector and one floppy drive while others don't have that at all.

I also found a manufacturer refurbished ASUS PSQL-EPU motherboard on eBay for $49.98 + $25 S&H and an 250 GB ATA/100 hard drive. And since it has one floppy connector, I'm considering getting a 3 1/2" floppy diskette drive too, an Intel Core 2 Quad processor and at least 8 GB DDR2 memory (for which the memory can be maxed out at 16 GB later).

The problem that I can work around is that I will need to use the USB DVD-ROM drive to install Windows Vista on this semi-new motherboard. If it is possible, I will need to migrate the Iomega ZIP drive as well as the Linksys network card and the PCMCIA to PCI card onto the new motherboard as well.

If I go ahead with this consideration, this will most likely be the last semi-new computer that will have limited legacy support, including IDE/floppy drives and PCI support.

I will need to look up at a inquiry on how much will all of this cost. I'll post my final configuration and timing regarding the fate of this 13 year old computer that is becoming increasingly not capable of handling modern technologies that it used to.

If for some reason that it can't be done, then...I will most likely have to scrap this consideration and probably continue using this computer until the motherboard dies.