WinXP Reactivation WTF

[UtwigMU]

Ditto. Had unstabable box at previous job.

- mini tower case, 250W PSU, puny cooler that kept CPU @ 65° C after applying Arctic Silver
- A7V266E, 1700+, 2x256 DDR out of which one stick pwned after a month
- Asus GF2MX
- IBM 40GB 60GXP, Sony DVD, Waitec Megalus 24x coaster factory with burnproof - I've made more coasters in months on that thing than on my trusty SCSI Teac CDR56S in years and the later one has no burnproof.)

I solved the problem when administrator told me about sysprep utility. Microsoft drones could not do anything to help me (It's a legal copy which was paid for, now I'd like some support. No Yu0. OK So I'm going to call you on every reboot. - Because of moving the intarweb wasn't working yet.

My stance is:

Always use corporate or cracked copy.

Buy license or not

(Depends wether you find not having a licence immoral enough, wether there's a chance competition reporting you to the BSA or wether your countries GNP is high enough to splurge 200 €/$ for Pro or 135 €/$ for Home edition - average monthly wage is 200 € in some countries - not here ~ 650€/$.)

[The PIT]

Had to re-install linux more times than windoze. Linux you normally have to re-install when you change some hardware although it's getting better.
Has anyone tried typing on a rolling command prompt??

[Technoid]

Originally posted by The PIT
Had to re-install linux more times than windoze. Linux you normally have to re-install when you change some hardware although it's getting better.
Has anyone tried typing on a rolling command prompt??

yup, but that was because of faulty HW

[The PIT]

I just changed the video card.

[rugger]

Originally posted by The PIT
I just changed the video card.

That should not have required a reinstall of Linux!

You simply have to modify /etc/X11/XF86Config and tell it to use the driver for your new video card.

If you linux is set up as runlevel 4 (X windows on bootup mode), then you may need to tell lilo "linux single" to bring linux into console only mode so you can change the file without the system doing weird stuff.

If you needed to reinstall linux because of a video card change, that only shows your lack of knowledge, not any inherent weakness in linux.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Originally posted by rugger
Sigh,

Windows AND linux are good, in their own places of course. And generally you can even make them do each other's jobs.

You're looking at it in the wrong way... both linux and Windows are both BAD, in their own places of course.

[leech]

I've never had to re-install linux because of a hardware change. In fact, looking back on it, if I had been more patient with something that I personally had screwed up, I could have fixed it without re-installing at all. In fact, the only time I've really re-installed linux was when I wanted to try out different distributions.

Kudzu and Discover and a few others are great at detecting any hardware change. WindowsXP is getting better at it, but generally you'll still have to re-install it if you change the motherboard.

Leech

[High_Jumbllama]

RTM version? What's this? I am going to be dealing with two relatively high end machines at one of the schools I work at. We'd prefer not needing the activation feature. We found out one way but it involves creative registry editing. Is this a special developers Microsoft Tech version or can anyone get it? We tend to have to mess with machines frequently and don't want to deal with it when we change hardware around.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by rugger
That should not have required a reinstall of Linux!

You simply have to modify /etc/X11/XF86Config and tell it to use the driver for your new video card.

If you linux is set up as runlevel 4 (X windows on bootup mode), then you may need to tell lilo "linux single" to bring linux into console only mode so you can change the file without the system doing weird stuff.

If you needed to reinstall linux because of a video card change, that only shows your lack of knowledge, not any inherent weakness in linux.

How the hell do you do that when the command line is going all over the screen. ????? Very quickly by the way as well. By the way the video card at that time wasn't supported either.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by leech
WindowsXP is getting better at it, but generally you'll still have to re-install it if you change the motherboard.
Leech

Rubbish quick run into the registry if need be or a later edit if you need too. No need to re-install.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by The PIT
How the hell do you do that when the command line is going all over the screen. ????? Very quickly by the way as well. By the way the video card at that time wasn't supported either.

You press ALT+CTRL and F1 to F6 to get a console. All your graphics card has to support to do that is VGA. And if you'd read any documentation of the basics of Linux, you'd allready know that.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by The PIT
Rubbish quick run into the registry if need be or a later edit if you need too. No need to re-install.

I had to re-install XP when switching from a GeForce3 to the Parhelia. Neither Matrox nor any one here was able to figure out what was wrong.

[leech]

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38730

Odd, that was the very first suggestion on this thread. Re-install windows.

Leech

[KvHagedorn]

I am still happy with W2K.. happier every time I see something like this happen (not happy that it happened to you, GT, but happy that I never switched.) Someone tell me why the hell I need to give the richest man in the world MORE money for a hobbled, buggy version of software I already own? For the privilege of being spied upon? So that they can screw with me when I change even the simplest piece of hardware? No thank you.

[Evildead666]

Yay. I also still revere Win2K...stable and true.

\At work i have installed many WinXP Pro and familyversions. Family seems to want to activate whatever happens. internet connection or not. you have to phone up MS for the activation code.

XP Pro however, i did not have to activate. i just told the machine i didn't have internet access, and that i wasn't going to have any. It was ok with that.
This is not saying that it won't try to activate as soon as the web is detected, but at least it won't screw up one of your clients working days like one of mine, who had no clue what was happening, and nearly tried to reinstall windows.