Posted in Computers on Wednesday 1st June 2005 at 10:27pm


Last week I promised to help a friend get DSL up and running, but stumbled at the first hurdle as Windows NT4 did not even recognise the USB ports on the machine, let alone run any of the supplied software! I suspected an upgrade to Windows was required. It would have been great to think this was an opportunity to promote Linux, but in reality it wasn't the time or the place.

Having not installed Windows for six or seven years now, I didn't know what to expect from the shiny new Windows XP disk we purchased from the computer shop. The install took a long time, and seemed to load drivers for all kinds of esoteric hardware prior to beginning 'just in case'. Whilst it wasn't prepared to upgrade NT4, it sorted itself out in a way that left NT intact, along with all the data created with the previous install.

I was pretty impressed with the results - it seemed quite quick to learn, easy to use and nice to look at. Whilst it still suffers from some of the frustrations which drove me away from Windows in the first place, lessons seem to have been learned in terms of multiple users and security. A nice touch was the dialog which walked me through installing a virus scanner, firewall etc.

Ironically, the DSL install on XP took literally seconds and was so simple my friend could have done it unassisted! I don't think I'll be switching back to Windows XP any time soon but I'd consider a second machine with it installed just to play around with. It seems to have come a long way.

 


Lost::MikeGTN

I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.

I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.

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