Re:

[Joanie]

Thank You Bear for that report. Both you and the Kitty Kat will be saving many of us less aggressive computer geeks a lot of heartache and down time.



Sorry you had to go through the headaches with the installation. I hope the end result will be worth your efforts.



RahRah



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[scuzzy]

Bear,



I'm sorry to hear of your troubles with XP. But, I'm glad it happened to you instead of to me. Okay, not really. Actually, I would have preferred the problem had happened to me, as it would have made me smarter in the end. Well, no, not actually in the "end" so to speak, but you know what I mean. Now, I have to envy you for being smarter than me when it comes to installing XP.



You know, I would have reformatted everything several times over. Oh wait, you did that. Several times, even. Huh. Okay, forget I said that. Oh, and congratulations for being smart enough to know how to reset the boot sequence for the floppy, hard drive, and cd-rom. Good thinking on your part.



Actually, I enjoy being terrorized by my computer. Simply because I always win in the end. Well, not exactly in the "end", but you know what I mean. Don't you?



If you keep having problems with it, just send it to me. I'll fix it. Heh.



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Alex Garcia

[n/a]

Thanks, RahRah, hopefully my experience will help others decide to be more careful.



Scuzzy, I would have to say that the end is about the only place I feel smarter, or that smarts, or maybe both. And after reading about your hardware exploits I think I'll postpone my computer manufacturing business.



I wasn't smart enough to know how to do any of that stuff. That was the short version. It was strictly trial and error. I left out all the stuff that made me look TOO stupid. And I had the advantage of reading replies from Query and others here answering questions I didn't even understand at the time. Well, I still don't completely.



As Ace might say, I might not be hopeless but I'm still trying.



By the way, I'm networking again and even sharing an online connection. I think. We'll see if this poasts.                                                                                                                  











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[BlueIce]

Wow That is some icky doo Bear



First off let me say you are soooo right

The XPeriances I have had with XP have been Educational

My first load was RC2 2535 went in no problems outside of not seeing my modem

and taking over my 2000 partition wiping out my favorites and email and address book



Second load on my old Q a clean drive install with the final release has went no problems all drivers and software installed after the fact has went great.

Now I have run into nightmares on systems at the Office wouldnt boot off the cd wouldnt let me blow the partition and the so called easier networking wizard yeah right fun fun



Last night I was helping a friend his cd wouldnt let him boot to it , Kinda

I saw that I could do a recover wich then let me in to blow the partition and run setup it was a yucky doo



I got the Plus! package for XP Kinda neat adds Some nice options not just Themes but it seems like alot of money for the Plus! but the 95 and 98 Plus! packages were pricey too



In closing I went to the big XP Luanch in Detriot on the 25th WOW

didnt learn anything that i didnt already know but it was Xciting



I have learned alot about XP since the RC2 if i can help with any issues like

networking or otherwise let me know i will give it my best, and if i cant help Bear has been educated as well



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[Bubba]

What is this XP ???? Is that geared more for business 'puters than home use ?



A friend asked me this morning to help him buy a new Dell, he is giving his 3 year old Quantex to his daughter for college use. He and his wife are not really into all the toys,, they just want a basic, durable 'puter



I am thinking,

Pent-4 1.6 gig  

128 ram

17 inch monitor

20 g HD

16MB Rage video

3-Com 56K Modem

40x cd rom

Harmon K Speakers HK695 [ with woofer ]

Norton 2002

3 year onsight war.

WinMe [is there a reason to go to XP ? ]

$1158



That to me looks like a "nice" medium powered home pc, any suggestions ???





Oh, forgot to mention, this guy is pretty "cheap" he may even growl at $1158,,,



Visit:

http://members3.boardhost.com/Bubba/


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Bubba

[scuzzy]

Bubba,



The 3 year on site war is interesting. I'm not sure I'd want that at any price. Heck, talk to Osama bin Laden and get his thoughts on that, since the war is likely to go on *at least* 3 years, although probably much longer.



Aside from that, I'm stuck on AMD. I'm not certain I'll ever depart from another "George Washington" bill for an Intel based machine. Not unless it's an extremely good deal (which isn't likely if it says "Intel Inside").



Oh, machines that are designed with XP in mind should work just fine, and I believe they are a better buy than Windows Me. The only problem is that maybe that old printer (scanner, etc.) won't be compatible with XP. The same can be said for software, such as Norton 2001 (100% worthless with XP).



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Alex Garcia

[n/a]

For non-techy family use, that sounds like a good deal to me, Bubba.



There are advantages to an AMD processor, price being one, but there are still plenty of reasons to go with Dell, Intel and a three-year onsite warranty. You know your friends better than we do, and from what you say they want a tool, not an adventure in learning. I think you're on the right track, and that Dell is still the best choice in such a case.



Now, as for XP, if it comes pre-loaded and is covered under the warranty, they may want to go for it. ME is\was a stop-gap OS, while XP will probably be around a while. That's my opinion, but from what I've seen XP is a step in the right direction. How big a step is the question.



Talk it over with your friends and explain it this way: if they do go with XP, they should connect any older peripherals like printers and scanners, then IMMEDIATELY go to Windows Update, where the drivers for older devices will probably be found and listed for download. If XP or Windows Update can't find a driver, the best bet is to disconnect the hardware and upgrade to a version that's XP compatible. They may also have to upgrade older software they're planning to use. If your friends aren't willing to do that, then go with ME.



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[Bubba]

Thanks Scuzzy and Bear,,,,,



Yes Bear,,, he is not a guru with pc's, and perhaps the WinMe would be a little more user friendly,, the Dell I put together for him "does" have an XP FREE upgrade,, that could be a nightmare,,, I am sure we could specify XP from the "git-go",,, but since he is not a computer-holic,, WinMe would be my suggestion,,,,,, and then if he goes to WalMart and gets a 40$ printer,,, I don't want him to call me to get it configured,,,,,,





Visit:

http://members3.boardhost.com/Bubba/


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Bubba

[Chandler]

I don't know whether this happens in the final builds, but in Windows XP Professional RC1 and RC2, if you tried to set it up for dual boot (from MS-DOS) by installing and then choosing where to install it, it doesn't create an entry for the previous version of Windows (in my case 98SE)



The same occured with upgrading a Windows 98SE/Windows 2000 Pro dual-boot, when the 2000 was upgraded to XP RC2.



It's a good job I knew how to edit the boot.ini file.



I don't think I'm going to upgrade since it's a lot of money.  If I didn't dual-boot 98 with 2000 then I probably would upgrade, but I've already got the best of both worlds.



Anyway, good luck to anyone who does upgrade.





Chandler Bing

[n/a]

Well, after a month of that sort of stuff -- a couple of dozen re-installs trying everything but a bench grinder -- I think I found the problem.



The machine came with a 64 meg stick of generic PC133 SDRAM, and I added 256 meg from Crucial of the same type but better quality, I'm sure. I thought that even though the original stick was probably slightly slower RAM (in terms of clock cycles, I'm assuming -- I don't know the specs), the worst that would happen would be that the new RAM would default to that lower speed. Wrong. Though I did have a few minor problems in 98, I blamed it on trying to network with 98. The RAM never showed up as incompatible or defective on any diagnostic. But now I'm thinking it was probably incompatible RAM causing instability then too.



Anyway, today I did a another clean install, this time without the 64 meg RAM. Thanks, Chandler and Tovi, for jogging me with your poasts on incompatible RAM in another thread.



So far the difference is substantial. This install of XP just feels solid, and for the last few hours after installing it there's not been a single error. A game CD that never worked for me in XP is working now. Installing the extra hardware and drivers went slick as doggy slobber, first try all down the line. Opera hasn't crashed once (by the way, Opera 6.0 is excellent. More on that later), and networking, both setup and execution, is so far flawless.  Thumbs up.



And WHEW!!!



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[pat]

That is some good news.

?All?s well that ends better? I like to say.

I?ll pop the top of a cold one later today and help you celebrate.