Bought an HP with Vista Home prem. When I set it up it found my
wireless network and logged it. Been running for a few week pretty
much OK. We have a lot of power outages here and had one a few days
ago Every one on the netowrk lost address for the router. No big
deal with the WIN2K or XP systems but Vista not so. On the others all
I had to do was do an ipconfig /release and reboot the router. But
vista will not let me do anything except ipconfig. Everyone else is
back to 192.168.2.1 but vista is 169.x.x.x. I have tried everything I
can think of and searched to vista groups on Usenet but have not found
any reference to this problem
Any help would be appreciated.
Second question. Advice on the best path to *upgrade* this unit to XP
Pro.
For the first question, I'm not sure what you mean by "except ipconfig".
Did you run cmd elevated? If not, that's your problem. Start Orb>Search
box>type: cmd [enter]. When you see the cmd program appear above,
right-click it and choose "run as Administrator". Then try your:
ipconfig /release [enter]
ipconfig /renew [enter]
You might also want ipconfig /flushdns [enter].
Since you have a lot of power outages, purchase an Uninterruptible Power
Supply (UPS). I like the Belkin 550's which generally cost around $60.
Plug the cable/dsl modem and router into it, as well as your computer
and monitor. If you have a lot of computers, purchase a UPS for each one.
For the second question:
General information about replacing Vista with XP:
A. On an OEM (HP, Sony, etc.) computer:
1. Go to the OEM's website and look for XP drivers for your specific
model computer. If there are no XP drivers, then you can't install XP.
End of story. If there are drivers, download them and store on a CD-R or
USB thumbdrive; you'll need them after you install XP.
2. Check with the OEM - either from their tech support website or by
calling them - to see if you will void your warranty if you do this. If
you will void the warranty, you make the decision.
3. If the OEM does support XP on the machine, call them and see if you
can have downgrade rights and have them send you an XP restore disk.
This will be far the easiest and best way of getting XP on the machine.
4. If XP is supported on the machine but the OEM doesn't have an XP
restore disk for you, understand that you'll need to purchase a retail
copy of XP from your favorite online or brick/mortar store.
5. Also understand that you will need to do a clean install of XP so if
you have any data you want, back it up first.
6. If none of the above is applicable to you because you can't run XP on
that machine (see Item #1 above), return the computer and purchase one
running XP instead.
B. On a generic/home-built computer (from non-OEM company) - You will
need drivers for all your hardware. See the second link below for more
details:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand
Malke
