Where's XP?

[Vallan]

I've been looking for a new laptop for my daughter. She doesn't want Vista, and I can't say I blame her. I thought the XP pro laptops would be cheap now, since everything in the stores is Vista, but I've found I can only order them online and they're up around $1,000 with a dual core chip.
Best Buy says they are still making them for business, but my daughter is nervous that they are just winding down their stock. Does anyone know if they've stopped making them?
We've seen sales where a small, light notebook with Core2Duo, 1GB RAM and Vista is $599. (She asked if we could just buy a basic one and reformat the drive and put XP on it, but I'm nervous as I wouldn't have the MB or hardware drivers.) Anyone have any suggestions how/where to get a decent, light XP notebook? I know the world is moving on to Vista, but we're not ready to move with it! Thanks!

[Budfred]

XP would probably have the drivers you need and you can get them online if they don't, so a reformat and fresh install would probably be your best bet... You might also be able to do a dual boot, leaving the Vista in place and adding XP... I doubt you will have much luck finding an XP install cheap now, the window for that was a week or two before Vista came out...

[jlreich]

If the notebook is Intel based you can get the chipset drivers for XP directly from Intel. Find out what chipset it uses and double check on Intel's website before you buy just to make sure. Other chipset manufacturers should have drivers for XP as well.

I recommend backing up the entire system before you wipe, just in case you decide you want Vista later on.

I have a regular customer that bought a new Dell desktop through her company for $500. She hated vista so much after one day she wanted to send it back. When they called Dell and told them they didn't want it Dell said "well, how about we just give it to you for $300?". I guess for that price the company decided to keep it for an extra machine in the office or something.

[Vallan]

Thanks for the advice! ;)