Are the windows 2000 and XP device drivers interchangable ?

[SingSing]

When XP first released, I remember many of the windows 2000 device drivers were used before the XP drivers are availabled. Is this still true ?

I am working to down grade an XP system to 2000 due to the limit of the disk drive(a funky solid state // disk with only 384MB). I know XP won't fit, will windows 2000 fit ? The PC does not have any win2k driver on vender site, so what is the chance that the install win2k can work with the XP drivers ?

[redwudz]

They seem to be interchanable most times. Some may be looking for XP or XP SP2 and that could be a problem.

From what I've seen on the MS site, XP Home needs 1.5GB minimum free space and W2000 needs 650MB, so you may have a problem there.

You might consider Windows CE as it can run in much smaller spaces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE

Or one of the Windows Mobile OSs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile

Or Windows XP Embeded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Embedded

But I know nothing about the availability of those.

[aedipuss]

you might consider running one of the linux distros that will run off the cd with very little installed on the hard drive. knoppix comes to mind.