Second life for a Compaq Armada m700, part 2
by Volker Weber
[Continued from part 1]
Put the Windows CD in and reboot, Go through the first screens and let it remove the Linux partitions. Reformating the HD with NFTS actually takes about as much time as the full Linux install. But I am going to sit through it.
It took about an hour to get Windows 2000 up and running. Then another 30 minutes to install SP4 and all of the updates I have on a CD provided by Microsoft at CeBIT. The biggest issue I ran into was the 25 digit code you have to enter during installation. The machine has a sticker underneath that clearly states that there is a license for Windows 2000 Professional attached to the machine. The serial is however useless, because you can only use it with the "restore" CD provided by Compaq which of course has been lost. So I needed to "recycle" a different code. MS, stop screwing your paying customers with this b/s.
Got Windows drivers for the Netgear MA401 card from the web and installed that. Add the MAC address to my filter list so I can access my wireless router. Run Windows update again.
Next on the install list are iTunes and Quicktime so the owners can enjoy stuff from my website. Mozilla for mail and web browsing. That should save a lot of headaches caused my mail worms. Final installation task was OpenOffice so nobody has to "borrow" Microsoft Office.
Mission completed. One Compaq Armada revived with Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4, OpenOffice, Mozilla, iTunes and Quicktime. Installation time: 3 hours 30 minutes. That is 3 hours more than the Linux installation took.
Comments
.....ich fasse es nicht.... :-)))
We shoot problems. ;-)
One question by the curious remains: Any idea why the initial Windows install failed?
Malicious installation CD (you didn't mention whether you were using the same installation CD as in the original failing attempt), problems with the FS (after reformatting with Linux, maybe already switching to NTFS could have done the job, you didn't mention whether the previous was with NTFS or not)...
Or is it simply that you have the legendary green thumb (applied to anything that runs with bits & bytes)? ;-)
Enjoy the remainder of this lovely Sunday,
If this would have been a) a scientific experiment and b) a disk with valuable data, I would have first secured the disk to an image. In this case I only wanted to get a working machine off the ground. So I did not even bother to look at the disk. I could not catch the blue screen, so I went full speed ahead with the Linux install instead. There is no faster way to get a box running with all applications installed and ready to fly. Once I knew that worked I went back to the start and did the same with Windows. Takes longer but in the end I had a fully licensed machine like I would have had with Linux. Happy campers everywhere.
Einem Freund beim Installieren von 2000 zu helfen ist unendlich langweilig, darüber zu berichten noch mehr.
Nicht gerade ein gutes Posting auf einer Seite, die will, dass sie für "Weber" Google-Platz 1 ist.
Schlechten Tag gehabt, Sebastian? :-)
Es gibt schon mal Beiträge auf dieser Webseite, die sind für drei, vier Leute interessant, und für andere gar nicht. Das war vielleicht so einer.
Ich fand die Geschichte gar nicht so unspannend. Ganz im Gegenteil. Ich liebe es, ohne Einsatz von Geld aus einem völlig unnützen Stück Sondermüll wieder ein nützliches Gerät zu machen. Insbesondere, wenn es für den Besitzer schwierig ist, das "mal eben so" zu ersetzen. Kann schon sein, dass das für Dich langweilig ist.
Und deshalb freue ich mich auch über Deinen ersten Kommentar auf dieser Webseite. Bisher warst Du ja anscheinend ganz zufrieden.
Ich bin tatsächlich verwundert, dass Dir (Volker) das überhaupt einen Kommentar wert ist. Für mich sieht das eben auch so aus als hätte Sebastian heute einen schlechten Tag gehabt und ein Ventil gesucht, um seinen dicken Hals zu entlüften :-) Oder er wollte mal Leben in seinen tristen Alltag bringen und ein wenig trollen - so quasi zum Schnuppern wie das so ist, bevor er weiterzieht zu Heise.
Schon der nicht vorhandene kontextuelle wie logische Zusammenhang zwischen "Windows 2000 installieren" und dem Google-Spielchen zeigt doch, dass da irgendwo Probleme mit der Schallbremse zwischen den Ohren vorliegen müssen.
Mach Du ruhig weiter wie Du denkst. Ich packe inzwischen einen Rechner ein, auf dem sich Linux ganz problemlos installieren lässt und Windows 2000 mit einem Bluescreen abraucht. Also nicht wundern, wenn demnächst ein etwas größeres Paket bei Dir aufschlägt ;-)
Have to agree with Sebastian. The Windows installation issues are nothing new. The MS OEM licensing is outrageous. I had the same issues with my Thinkpad Windows 2000 reinstallation. I even "lost" the DVD Player (decoding) software, IBM simply didn't include this (Non-MS-)software on the Thinkpad CD. No way to get it back. My installation is now more than 2 years old and I get increasingly problems, the Tpad has become very slow and USB has become unusable. Even the famous blue screen of death reappeared several times. Now because of the USB issues I am thinking of XP, although otherwise I hate that OS and specifically the useless, confusing and erratic wizards. Those who understand the purpose and the usefulness of the network bridge, raise your hands.
The really interesting questions are:
1. What would the industry & especially MS do if there weren't armies of "specialists" helping out "normal" people?
2. Because of endless largely unpaid hours spent to fix the bloody OS and the apps which go with it, the expertise of those people ("us") is improving every time and new jobs are queueing up.
It's as if IT industry largely exists because the systems are flawed. And to continue to earn money this industry ("we"?) has no real interest in breaking this vicious circle. It is quite unique to have such a parasite industry, repairing things which predictably will break again soon after, because really, it'll be a temporary fix anyway.
I am probably not alone in trying to find excuses to avoid spending endless hours installing windows or helping out to solve Windows issues.
I also gave up supporting people using Word for dissertations, thesis and the likes.
"If Word crashes on you and all your work is lost, tough luck, I told you not to use it."
"If you are still using Outlook despite my advice, I am not helping out trying to get rid of viruses and repair the damage they have caused."
"You are moaning that your old Excel macros don't work with the new versions, well, you were the one who wanted to stick with Excel, because the macros wouldn't run in OpenOffice."
An anecdote about how I remember the first time I realised that I am MS-messed-up:
Working with a Macintosh in 1992 I tried to figure out how to get the floppy to work (where is bloody "A:"?)... Until I just inserted it and the window with the floppy data opened with a slurp sound. Then I spent a long time looking for the eject button on the machine...
Moritz, I don't see where you agree. But I see that I disagree with you somewhat. I don't think that Windows 2000 is technically broken. The OEM licensing definitely IS broken. But I have ways to fix that.
Re-reading my comment, I admit that my text contradicts my opening line regarding Stefan ;)
Though I maintain that Windows is flawed, think of dll-hell and the registry handling. For large corporations there are ways to avoid those issues with expensive (but clever) software such as Softricity. A normal Windows PC installation is aging and therefore needs an annoying and time-consuming fresh install after a certain time.
[I posted a similar response a few hours ago, forgot to include name and email, got the page reminding me of the missing entries and once I did that, I guess the comment went off to somewhere in Nirvana ;)]
Hey Sebastian, Du bist bestimmt beliebt und hast 'ne Menge Freunde. Nicht Bekannte, sondern Freunde.
Dschieses!
