At 05:49 PM 12/11/99 -0500, you wrote:
Something here concerns me - as it was Win95, your techs should have had
(or been able to come up with one fairly quickly) a Win95 boot diskette
with CD drivers.
You should be aware that Windows 95 is based on DOS - that is it is really
just a window for DOS. It has been described as (something like) a 32 bit
operating system on a 16 bit OS on an 8 bit base - I really have to find
the quote, as it is not only funny but accurate - and the last line is
about a 2 bit operating system. The point being that even though you had
minimum DOS, they should have been able to provide you with a diskette that
would boot into Windows 95 (DOS) with CD drivers - and then you only had to
run setup from there to start over - or overlay what you had. In any case,
they should have been aware that the installation or invocation of
MSCDEX.EXE would give you your CD driver to start up again. I think even
the techs at Best Buy know that one! They should also have been able to
tell you that the ZIP installation diskette contains the drivers required
to use it in DOS mode. I feel in cases like this no help may be better
than a little!
One of the great money making schemes of the ages - the Y2K scares. Not
that the real problem isn't real, but, just like most viruses, sometimes
the warning and cure are worse than the disease. The biggest problem is
that you have a bunch of hacks writing these things, and they have little
or no experience at what a true application must do these days - that is
work on all platforms, and not be destructive when run under varying
conditions (and then how to recognize the situations in order to allow the
user to back out). It's an easy way to make money, but you can get a very
bad rep as you write crappy code (although, it really hasn't affected
Microsoft negatively, has it?).
>Hi Bob,
>
>Your absolutely right. I've got a McAfee Suite that I get
>automatic dat upgrades on every week or so and engine upgrades
>every couple months or so. The 'suite' includes what looks like
>a nice "backup" utillity. I think the reason why I haven't
>bothered using it is - I don't know, it doesn't "hold my hand"
>well enough or I'm too lazy to spend a few hours with it.
>
>I had 2 of my own Win95 boot discs and an IT tech at work made a
>new one for me - NONE of them would net me more than what I call
>that "minimal Windows DOS". And from that dos I could not access
>my CD drive to try re-installing my Win95 from my original Win95
>CD. Other than verbal tips from the IT techs at work (none of
>their tips worked for me) I was on my own. So, on the 14th day I
>"wiped it clean" and started from scratch.
>
>I have to say it was a great learning experience though, and I
>learned more about the guts of Win95 and drivers and dll's and
>sys and ini files, etc. than most home users will probably ever
>learn. It's funny too that only AFTER my "crash of '99" am I
>hearing on the 'media' that "y2k" apps are causing more grief
>than apparent good. I guess if they work properly they're
>un-noticed, transparent; they only get "noticed" if they screw
>up.
>
>Anyways, all's well that ends well.
>
>Happy Holidays,
>
>Alan Guy
