upgrading to Vista ? a teeny tiny little hint.

[vibebob]

if you are upgrading to Vista from XP or 95, what ever you do DO NOT DO NOT DO NO, did I say DO NOT format your drive first because you won't be able to activate Vista. it seems that Vista uses a different INI format than XP.all the other versions of Windows when I upgraded I just formated the drive and had to put the old version disk in the CD drive for proof. Not this time, no no no. Leave XP on your system, boot up computer, insert Vista DVD, follow on screen instructions.ask me how I know ??? I spent 2 hours, total, on phone to Vista support to get this straightened out.. I had to uninstall Vista, reinstall XP then install Vista upgrade. After much ado, I finally have Vista on the machine and so far (knock wood) I don't have any issues.also, you MUST have service pack 2 installed otherwise Vista upgrade won't work.if you get the full version and NOT upgrade, you can install on clean drive and not go through this hassle.bob

[northvibe]

I still wonder why they make it so hard to upgrade or install. Seriously its the only OS on the market that makes it hard! yeah and if you upgrade vista over xp it cancels your xp cd key...nice.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by northvibe »I still wonder why they make it so hard to upgrade or install. Seriously its the only OS on the market that makes it hard!Because they're Microsoft and they can. They'll be able to get away with ANYTHING because of how they have computer users by the nads world wide. I'm convinced that they could do everything in their power to inconvenience their customers, yet people would still somehow say it's ok and just live with it. It's sad, really. It's scary when Linux, which always used to be horrible to install, sounds like it's easier to install than Windows. I switched to Kubuntu a few months back and the install for that was fricken SWEET! It booted into a live version, so I was sitting there with a fully functional KDE desktop complete with the ability to cruise the 'net while it was installing everything. None of that text mode crap, having to wait an hour or whatever before you could use your computer.

[Atomic]

I know this is dated now, I think it's from the early 90's (anyone else feel old when I say that?)How many of these might apply to the 2000/XP to Vista OS upgrade scenario?If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car. 2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on. 3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too. 4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats. 5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads. (Anyone remember Amiga?)6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower. 7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light. 8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years. 9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb. 10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size (removed). 11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. 12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. 13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it. 14. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads. 15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff. (You think Microsoft is planning their own XM satellite station to further broadcast the propaganda?) 16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM! 17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads! 18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it. 19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked. 20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.Maybe Colonel Panic actually got the Microsoft Beta version Vibe.

[ragingfish]

Always has been, and will be, a classic joke! I'd make one change though. It should read "The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single blue "YO CAR BROKEY!!!!" warning light."

[coldmm803]

atomic, that just made my night, that is going in my aim profile

[kostby]

And when Microsoft finally gains control of the entire world (world domination IS their business plan, isn't it?)...Every time you, uh, procreate, you'll have an annoying Microsoft pop-up asking: Abort, Retry, Ignore?

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by kostby »And when Microsoft finally gains control of the entire world (world domination IS their business plan, isn't it?)...Every time you, uh, procreate, you'll have an annoying Microsoft pop-up asking: Abort, Retry, Ignore? ACTUALLY.... While I would hate to agree with the motives of M$... That sounds like a pretty alright plan. Anyone who thinks otherwise should just go to Wal*Mart on a busy evening and listen to all the screaming (unwanted) children! If they ever did succeed with such a plan, would one of the errors be Fatal Conception Error?

[TJinPgh]

I've done a little test drive with Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. Ubuntu is promising. I liked the previous version of PCLinuxOS more than the newest one.I just downloaded Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu. Gonna give that a try soon.Foresight looks interesting as well.All of the versions I've tried so far installed fairly easy. Partitioning and formatting is a breeze with most versions. If not, GParted is about as easy as it gets.

[binary]

MS owning the world? Bah... Zune, Vista, Windows Mobile6... Nah, Google's going to take it over - only because they'll know everything about you.

[engineertwin2]

A lot of MS bashing going on (as CP is prone to do )...let's not forget that Microsoft got to where they are by (at some point in time) offering a better product than anyone else. You can argue the merits of whether software should be free, but try to understand that most who run Linux are computer gods and those who run Windows are more often than not, content with basic office products and internet....But, on topic, thanks for the tip VibeBob...I'll be upgrading sooner or later and would have most likely fallen prey to the same thing...