Well,
The replacement of Vista back to XP is mostly done.
The acer chaps where nice enough to provide all necessary drivers for
windows xp on their website
I had to download them from my own computer though... since the laptop's
network card wasn't detected by windows
Well I'll spare you the details but it was quite an undertaking.. but
interesting undertaking
Actually this is the first time I was actually glad to remove a microsoft
operating system...
I was signing:
"Since you've be gone !" LOL.
I do feel a bit sorry for Vista... it was nice looking but just way too
chaotic...
XP is much more peacefull.. and clean... and efficient
I hope the dude likes it... I put on the classic xp gui... with visual
effects all turned off for maximum gui response...
And ofcourse fully updated... This is what I did I shall give you some
important details/tips:
I learned from my pentium iii upgrade experience.... windowsupdate was way
too slow.. and probably buggy.
So what I did was:
1. Download Service Pack 2 from download center.
2. Download Service Pack 3 from download center.
3. Disable messenger service.
4. Install SP2, Reboot
5. Install SP3, Reboot
6. Install IE7, Reboot
7. Apply further patches via windows update.
8. Install flash media player.
9. Install acrobat reader.
10. Install windows live messenger/mail/etc in case he wants that.
11. Remove the old msn messenger.
Hopefully the computer will be stable...
My own xp computer seemed to have some issue's with iexplore.exe which would
remain active... also some explorer.exe crashes... maybe that's a
windowsupdate **** up... or a crack issue.
The laptop is 100% legal though... so far it seems to be working ok.
More work needs to be done though like:
12. Install quicktime.
13. Install Office.
14. Install Pinacle Studio.
Try some stuff out.
The dude has a external usb drive which came in handy to store the drivers
on...
SP2/SP3 install did something a little bit odd.. it used D: for temp
storage... not sure if that was smart but ok. USB drive only 6 mbyte/sec.
But it was still acceptable speed.
I also made some backup's with norton ghost 14... and made a recovery cd...
not sure if it will work... I did do a boot... it looked ok... it seems to
use windows ? wow weird/special... it needs 500 mb of ram to work... laptop
has 2 GB ram.
Actually it's an acer Aspire 9410... so there ya go.. full detail there
hehe.. it doesn't have the webcam though.. hd is 120 gb... external drive
was 500 gb.
Haven't tried any games on it yet... I am bit curious if that's possible and
how good it will work and how the refresh rate will be.
Oh yeah btw... I did not install the acer empowering technology bullshit...
the dude didn't like that so... I left that out... the pad seems to work a
little bit odd/buggy or maybe that was because I had a mouse attached to it
as well... but I did manage to configure the pad a little bit better... the
quick launch buttons on the laptop seem a bit bullshit.
Also I was quite surprised when vista was on it... it automatically
connected to wirelss networks etc.. that was just configure issue though..
XP has all the possibilities that vista has... xp is nice... at least it
didn't auto connect to somebody elses network lol..
There were at least 5 wifi networks in my neighbourhood.. one unsecured
which the laptop can use... but I just used my own cable internet
connection... I don't want any trouble...
It seems like the wifi network was running unix or so.. maybe it's a
honeyport or a criminal... or just a city service I dont know...
The LCD display was pretty good/crispy... they it must be placed correctly
otherwise the angle aint nice.
The laptop seems to have bluetooth as welll but I don't have any bluetooth
devices... so I am a bit curious about that... I hope somebody I know has
bluetooth... could be funny to try out.. maybe the dude has bluetooth
himself who knows !?
Oh that reminds me... I didn't re-try the flash card reader...
I tried it with a flash sd card... but I think the hardware doesn't support
the flash sd card... it's old style pcmia flash card reader I think not
sure... I did install drivers for it... there is a black placeholder in it..
probably just to prevent it from getting dirty... first I thought it was
some kind of simlock or something... but it's just a piece of plastic...
There is also an expansion pcimia slot or something...
There is one little thingy which is kinda surprising to me:
The laptop has only 1 ethernet connection (It does have a modem though).
So lan+internet = nono. unless maybe use a router...
Yeah that is kinda ****y...
The laptop would have been better with two ethernet adapters !
It does have 4 usb ports ? hmmm bit unbalanced it seems
Oh well it's a laptop from 2005 I guess... not sure about that.
Video playback was ok... sound was ok I guess for a laptop...
dvd/cd drive reading was ok.
Haven't tried burning...
Wireless network worked ok at 100 kbyte/sec.
That kinda surprised me... I was expecting lower rates because of
interference or so..
Also don't keep laptop against pacemaker or medical equipment that could be
dangerous !
Actualy I haven't yet looked on the inside... maybe I'll do that tomorrow
just for kicks... just to have seen it... how the thing looks on the
inside... via the little slots on the back side... where drive and memory
is...
I don't have to see the battery though... gonna leave that one alone
acid
is scary...
I don't understand the acer boys though... why did they make two partitions
?
It's weird... I just made one big 120 GB drive... nice and simple...
The acer boys also had some private little parition or something... strange
guys those acer salesmen hehe
I was thinking about making the background black... to see energy or so...
but that's probably bullshit... since the light shines through the crystals
anyway... and the black looked too much like death I didn't like it.
Then I tried a custom blue but I didn't like that as welll... because the
icon's mostly looked weird... and I didn't like the blue as well...
So finally I switched to xp-classic theme look.. which has a little funny
trick up it's sleave... it makes the icon's background and the windows
background the same color see it seems like the icons are transparent but in
reality they aren't not ?
Anyway that looks best
I think the blue is also a little bit special...
it's not the blue/greenish from the color table... it's a custom blue. It's
nice looking.
Something else was kinda strange... I choose to disable fast user
switching... I know this causes a login screen... the password is blank...
so he still has to press enter... at first this kinda annoyed me a bit.. but
then I got used to it pretty quickly... I think it has a little adventage
probably too since shutdown can be done immediatly..
There was something strange though... when I tried to turn it back on again
it said that first offline working mode must be on or something... and
personal storage...
I didn't like the work offline mode so much... it's weird... it has images
missing etc.. and it is just stupid because then the user has to re-enable
online again.
And this guy seems a little bit like a newby... who didn't even know he
could get rid of the toolbar's...
Nowadays all these software developers go crazy with toolbars... google
toolbar, acro toolbar, search toolbar, etc, etc, etc STOP THE ****ING
TOOLBAR MADNESS HAHA, it's bad for newbies I guess.. it clutters the screen
!
Well don't worry... no toolbars installed... I dechecked those during
installs.
Yeah I had to make some other minor adjustments for more enjoyment:
1. Turn off personalized menu's. (this gets rid of the stupid
collapse/arrows bah).
2. Use classic menu.
3. Decheck remove unused icon's.
I just like to see everything that's on the pc... not just some stupid
personalized bullshit based on usage.. bleh.. so now it's nice... everything
can be seen instantously. Even those programs which are rarely used... but
still used !
Norton Ghost 14 disappointed me a bit at the start though.
It doesn't seem backwards compatible with it's previous versions ? but I
could be wrong... but I couldn't open old system backup files ?
Also it has multiple services running in the background.
(I didn't install it on the laptop though)
I am wondering if I should make a new backup of the laptop too...
But this ghost is like in the tray... even when it's disabled and such...
maybe I just make a backup... and then remove ghost again... or maybe I just
disable it... in the services...the dude probably doesn't need it and it's
overkill anyway... making backups all the time like that... it's also an
illegal version... so I have my doubts about installing it... maybe it's
trojaned who knows
But then again if the dude does manage to screw up his machine maybe norton
can be faster... but then again he'll loose data etc... so that's kinda
sucky...
Took me like one full day to backup vista, and install windows xp sp1, to
sp3 with all extra's. Still not done though see above.
So only thing I am worried about is:
Do I ghost ? or Do I not ghost ?
Bye,
Skybuck =D
