Re: Installation
On Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:57:20 -0700, Weaver wrote:
> On Sun, September 9, 2012 7:43 am, Camaleón wrote:
>> You mean you got your linux preinstalled within you computer? That
>> would be nice but I'm afraid not the norm :-)
>
> No, I mean that I have always had to install/reinstall Windows, because
> the software has usually been as broken as the secondhand boxes.
Ah, sure, reinstalling Windows is a usual task for non-techies. They tend
to fill too much their systems with crappy software but Windows is not
the culprit here, but users. Look, we always end in users :-)
>> That's a different user case. But then, Windows installation is not
>> that straight-forward because you may have to provide some basic
>> drivers (for the storage controller) and manually partition the hard
>> disk, choose the file system to use, etc.
>
> I don't remember anything like that, but I should qualify that with the
> info that I haven't dealt with Windows since XP, which is when I finally
> gave up on it.
The last installation I did for a Windows system it was also a Windows XP
box and for the task I needed to create a floopy disk with the
corresponding AHCI drivers because the installer did not recognize the
controller and gave a nice BSOD (I wonder what a non-techie user would
have done in this case >:-) )
But yes, installing Windows completely from scratch is not an easy task.
>>> From memory, it ran itself.
>>
>> I really doubt it.
>
> No, really.
> My only recollections are of that blue screen with a loading indicator
> running across it, which told me, after my first couple of installs,
> that I could go and make another cup of coffee.
Maybe is that you were lucky and all the hardware and devices were a bit
old and thus properly detected by the installer itself because Windows
attached the needed drivers. But of course, this is not always the case
and when problem arises (in Windows, I mean), it can be very difficult to
debug.
>>> There were perhaps a couple of questions that didn't require reference
>>> to Einstein, but that was all.
>>
>> Not the questions the "joe" user is able to provide without help.
>
> Perhaps this has come along lately, as an inducement for Joe-User to go
> for the OEM variety, so they can cut back on their totally inefficien
> support staff.
(...)
OEM versions of Windows have been always there (in fact, most of the
notebooks/netbooks only provide the OEM version). For desktop computers
or servers that you can build by yourself, it's easier to get an empty
disk and then "buy" a copy of the full (non-OEMized) Windows installation
disk (well, "buy" enclosed in quotes because a high percent of Windows
users do not pay a cent for their OS, you know...).
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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