Cisco Switching/Routing :: 2950 VLAN Database VTP Management

spam up the boards with the same basic CCNA level stuff, but I have a couple of questions about ios differences, limitations, and references. I have the following three switches. One appears to be considerably dated in regard to software version. My confusion/ignorance stems from managing VTP settings.
 
2924XL     12.0 5 WC8
2950          12.1 22 EA6
2950          12.1 22 EA6
 
When I set either 2950 switch as the VTP server, and the other as a client, the client inherits the server settings as expected. However the 2924 requires that I go into the vlan database from priv exec and manually set vtp client. That's pretty similar to setting any switch to client mode. The problem I am observing is that after setting the 2924 to client, it still doesn't inherit vtp version settings or pruning settings. I still have to manually configure those. Additionally, if I copy run start the 2924 after making these manual settings, and then reload the switch, all the settings are lost and it defaults back to server mode with all features disabled. From my searches, it looks like vlan information is stored in vlan.dat, but all the documentation I've found is on 12.1 ios which doesn't appear to use vlan database for vtp setup, meaning it might still be an issue, but not one I'm focused on at the moment.
 
Is the vlan database dumped at reload? I've read vlan.dat is stored in nvram and should be saved after a copy run start, but that is not the case for me.I have since set the 2924 as the server, manually configured the server from vlan database, executed copy run start, and reloaded the switch. Oddly, my manual settings saved from the reload, meaning I only lose settings when the switch is in client mode.Am I missing additional necessary client commands to save the config, or is this just a limitation of either the 2924XL or the 12.0 ios?On a related but completed out of scope topic, without a cisco service contract, how am I supposed to make heads or tails of all the different versions of ios, along with the letter-based features and what-not? I can't even find my 2924 in the list of platforms when searching for ios upgrades.