This weekend I tasked myself with installing Windows on my laptop. The screen is busted (dead CFL bulb, most probably) but I have someone who is interested in buying it from me on condition that we can fix it. The internal CD drive is dead, but I was able to hack together a USB CD-ROM. I had an XP Home CD and a valid code for XP Home on the bottom of my laptop. I figured it wouldn't take long to load Windows, patch the system and install the drivers. I could hand it off to my buyer who would then see if it could be repaired.
So I boot the Windows XP CD and wait...wait...wait...After some time it complains I have a virus. Huh? I wiped the drive with DBAN! How could any virus survive that?! I boot to FreeDOS, tinker with the partition table, make sure that it looks good and try again. Reboot...wait...wait...wait. You have a virus! WTF? I keep trying different things but the end result is the same. You have a virus! *Sigh* There is an error code, so I search for it and find a Microsoft knowledge base article that explains the error. One of the reasons for this virus message? Because I booted the installation media on a USB drive and the CD does not load a USB driver. You couldn't tell me that? Why couldn't you just load a USB driver?! Grr... Fortunately my sister has the same laptop as me. So, I borrowed her working CD drive and installed it in mine. This time the Windows XP installation disk loaded fine. I start the installation and format the 80G drive with NTFS. And it formats. And formats. And formats. WTF? Why does it takes over an hour to format a friggen hard drive?!?!?! Anyway, the OS finally loads and I reboot and Windows loads. I try to log in and it tells me I have to register it first. Okay. Let's register over the Internet. Sorry, that didn't work. Hrmmm...maybe it didn't set up my Internet connection. I replug the network cable into the router and reboot. Still have to register, it still doesn't see the Internet. I try other things, rinse and repeat. How am I supposed to register over the Internet if it won't let me set up the Internet connection?! I finally click on the button that takes me through the process of calling a real human and I notice that the key I entered is not there. Hrmm...I click a button to re-enter it. Type...type...type. Invalid key. Huh? Check...check...check. Invalid key. WTF? I check the key several times and I typed it in correctly. It dawns on me, the key on the bottom of my laptop is a "Gateway Windows XP Home" key and I am trying to install "Microsoft Windows XP Home". Really? Really? You have to make such a friggen distinction?!?! *Sigh* So Windows is still not working and even though I have a valid license key I may have to resort to piracy in order to get this stupid thing activated. Why?!?!?! Two weekends ago I got my new laptop. I inserted a CD into the drive and rebooted. Ubuntu 8.10 loaded and while I browsed the Internet it installed itself on my computer. Thirty minutes later, I rebooted and I had a fully-functional system. No whining, no complaining, it just installed. It just worked. It didn't complain about viruses, it didn't asking for validation. It. Just. Worked. Chris _______________________________________________ mlug mailing list [email protected] https://listes.koumbit.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlug-listserv.mlug.ca
