8:54 AM
Well, since I always have to be the first kid on the block to screw up a computer, err, upgrade to a new platform … As you all know, on Friday I went ahead and upgraded to Windows XP Home edition.
You MAC users should take note that they ripped a lot of the appearance off from the new MAC OS X. It’s a VERY friendly environment and frankly, this is the operating system that’s finally going to get my mom to know what the heck she’s doing on her system.
A lot of the complexities of the old Windows 9x (aka “search and pray for a function”) have been replaced with easy to use menus and neato little icons that well, are just plain cool. It’s fast, it’s stable, and the blue screen of death is gone. I mean even AOL on a 56k modem flies with it. It’s Niiiiiiiice.
Drawbacks: Even if you buy the upgrade, do a clean install. Back up EVERYTHING and reformat your hard disk like it wants you to do. Don’t install it over a previous version of windows. Why? Well ….
I did the upgrade over an existing Win 98se system … but even after buying the little $10 upgrade to play DVD movies on windows media player, my DVDs weren’t working.
Tried upgrading the Video drivers for my video card. No dice. Tried upgrading the sound drivers to my sound card … big trouble. If you have a sound blaster value make sure you know the model number. Sound blaster’s new drivers were only released for current models, not older models. Installing their new drivers not only screwed up my system, it screwed up my DVD and CD player and there wasn’t really a way to go back.
So today is going to be spent putting everything back on the darn system. It’s still very cool, but make sure you have the right drivers for your stuff and this little incident has convinced me to install the version of Roxio’s go-back which comes with Norton System Works 2002. Just in case, just in case.
I uninstalled the DVD player since ATI’s site said it was incompatible with windows xp, I uninstalled the ATI multimedia center, then ran the new ATI Windows XP driver and reinstalled the multimedia center (without the DVD playback) … and TA DA! I could play DVDs in windows XP! Problem solved … if only I had known about it before screwing things up. 🙂
So today is going to be spent putting everything back on the darn system. It’s still very cool, but make sure you have the right drivers for your stuff and this little incident has convinced me to install the version of Roxio’s go-back which comes with Norton System Works 2002. Just in case, just in case.
Oh, on the DVD front, a lot has been made about having to pay $10 for windows XP to be able to play DVDs. Here’s the thing. As far as I can tell, that’s just for XP’s media player to do that. Windows XP seems to be able to play DVDs just fine if your DVD software is compatible with XP. So check DVD software’s website for an upgrade BEFORE giving any money to Microsoft.
Personally, I ended up paying $10 for the plug in and another $40 for a dedicated DVD software that was XP compatible since the plug in really really bit for media player. So save yourself $10 and ignore the plug in if you upgrade. If you don’t have one, go get Cyberlink’s PowerDVD and ignore the dinky media player. It’s an awesome little program.
That’s just IMODO.
Be bad all, yes new strips are coming. No I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth and just wait until you see …
🙂
k9
PS “Sugar & Spice” was a very funny yet very dumb movie. Worth a watch but not as your first choice on a Saturday night while putting a computer back together. It’s very odd.