DeadCats

Check out the USB Virtual Private Machine, which uses DSL. You can load it all into a 128MB USB drive or several other media. The PR1 is beta, free, and the download is fast over Bittorent. http://www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml -dc

Are you connecting directly to one of the notebook's powered USB ports, or connecting via an unpowered USB adaptor?

1. It's great being back and seeing all my friends still about in this forum. It's been a trippy past year, moving to Alaska, etc, etc. Anyway... 2. Microsoft won OS War One by licensing DOS to IBM and retaining the rights to license it to other PC manufacturers. Apple helped them tremendously in a backhanded way, by keeping their computers' architecture proprietary, while IBM's was open for everyone to clone. Everyone did, and MS had customized versions of DOS for every one of them. A *customized* version was necessary to make them more closely *IBM-Compatible,* a phrase that has about disappeared. 3. MS won OS War Two by their dealings with OEM's. There were other operating systems around at the time, but Microsoft's was pretty much the cheapest and best choice for most users. They had the large end of the market share, but obviously Bill was no slouch. About the time Windows 3.1 had rapidly gained in popularity, and though OEM's were free to install and sell any OS, if they wanted this super-special-dirtcheap-price for Windows then they had to pay a licensing fee for EVERY PC they sold. IRREGARDLESS of what OS was loaded. Or even no OS. Smart-business, if you can get away with it, and MS did for many years. 4. Microsoft won OS War Three by being pretty decent software. Sure, some of it sucks. They all suck. So what? MS stuff seems to work the best for most folks, and hey! it's not badly priced, either. My $0.02 DC

When I was in school there were no terms geek or nerd. (But there was pawt.) However, I was recently asked if I was a geek, and my buddy, the geekiest geek of all the geeks I've ever met said, "Yeah, you're a geek." So now I know. :::sigh:::

Here in Alaska, where we're actually pretty much on the bleeding-edge as far as governmental (State) IT goes, departments are just starting to implement Win2K, especially now since the release of SP2. At this time, WinXP is a non-issue. No one even thinks about it. I see no reason to think that it would be much different for most good-sized corporations, either. Wireless WANs at extremely high bandwidth are getting mucho attention here right now.

Howdy, folks, long time no type! Wife & I moved to Alaska and still setting stuff up...everything here is more difficult & takes longer than Down South. Anyway, I'm going to be trying to help a buddy get Win2K installed on some older Gateway Pentium 200Mhz-cpu machines this weekend, and need some help. I don't have any more specifics about the machines except they've got onboard video cards and I would guess onboard sound, too. I've searched the boards on "gateway" and found nothing, and am begging(!) for help. They've got a bunch of these machines in his department, but he has nothing but troubles with his testbed machine on the install. I don't have any of the specifics, other than the failure occurs during installation, and I'm guessing it's hardware related. According to him, he's disabled onboard video, and replaced it with a variety of cards, but still no luck. And video may not be why the install fails, either. I won't find out anything more specific until Sunday morning, but wanted to know if any of youse guys have run into anything problematic hardware-wise with older Gateway computers. I'm guessing these are all basic workstation machines, since they're owned by the State of Alaska. Thanks for any replies, and good to see ya'll.

Whelp, the problem's been resolved. Bad motherboard, that was all. They tried loading Win2K onto another Gateway, same (make/model) and it installed like a champ. But, try to install Win2K, Win98, Me, on the original problem-child, and they always failed. At that point they figured out it was probably the motherboard, and started stripping it down, just like DosFreak suggested, and were able to verify that as the cause. And the fact that Gateway had defined this as an actual 'incident' (and you can imagine what kind of support a State legislative branch IT dept. gets), should probably have suggested to us that it might be a specific-machine problem, since Gateway had no doubt sold bunches of these to corporate/State IT's and this was a first incident. My buddy is especially glad, because now he doesn't have to go back to the legislature to get more money for hardware upgrades, since they have 200 of these same machines, just in his department alone. ('Course, they did give him the bucks for 250 fully-loaded Compaq iPaqs which the idiots think will actually be used for work...yeah, right). But all's well that end's well, and thanks to everyone's input, especially DosFreak (good to see ya again).

Easy answer, sorry, they're all owned and used by the State of Alaska. Guess I forgot to mention my buddy's a SysAdmin in one of the branches, and he's in the preparation stage of deploying Win2K department-wide. He's in the process of loading it onto his testbed machines, and that's where the problem is occurring, but so far just on those specific Gateway machines. I'll know more later this morning, when I get to take a look at a few of them...hopefully. DC P.S. Has anyone 'seen' DosFreak around lately?

It's not that a Pentium 200 (non-MMX) won't benefit from 2K. Give them enough RAM, which is what 2K dearly loves, and they should work fine. Gawd knows, it extended the life of my old P2 333Mhz which is what I still use. It's a hardware problem, and unfortunately, I don't have even a clue as to why the install fails. Sunday, after trying it myself, I might know a bit more. But please keep up the thread. Every bit may help. Thanks, DC

Quote: Mt. Zion, IL. Just a stone's throw for this sh*thole that is known as Decatur Know the area well. My wife and stepson are from Sullivan. Stepson worked at several of the radio stations in Decatur, Charleston, and Mattoon, and last lived in Bethany...that is, if anyone in Bethany is actually considered "alive." Oh yeah...Garden City, Kansas. Soon to be Wasilla, Alaska.

While I use Norton, I use it cautiously. I have system problems when their CleanSweep is in and running. I've learned not to install it. Anti-Virus works fine, no problems. I also think Diskeeper is probably safer than Speed Disk. WinFax Pro 10 does exactly what it's supposed to do, on my machine anyway. Not that I haven't had any problems with anything Norton or Symantec has issued, I have, and that's been since pre-Windows 3.1. But that goes for darn near every utility package that's ever been released from any company. I think we...and that goes for me, too...I think that sometimes we spend too much time out on the tweaking-edge, and that includes messing with systems that are already operating at or near peak performance. And when that includes powerful utilities, we can have *powerful* results, sometimes.

What happens to be the name of this regenerative misfit?

I think it's important to remember that historically, game development has always driven hardware development. For some reason, like, um, MARKET DEMAND, computer gaming has always pressed the development of hardware faster and harder than that of any operating system or business application. It's been that way since day one, and I can't think of any reason for that to change. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Have you tried the OfficeXP's Detect & Repair utility yet? I experience more errors in Outlook than any of the other programs, and the repair utility is able to fix them. However, Outlook is what I use the most. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Go here: http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/studybreak/ and view the, "Every OS Sucks" video further down the main screen. It's way too cool for words. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Wanna round up the usual suspects for us?: operating system(s), network & nic settings, hardware specs/settings, etc... ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Heya, DosFreak, thanks for the proggie, but I've got this, "divide by zero" error on POST after installation, then a BSOD, and my whole Win2K installation and data files are fux0red and I think it killed the neighbors dog and... P.S. Nice Monday, what!

Goto Control Panel>Users & Passwords, and uncheck the, "users must enter a username and password to use this computer" checkbox, if I remember right. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

"The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals." Are they nuts, or are we getting back to, "consumer appliances?" ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Man, I'd love that toolkit, DosFreak...but RoadRunner's email servers are fux0red right now.

MS Optical Trackball...or Logitech TrackMan Mable+. Either one is a great trackball. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Jeezly, I'm offline for a couple days, and this thread turns into, "Dopers & Choppers & Bud." Oh, my.

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Four and Twenty: I am still running without a firewall or a virus scanner.</font> If I was running just a home machine (boy, how I wish) with no need for security, could do a reinstall in a couple of hours, and wanted it slim and fast, I'd probably do the same. In fact, a 'Win2K Lite' would be just great. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SnapperOne: ...what's an ICQ and 19901838? Remember, while I'm not wet behind the ears with PC's, I still just plug along with the fingers of one hand crossed for good luck.</font> Well, you can learn that way, I suppose. I did, and probably most of the people here. However, if I were at your level of learning, and especially for a business, I'd sure want to have someone handy to tweak and troubleshoot my system. And I don't mean your friend or family member, the "computer expert." A serious Win2K problem could shut your business down for a day or two. A well setup and tweaked Win2K is a real joy. But when she is bad, she is very, very bad. All that aside, it would be well worth investing in some good literature (the kind that weigh 20 lbs an edition...the Unleased series I consider excellent). And some good hands-on classroom experience if you can find anything in your area that addresses what you'll need to learn. It'll probably boil down to you being your entire IS department, but you can handle it if you're willing to really learn WinNT Systems, and that includes your hardware as well as the software. It's not going to be something you setup once and forget about it. Good luck. You've got one heck of an education ahead of you, if you're willing to take it on. ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

Hmm...will an S3 Virge chipset even work in Win2K? ------------------ "Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999 "Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001