KiCAD Feedback Requested

a colleague tried to reinstall XP last week and "genuine advantage" wouldn't play nice, M$ dreck support were less than helpful.

I've learned to approach installs very methodically -- regardless of OS -- and been rewarded handsomely for it!

E.g., in the case of XP: 1 prep the hardware (configure RAID, etc.) 2 install XP recording the part number of the install medium 3 install drivers specific to hardware (assuming they were not installable during the XP install phase) 4 add XP service packs 5 run windows "update" service carefully reviewing each update prior to accepting its installation 6 update any drivers (potentially suggested by windows update) 7 add any other windows components not installed originally 8 rerun update service as above 9 install "fundamental" utilities (things that should have been part of the OS, effectively. i.e., things you EXPECT to have available on the machine regardless of what purpose

After many of these steps, I take a complete image of the hard disk and save it. E.g., usually after step 4 is the point at which I could conceivably want to rebuild a system REPURPOSED FOR SOME OTHER SET OF APPLICATIONS.

An image after step 5 means I can live without MS -- assuming I need no additional "fixes" down the road (i.e., if the update service goes away, I still have a usable machine in the state the OS was supported as of that time). Depending on the support available for the drivers (many are no longer being updated), I may move this to "after step 6". Or, even 8.

I.e., once the hardware is no longer supported, there is nothing to be gained by starting from step 4, again. Instead, 6 or 8 are more appropriate.

For me, the fundamental utilities can possibly still be supported and seeing regular updates. But, I may have chosen to not buy more upgrades (i.e., the features in the versions I have work well enough for my needs). These are things like various NON-BROWSER network clients and services, file compression utilities, disk imaging tools, etc. Most of my machines have similar functionality at the step 9 point.

The tools added at step 10 tend to still be undergoing active development that I am *tracking*. Browsers, mail clients, etc.

And, those at step 11 essentially define the role of the machine. I.e., to repurpose a machine, I want to step back to step 9 or 10 (depending on how much support activity the tools covered in step 9 have experienced).

Throughout the process, I inject any customizations that I know I want to inherit in any future "restores" -- settings for Windows Explorer, IP addressing, registry hacks (i.e., disabling autorun and autoplay), etc. This saves me the trouble of having to manually make those changes again, after a restore.

Images take up considerably less space than installed filesystems so I can store *lots* of images on a small hard disk PER MACHINE. E.g., I use bare 80G SATA drives in an external USB adapter (drive slips in like setting a PDA in a desktop cradle/charger base). Once the machine is built, I pull the drive, slap a label on it and toss it on a shelf.

Restoring an image takes just a few minutes. E.g., to get back to step 8 (i.e., the point where the machine can be used by just about anyone without regard for the tools later installed) with a BLANK system disk takes about 15 minutes. Compare that to the time it takes for the initial OS install, service packs, update service, etc.

And, I *know* it has to work -- no software "issues" -- because it already *was* working before I took the image(s)!

I would suggest he call back so as to get a different guy at Microsoft support... the couple of times I've had to call them to get activation working, after asking you a few questions along the lines of, "So... the last machine this copy of XP was installed on is no longer in service, yes?" ... there was no problem getting the manual activation code out of them.

This was just a reinstall on the same hardware* using the code from the licence sticker, they said XP is EOL and you need to pay extra to use it...

"genuine advantage" failed in several interesting ways (not displaying verification code, not accepting response code, etc.) and then finally settled in a loop.

"you must activate" -> "activation successful" -> "you must activate"

• we added a RTL8152-D based network card because xp couldn't handle the onboard net interface out of the box, and "genuine advantage" wouldn't play in telephone based activation mode.

There are different versions of the install CD that impose different constraints on different types of hardware. Make sure you know which CD to use for that particular machine!

(IIRC, there are ways you can hack CD images to change these behaviors -- I've found it easier just to keep the CD for each machine *with* a CD of drivers for that machine, etc.)

Too much hassle. I've got bitten yesterday. Needed a newer version than Debian provided. Tried to get a binary from a different package but that didn't work with the available libraries. If only the binary was linked statically like the Windows version I would not have needed to actually use the Windows version.

IMO--perfectly

library

solution

Aye, i remember some real bad times with dependency hell.

?-)

packages,

distributions

IMO--perfectly

library

That may actually be disk rot instead.

?-)

Like them thar floppy disks in the lower back that's hurt'n so much when ya hop out of bed da wrong way?

=20

I do believe you found the source of 90% of the sloppy code sold. Think about it.=20

?-)

GUI

Oh yes. I am looking at that and laughing. Not to mention all the licensing panegyrics and mutations. I am just guessing how the licensing variations on cloud (really a distributed super server) computing work out. I think MS is going to take it in the tusch here.

?-)

The (biggest) problem with the cloud lies in the fact that it is

And, the (current) mechanisms for interacting with those applications are pretty inefficient and/or rely on surplus processing power and a responsive network.

Sun Ray's, anyone? :<