You could go to Walmart online and get a HP All in One which is a printer, scanner and copier all in one. It was priced at 29.00 when I bought mine recently. With taxes and shipping it was still only 35.00. The ink cartridges are combined in one package on the HP website for 31.99 . The package has both the black and the color ink cartridge. By themselves the cartridges are 14.99 for the black and the color is 19.99. Hope this helps.

Is this a desktop or a laptop?

Win2000 is a very fine and old reliable O/S. Unfortunately the operative word here is old. With the ending of support for Windows 98 and ME its next. The only reason it is still somewhat supported is the NT architecture and that it is the foundation of many existing commercial applications. I would be careful putting too much money into it.

As far as printers go, they are available. I did a very quick Google search and found a HP 6940 at HP.com for $99. If you do plan on purchasing a printer for Win2000 please research thoroughly and double check the unit's specifications.

DA

Well you must realise this computer will not run with the speed of a startled Gazelle, it only has a 300mhz processor compared to today's 3 ghz processors.

See if you can find either a Canon Pixma iP1600 or iP2200 (amongst others) as both have drivers for Win2K according to the boxes. BUT these have USB connections only, does your computer have USB 2.0 ports? Now both are straight printers. PC Village located in Toronto has a 2200 and they are asking $39.95 plus shipping of course. See the link below. If you decide to buy that one have them confirm that their box notes it has Win2K drivers, you do not want unpleasant surprises once they have your money. The box I have states that but it is possible they may have a slightly newer production run where the Win2K has been removed.

In a few weeks the yard sales get underway and you may well find an old scanner at one. I would not spend more than $10 for the scanner either as there will be no guaratee with it. Less if it has no CD with drivers.

Here is a link that might be useful: PC Village, Toronto

to find out everything that pc has get the free belarc tool and run it, it will give you a full report of everything including ram, how much it has how much it will take and what kind and also it will tell hard drive health
Belarc Advisor
it does work on 2000

One thing I forgot to mention. I have an old laptop with Win2000 and as Owbist mentioned it is slooooow. In fact, it is so antiquated that I only pull it out on rare occasion and hook it up to my equally antique DUN. I don't even have an anti-virus or firewall installed

Also, does this computer have functioning USB? If so, you can transport a file on a compatible thumb drive from the Win2000 system to a system with a functioning printer,

DA

Thank you for all the help.

I realized this computer was going to be slow but it was better than nothing and I could access more sites than I could ever do with Webtv which is a bonus. LOL

I did purchase an HP printer but when we tried to install it, the printer would not install. Tech at Staples said he could not understand why because the box did say Windows 2000 and he checked the computer. My friend checked the HP site and she couldn't find a printer compatible with Windows NT.

I did buy a small flash drive to use if I need it for any reason. All the USB ports are at the back of the computer. As I said I am pretty computer illiterate but learning fast.

This is a desk top computer and like you said I don't really want to put any money into it. So far I am just using the computer for the internet and haven't really used the Office side of it yet.

Ravencajun, I downloaded the Belarc Advisor. Wow, does that give you a lot of information - much of it I don't understand but I found some things I needed to know like how many memory slots there were and how much memory I have used and what free space is left. When I have time I will read through everything and what it all means. Only way to learn is if I dive right in.

Thank you again everyone.

Anne

On an older computer the USB ports, besides being on the back of the tower are probably USB1.1. Newer USB devices are made for USB2.0, but most are backwardly compatible. They just won't operate as fast as they would on USB 2.0.

It could be that the HP printer from Staples required USB 2.0 to connect and wasn't backwardly compatible. Pure speculation, but that may be the reason it wouldn't install. Wish I still had my old HP scanner; I'd be glad to give it to you, but it went to someone else long ago with the Win 98 computer. Good luck and enjoy!

I gave my old HP Printer and the HP scanner to a friend . She had a computer but no printer or scanner . She could use them for her children.

Another good site for memory issues is Crucial.com, let it scan your computer and it will tell you the max amount your computer will take and what type. Knowing this info, then you can look for the cheapest place that sells it, like maybe EBay. It might be old enough where it is fairly hard to get.