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January 1, 2005
2005, resolution: I will not fix somebody else's PC problems.
I have a resolution for 2005.
I will not get computer-related presents for my folks. No no no.
No games software like the flight sim I got, and no hardware like the joystick I got as well for my 10-year-old brother. Getting this to work on a 5-year-old PC obviously entails a lot. Technically interested people should read on.
The bottom line is: I will not touch a Windows PC for any sort of maintenance in 2005. I promise. I promise to buy a book for a present next time. Books don't break, don't require an installation, they're cheaper and much more fun. For the givee, and the giver.
Now back to the Western classics with Clint Eastwood.
Long story short:
- Joystick won't work with NT.
- try to upgrade NT4.0 to Win XP. Doesn't boot from CD (SCSI CD-ROM drives). Needs boot disk. MS Boot disk ensemble is 6 floopy disks. First set was unreadable. The only floppies in the house hold are many years old.
- get an XP CD. Fails to install with strange error message.
- get a replacement XP CD. Fails to install with replacement strange error message.
- get OEM Win98 CD (never opened!). Installs half-way. Then, wants to reboot and fails due to SCSI drives.
- some boot voodoo later, things work. occasional blue screens, though.
- needs DirectX9.0 and a graphics driver. There is no 'hardware info' in Windows (or on the PC platform in general). You need to open up the case to find out what graphics card is in there.
- flight sim runs.
- a day later, I find out that I can't do a touch-and-go with my Cessna without the thing giving me some blue screen.
Aaaargh.
Posted by dr at January 1, 2005 9:25 PM
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