If you do any networking you'll want Pro. It is really just W2K with eye candy desktops and driver updates. The activation is no big thing and since it is a laptop, you won't be changing any hardware which would confuse it. If you like W2K just change the view setting to "Classic Mode" and thing should look pretty much the same.

I don't use it myself but have clients that do.

Ich bin ein New Yorker