What a week...
On Wednesday night, I tried to boot my comp, but windows wouldn't boot. (I was using win98 then.) I figured that that was an opportune time to reload windows. Unfortunately, my Compaq restore Cds wouldn't work. I spent the next few minutes verbally cursing compaq all the way to hell for not giving me a decent copy of windows instead of unloading these half-a**ed rescue Cds on me.
Giben the situation and the options I had, I opted for a clean install. (I actually preferred this, for anyone who owns a compaq will know, you have to remove all the crap that the rescue Cd loads onto your comp along with windows unless you want to be harrassed by demo programs and ads.) It's much more gratifying to boot and see a virgin windows install instead of a crapware-infested mess.
I formatted, and tried to install Windows 98. It creashed about 5% into the install. Formatted. Tried again. Same thing happened again.
I then remembered that I had an old windows 95 iso stashed somewhere that had worked before. I looked until I found it, and I installed windows 95. It worked great, but wouldn't boot. I then had the idea of installing the Windows 98 upgrade on top of that.
(my reasoning was that since the win95 files were on the HD already, win98 setup would work.) Windows 98 upgrade setup completed successfully, it was about sodding time that something worked right.![[http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif]](http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif "http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif")
. I then rebooted.
I had a strange situation. I still had the windows 95 load screen, but after getting a handful of driver errors, Windows finally loaded, and it was clearly windows 98. I had an OS, but it had the following problems:
-Display couldn't go above 640 x 480, 16 colors, even though it had done 1024 x 768 /32 bit color in the past (my usual settings).
-None of my usb / plug and play devices would work.
-It was extremely slow.
In short, my windows install seemed to be an unholy hybrid between 95 and 98 that worked, but wasn't really useful.
I was about ready to haul it into the shop when I remembered that I had a copy of windows XP pro laying around that I had, uh, acquired. Yeah, that's right.![[http://forums.massassi.net/html/smile.gif]](http://forums.massassi.net/html/smile.gif "http://forums.massassi.net/html/smile.gif")
Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I popped it in and ran setup. (for some reason, it was remarkable that I had read the windows xp installation procedure earlier in the day w/o having any idea that this would happen)
I loaded setup, chose upgrade, and loaded the serial number, then went and ate dinner, since I read that once you give the serial number, win xp is more or less idiot-proof and is automated. About an hour and a half later, I saw something incredibly beautiful: A clean, 100% pure, ACTIVATION-FREE windows Xp pro install.
Side effects of this problem were that I had to buy an ethernet card for my DSL modem. I ran it through USB before, but WinXP required more ram than I had for this method. The $18 ethernet card that I bought fixed that problem, though, so I have my DSL access back. Good thing that WimXP has generic DSL modem drivers pre-loaded, b/c my verizon DSL install Cd wouldn't work b/c it needed more ram, the same as running DSL through a USB connection. I really should add more ram for overall performance improvement (I'm running XP on little over the bare minimum), but I can't afford it right now.
------------------
Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.
[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited January 30, 2004).]
On Wednesday night, I tried to boot my comp, but windows wouldn't boot. (I was using win98 then.) I figured that that was an opportune time to reload windows. Unfortunately, my Compaq restore Cds wouldn't work. I spent the next few minutes verbally cursing compaq all the way to hell for not giving me a decent copy of windows instead of unloading these half-a**ed rescue Cds on me.
Giben the situation and the options I had, I opted for a clean install. (I actually preferred this, for anyone who owns a compaq will know, you have to remove all the crap that the rescue Cd loads onto your comp along with windows unless you want to be harrassed by demo programs and ads.) It's much more gratifying to boot and see a virgin windows install instead of a crapware-infested mess.
I formatted, and tried to install Windows 98. It creashed about 5% into the install. Formatted. Tried again. Same thing happened again.
I then remembered that I had an old windows 95 iso stashed somewhere that had worked before. I looked until I found it, and I installed windows 95. It worked great, but wouldn't boot. I then had the idea of installing the Windows 98 upgrade on top of that.
(my reasoning was that since the win95 files were on the HD already, win98 setup would work.) Windows 98 upgrade setup completed successfully, it was about sodding time that something worked right.
. I then rebooted.I had a strange situation. I still had the windows 95 load screen, but after getting a handful of driver errors, Windows finally loaded, and it was clearly windows 98. I had an OS, but it had the following problems:
-Display couldn't go above 640 x 480, 16 colors, even though it had done 1024 x 768 /32 bit color in the past (my usual settings).
-None of my usb / plug and play devices would work.
-It was extremely slow.
In short, my windows install seemed to be an unholy hybrid between 95 and 98 that worked, but wasn't really useful.
I was about ready to haul it into the shop when I remembered that I had a copy of windows XP pro laying around that I had, uh, acquired. Yeah, that's right.
Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I popped it in and ran setup. (for some reason, it was remarkable that I had read the windows xp installation procedure earlier in the day w/o having any idea that this would happen) I loaded setup, chose upgrade, and loaded the serial number, then went and ate dinner, since I read that once you give the serial number, win xp is more or less idiot-proof and is automated. About an hour and a half later, I saw something incredibly beautiful: A clean, 100% pure, ACTIVATION-FREE windows Xp pro install.
Side effects of this problem were that I had to buy an ethernet card for my DSL modem. I ran it through USB before, but WinXP required more ram than I had for this method. The $18 ethernet card that I bought fixed that problem, though, so I have my DSL access back. Good thing that WimXP has generic DSL modem drivers pre-loaded, b/c my verizon DSL install Cd wouldn't work b/c it needed more ram, the same as running DSL through a USB connection. I really should add more ram for overall performance improvement (I'm running XP on little over the bare minimum), but I can't afford it right now.
------------------
Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.
[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited January 30, 2004).]
![[http://forums.massassi.net/html/tongue.gif]](http://forums.massassi.net/html/tongue.gif "http://forums.massassi.net/html/tongue.gif")