Hi, Dave-
I've found it a bear to work with Windows 2000 Pro. We occasionally get it on donated computers that we pass on to our guests, and it's just too much of a hassle to work with an operating system that nobody supports anymore. I've kept one for using legacy software. What I've done with others is installed Ubuntu on old computers that have enough RAM. Minimum requirements say you must have at least 32MB of memory and 500MB of hard disk space to perform a normal installation - but they recommend 512 megabytes of RAM and 5 gigabytes of hard drive space. I'd stick with that recommendation as a minimum. Computers with less get sluggish.
Open Office comes with Ubuntu. It works more-or-less like Office 2003.

I see there's a Netbook edition of Ubuntu. I wonder if I can use that to revive old laptops for Internet use. I've been using the Desktop edition, but that's too much for some old laptops.

-Joe-