September 06, 2003
Don't stare, children, he's just talking to himself because his mind was shattered in the wars...
I promised myself not to write about the OS wars. Them what knows, knows, and no one else wants to hear. But Brian Tieman just blogged about an article in PC World, on how to reinstall Windows with blithe ease. Like a veteran having a flashback, I was once again in the One-Eyed-Man Brigade, as the armies of the sightless zombied their way over the globe.
...Cause here, via J Greely, is an in-depth PC World article on how to reinstall Windows without losing your data.That's a joke, right? Two days? I mean, I've installed OS-X as an easy background activity while helping the kids with their homework...It's six pages long.
Six pages.
Before you begin, gather your Windows and application CD-ROMs. Back up your data files (just to be safe), and then clear two days off your calendar. If everything goes smoothly, you can reinstall Windows in a few hours. But you have to assume something will go wrong: You may not be able to find a necessary CD, or data won't be where you thought it was, or something will simply refuse to work.
Un-blankety-blank-believable. Six pages of this glorp. I think it's like when you join the mafia or the revolution, and you have to "make your bones." Then you stay loyal ever after because you can't admit to yourself that you killed someone for no good reason...similarly you stay loyal to Windows because you just can't admit to yourself that you've thrown a major chunk of your life-supply of psychic energy away on a piece of dung.Select Start, Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt. Type cd "\documents and settings" and press Enter. Then type xcopy administrator\*.* administrator.computername /s /h /r /c, replacing computername with the last part of that folder's name (after "Administrator.") in Documents and Settings. Now press Enter, and when you're asked about overwriting files or folders, press a for All.
Charlene's little firm uses PC's, and I hear about how much money they saved by ordering everything from Dell. THEN I hear how they've had the computer-consultant in FOR A WHOLE DAY swapping network cards, whatever they are, to try to get these machines talking to each other. And THEN I hear that they are going to toss them all out like so much wilted lettuce and get better machines so they can run XP! (BTW, I've installed OS-X on a 6-year-old 233mz Powerbook without a hiccup.) I think they should buy new PC's every month, and then the money saved would be so much they could retire.
And think how this helps the economy! A perfect example of the Broken Window Fallacy.
Posted by John Weidner at September 6, 2003 10:36 AM | TrackBackSounds like the How to Reinstall Windows for Anal-Retentives. Duh you should back up your data. But I've reinstalled Windows countless times, it takes about an hour or so. If it takes longer than that, you are either dealing with more serious problems than a mere reinstall, or you are just tinkering now.
Of course, that was on a standalone. From what this reads as, this is a network reinstall. Networks are a whole 'nother story. Just using a networked computer, as I currently am, is like having a nervous breakdown in slow motion. Maybe Macs network together like a dream, I don't know, I've never used them.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 7, 2003 12:24 AMI probably overdo it here. I should learn moderation from you, Andrea. Except for the networking, which IS a dream.
I have 5 macs networked, and with OS-X I didn't have to do anything except plug in ethernet cables.
And somehow, when I installed OS-X, I turned "printer sharing" on without realizing it. It blew me away when all the printers attached to the other Macs appeared as options when I tried to print...
Posted by: John Weidner at September 7, 2003 07:23 AMI built a 4 computer network of:
1 WinXP
2 Win2K
1 Win98se
The XP computer found the network with no problem, no issues, and no more than a click of a button (“do you want to connect to the detected network” or something like that)...
The 2 Win2K computers had to be told to find the network, and had to have the drivers for the network cards manually installed. No problems there.
The Win98 computer was a pain, but did eventually get on the network...
The only printer I have ever tried to plop onto a network was attached the another computer; I had to manually tell the computer to which it was attached to actually make the printer a shared resource. After than, I had to manually add the Printer to all the other PCs. Or, rather, I had to manually tell it to add. Win2k and up took care of the rest without a problem...
The progression seems pretty clear, though: the newer the version of Windows, the easier it is to network. By the time you get to an OS that is comparable age-wise to OSX (actually WinXP is a bit older, I think), you get comparable ease of use...
BTW: a “network reinstall” means that you grab the image from a network, not build a network from the ground up. And yes, grabbing the image from a network is a pain...
