I've never owned a Windows machine before and hoped I never would, but it seems I don't have a choice.

I have just bought a 24 port NetComm Web Smart Managed Gigabit Switch to put in my Xserve rack. The trouble is by default this switch has an ip of 192.168.0.1 which is the same as my Netgear wireless/router attached to my cable modem. Even though 90% of the settings for the managed switch can be accessed via a web interface, to change the default ip you have to use the included management utility that came with the switch. This is a Windows based Utility. I've tried installing it under Virtual PC on another machine on my local network but the installer fails to work. It seems I'll need to buy an actual PC to manage it. This isn't too bad as I'm also looking for a rack mountable APC UPS and IP Switched PDU that come with Windows based management utilities (though these also work with Telnet). The way I see it is I have a few choices.

Choice 1 (laptop - cheapest)

What I'm thinking as far as a cheap solution is concerned, is that I should buy a cheap second hand laptop on eBay. It will need serial port for connecting to the switched PDU & UPS plus ethernet for accessing the gigabit switch. Should I get one running XP Home or Pro? I assume it should be around 1.5 GHz or better. Any opinions on extra features I should be looking for? What would be an approximate cost?

Choice 2 (desktop - middle)

Buy a Windows desktop PC on eBay (carry it down to the server room purely for initial setup of equipment, as everything can be managed remotely over the network once it is set up). Preferably I could have multiple disks on this machine and install Linux on the other disk. I could finally get to learn how to use Linux and just boot into Windows when needed to cut down the risk of viruses, trojans etc. Am I being paranoid? What would be the best type of system to run XP Pro or Home? What would be the minimum specks to look out for? I imagine I'm bound to try some PC games on this machine. Pros & cons plus ideas on expected costs appreciated.

Choice 3 (server - dearest)

I have a copy of Filemaker Server 7 Advanced that I haven't installed yet. I was going to put it on an XServe I have. Another possibility though is to buy a second hand rackmountable Windows Server to install it on. I could add this to the rack which would allow local management of switches, PDU, UPS etc plus according to reports from various lists I'm on Filemaker Server Advanced is much faster and more reliable on a Windows machine. I guess this would mean I'd need something like Windows Server 2003. How does licencing work for this? What kind of minimum specks would I need? How much should I expect to pay? The bad thing about this choice is the extra level of work learning to manage this set up.

If I went this way I could use the XServe for other things. I currently run WebStar V Server software by 4D as my main web serving software but going this way would allow me to add an Apache Server on this XServe as an extra choice. This is attractive to potential customers plus it would allow me to move some of my sites that can't use all their features properly because Webstar doesn't support them to the Apache server.

Sorry for the long & confused post. Although I know Macs inside out my knowledge of Windows is next to nothing. Common sense tells me just buy the laptop, get the equipment set up and use the money I'd save to go towards saving for another XServe at a later date. I would love to hear what others think though, especially any fresh suggestions.

Well, I won't go into as much detail as you...

I'd say get the laptop. It offers portability so you can take it to your server room, then just move it out of the way when you don't need it. If you buy on eBay then be careful - you may not end up with a legit copy of Windows XP which could cause you problems later as far as doing updates. Since you seem to know your stuff about servers and such, definitely take XP. Home is just sort of a decapitated version of Pro and in the long run you should benefit with what Pro has to offer
(plus what you need to do might not be even possible with Home).

I'd recommend any of the Acer brand lineup. They have some good packages and pricing - new and old.

-TAK

Seeing as it's not going to be used for muhc besides running maybe a single program, getting a nice small Dell Optiplex box like this (which is the PC I'm using at the moment) may not be a bad idea. XP Home and XP Pro are almost identical, Pro offering the ability to join a domain and that's about it. Copies of XP Home are easily available up on eBay too.

I don't see what's wrong with buying a $100 piece of crap desktop on eBay. Heck, if you lived in Melbourne I'd put a box together for you - I need to get rid of some PC hardware. :P

Can't borrow a PC?

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Ive decided to go for a laptop. I'll look around for one with XP Pro + seial port + ethernet + combo drive + wireless (optional). Unfortunately most with serial ports on eBay seem to be underpowered running old systems. I'm sure if I keep my eyes open over the next couple of days I'll find something a bit newer. I don't mind paying a bit more for some of these extra features.

You could also get a USB to Serial adapter for a newer machine - I had one of them once to plug an old Palm cradle into an iMac (this was before everything was USB). I don't know how they work on a PC though.

From experience selling pc's serial ports in laptops were phased out a while ago now, could be hard to find one that offers all those features.
The usb to serial adapter may work, however I got a lot of feedback from customers saying that this caused problems with the programs that use serial devices, anyways it may be worth a try, as they are pretty cheap to purchase, anywhere from 20-70 bucks. Maybe borrow a friends laptop, use the adapter, if it works go ahead and buy your choice of laptop.

Anyway good luck with that!

Shame you can't wait till next year and get an Intel Mac mini and set it up to dual-boot ...

Protip: Look around for an IBM ThinkPad. I'm fairly certain some models still have serial ports. My old T20 (750MHz) does, but my R31 (1.2GHz) doesn't. I believe the T23 line (833MHz - 1.2GHz P3-M) also sports serial ports. If the notebook doesn't have wireless, you can always pick up a cheap 802.11b/g cardbus card without much effort. Running XP Pro on an old P3 based notebook of semi-decent speed isn't all that painful, providing you've got the right amount of RAM.

If you really must have a Pentium M based notebook, then go for a T40 or higher, and get the port replicator for it.