New PC

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, the other day, my new PC arrived from TigerDirect.

After much agonizing, webbing, and other magical incantations, I concluded what I really hated most, was finking about with PC's.

I did go ahead and shop for a collection of parts, but found I could not beat Tiger's prices on a ready-built (but somewhat customizable) "white-box" pc.

That is, the amount of parts I needed for this build was enough, that it was literally cheaper to buy a whole kit, pre-assembled.

I needed (because I was so far behind the curve)

* cpu -- wanted next-to-the latest gen, to avoid needing to do this again soon
* memory chips -- wanted at least 4gig, pref 8gig
* video card -- wanted next-to-the-latest, same as CPU
* motherboard to fit cpu/ram/video
* hard drive -- smallish is okay, here-- I have two huge ones in quality external cases for mass-storage, but I wanted a new one for a bare-metal install
* some version of OEM Win 7, in 64bit

What I had:

** good power supply
** adequate case
** good DVD burner
** keyboard
** mouse
** flat-screen monitors

So, I started out at NewEgg (a favorite vendor, of late) and began adding to the shopping cart the items in the first list.  I came up with a total I was quite surprised at.  And I'd forgot memory, so I added that.  Then I realized I'd forgot Win7 (I had not made a formal list, but just started putting stuff into the online shopping cart...).   The price seemed too high, for a box'o'parts I'd have to assemble and fiddle with...

So, I started shopping for in-the-box pre-christmas deals. 

And I remembered TigerDirect lets you customize their 'white-box' systems; quite a bit of flexibility, if you start out with the basic box you need.

So, with some figuring and poking about, I found I could have *Tiger* build me a pc that fit the criteria in the first list, *and* they would do the majority of the finiky bits.  **And** I'd get a new case, a good (500 watt) power supply, and everything warranted for a year...

What's more interesting?  It was substantially cheaper than buying a box'o'parts....  even given those I already had.

True, with the customizing feature, I could leave off the keyboard for credit, the mouse, the screen, the trial-ware of oriface, the boat-load of junkware I didn't want or need.

That last was what got me away from a pretty good match to my needs, from BestBuy in an HP brand.  They were having a nice sale, and I could've had it delivered to the store for free shipping.  Not bad.  But, the clincher that put me off?  All the junkware they were crowing about coming pre-infected--erm-- pre-installed.

So.  My box arrived late in the evening on Tuesday.  I decided not to brave the slick streets, and waited until Wednesday.  Various things interfered, and I did not get around to it until late Wednesday evening.  (Amazing, even a pre-built one, I didn't want to fiddle with it-- I managed to get lots of other chores done instead...I'm getting so old and crotchety.    )

Well, I did get it running.  And I did manage to backup my entire profile from XP onto one of my external drives, so that I could replenish Firefox and Thunderbird.

I took a wrong turn, with regards to FF, though-- and tried out the "bootleg" 64bit compile of FireFox for a day or so, before giving up:  no flash support, so that roughly 70% of websites won't load.  Back to 32 bit for now.  It seems to work well enough.  Need to fix BBCODE extension, though, or find a replacement-- the latest FF refuses to install.  I suppose I need to dig up how to disable version checking again.  *bother* (another reason why I hate migrating to new 'puters...)

I didn't even try for a 64bit e-mail client:  I just installed Tbird, created a fake e-mail addy, then replaced the profile folder with the last saved one from my old pc.   Somehow or other, though, it lost my passwords-- so I had to look them up in SplashID-- which meant I had to re-install *that* from backups.  And somehow or other, I'd lost the reg code to SplashID, so an e-mail to them for a replacement (that was free-- excellent company). 

But, my e-mail's all up and running.  So is SplashID as a beneficial side-effect:  useful, as all my web-surfing passwords are lost, too-- I must manually re-enter those.

But, it's back, more or less....

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Some thoughts regarding Win7.

Since I skipped the Vista boondoggle, I was not aware just how much Microsquish re-hashed things.

Man gets into brand-new car, built by Microsquish.  Looks around the driver's seat.

Man: "Let's see. That's got to be the steering apparatus.  Let's try...nope.  This appears to be the brakes.  Is that the steering?  Nope-- that revs the engine-- obviously the throttle.  Hmmm.......how about that?"

Radio:  **noise of radio static** "---tell.  Send No Money Now!  Free! Turnip-Twaddler and Dog Polisher!  You Need This!"

Man: "Nope. Radio controls.  How about this?"

Electronic Voice: "Welcome to GeoNav.  Please state your destination"

Man: "Nope. That's the GPS thingy."

Electronic Voice: "Destination not understood.  Please re-state your destination."

Radio:  "In other news, the US was under lock-down today, as an unidentified man attempted to blow up a bus station with what later turned out to be a rubber eraser.  The man was apparently upset when he discovered his job was out-sourced to India."

GPS: "Destination received.  Washington, D.C.  Estimated time:  100 hours.  Please turn right in 100 feet."

Man:  "Dammit, how do I turn off the radio.  Maybe pressing that button again?"

**sounds of windshield wipers can be heard over the other voices**

Radio: "Come On Down!  Ed's Fantastic Used Cars!  No Offer Refused!  We got cars, butloads of cars! We got trucks! Trainloads of trucks!  A car for every budget!  Most warranted until you get off the lot! Hurry!  This won't last!"

GPS: "Recalculating route.  Downtown.  Estimated time:  100 hours.  Please turn left in 100 feet."

**windshield wipers begin to emit a disturbing rubber-on-glass squeaking**

Man: "Oh crap. Maybe THIS is the one?"

**a loud honking can now be heard over the other noises**

Radio:  "Ed's Boutique.  If Ed don't have it, you don't need it.  We have the latest in replacement low-flush toilets, now in purple!  We also offer a complete line of mops and buckets, to go with your low-flush toilets!  Also in purple!  A must-have for any home remodel!  That's Ed's in smallville, if we don't have it, you don't want it!"

GPS: "Recalculating route.  Smallville.  Estimated time:  100 hours.  Please drive straight for 100 feet."

**HONK! HONK! SQUEEK! SQUEEK!**

Man (now very frustrated):  "HOW DO YOU SHUT THIS OFF!  Maybe that big red button?"

**sudden, deafening silence**

Electronic Voice:  "Thank you for pressing the self destruct button.  This car will now self-destruct in 5 seconds.  Please fasten your seat belts. Please remain inside the car during the destruct sequence, for your safety, and to avoid outward flying glass....

....4
....3
....2
....1"

... in the otherwise silent car, a man can be heard softly whimpering, with occasional sounds of tugging on a non-functional door handle...

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Okay, that was off-topic, but germane to my point:

Microsquish moved everything except the start button.  Which they changed into a meaningless circle...

The problem is, that I was used to where they'd stashed things, willy-nilly.  No rhyme or reason to a location, but after 5...6? years of hunting, I'd located the majority of stuff I needed to fiddle things the way I liked.

But, with win7, they put things.....where it would be logical.  I was SCREWED.   SCREWED, I tells ya!



I now have to go into a sort of zen-like trance, and blank my mind.... if I want a control or setting.  Then, I let my fingers move the mouse pointer seemingly at random, and there it is.... right next to the object you needed to tweak.

I imagine this is what Crapple users are like, all the time.... 



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Once I'd figured that out?  Win7 was a snap to use. 

It works quite well, in fact.   I have a nice quad-core CPU, running 8gigs of ram, and things just work.

I even, with a bit'o'trial and error, got a verra oldish game running, Just To See:  Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 1.^₁

My first attempt, after a simple^₂  and painless install^₃ later I was ready to try the game.  Remember:  this game was so old, it was written for win98 or so.

My first attempt-- nothing.  So.  I modified the icon/shortcut that pointed to it, to say: "run as administrator".  Didn't help: the game simply blinked the screen, then quit.

Okay, I'd read that Win7 64bit was problematic with old, crappy software  , but that it had a nice uber-compatibility "system".   I located the actual file^₄ that the shortcut was pointing to, and right-clicked again.

Via the intertubes, there was several "fixes" but I was skeptical-- why would I need a "fix"? Several posters claimed using the compatibility thingy, they got the original unadulterated files to work.  I'm always skeptical with "fixes" that they might contain spywares...

Anyway, right-clicking revealed a "troubleshoot" option, which I started.  The 'automagic' stupid--erm--wizard did not work on it's own.  No problaymo.  There's a manual sequence:  I tried various flavors of WinXP "compatibility" modes, no joy.

Finally, I used "Win 2000" mode, and viola!  Success!    Game up-and-running.

It's a learning curve, obviously-- I'll need to Hexperiment^₅ a bit, learning what need's doing, to get old, crappy^₆ software to run on this infernal Microsquish latest boondoggle. 

Until the next boondoggle, of course.

Maybe I'll get lucky, and die before that happens....



__________________________________

^₁ There's a very long story behind why I wanted that particular game running again, which I won't go into here.

^₂ Now that I understood:  in win7, you're not automagically administrator.  And for most installs, that's fine.  But, if you right-click on an installer file, and say "run as administrator" it does that, painlessly.  But you do need to say "yes" to the pop-up.  No need to log-off, and re-log as admin.   

Right-clicking in Win7 reveals most of the things you previously had to dig deep for...

^₃ I'd re-purchased this game from Direct2Drive for five bucks-- well worth it, as I couldn't locate my "play" disc, and this version needed no stinkin' play disk...

^₄ okay, I searched the intertubes first, before concluding I needed to access the game's main file first.

^₅ Casting spells just to see what happens. From Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith.  Something a witch would do.

^₆ But, we just loves our old, not-in-the-least compatible with anything softwares best of all.  Right?  I've got a buddy of mine who owns a genuine pawn shop.   He keeps his books on a very old, DOS program.  It Just Works for him, why change?  But he desperately needs a new 'puter-- that one's on it's last legs.  So.  I'm re-flashing a fresh XP home 'puter for him to use (or, rather, I'm having that part done.... ).  I'll be running DOSBOX on it, for his old DOS accounting program.  Good Enough. 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If I were you I would create a new partition/add a new HD, and install XP there. Partition Magic + Boot Magic usually do the trick nicely.

OEM PCs look positively cheaper once you account for the OS, which has something to do with them paying a 3rd of the price for the OS compared to retail. Buying hardware in bulk helps too.

Personally I don't like OEM motherboards and I tend to buy fast memory, dual HDs for raid and a good brand power supply (nothing more painful than losing a mobo and/or HDs because of a bad PSU) and to this day I haven't found a cheaper OEM computer with those components (in fact the equivalent built machines usually run into $1000s).

I'll check tiger direct though.

As for Win7... WTF is wrong with MS? Office and the hideous ribbon and 7 with a bad mix of OSX with Vista? Perhaps I'm becoming a cranky old man but I positively hate both interfaces.

[Griffin NoName]

As for Win7... WTF is wrong with MS? Office and the hideous ribbon and 7 with a bad mix of OSX with Vista? Perhaps I'm becoming a cranky old man but I positively hate both interfaces.

I think we juts get more and more resistent to change as we get older. Although one should still be able to distinguish improvement from change for change''s sake. So often onefinds the latter not the former.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Re: Zono's comment about memory & hard disk are well received. 

Re: Griffin's comment about change for change's sake?  Agreed-- if it ain't broke, don't "fix" the d~mn thing.

As for the power supply?  It came with a branded 500 watt one.  But I'm keeping my premium PS from my old box, just in case.

And I've done some more poking about:

A) Microsuck lied^₁ about the differences between home and pro versions, in their chart.  Yes, I carefully compared the features in the various flavors, and concluded I did not need "professional, incremental backups"^₂ nor did I need to attach to a domain network.   That was pretty much it. They lied.  There's a host of disabled administrative features that used to be easy to do, but in home, requires obscure and arcane spells using the command-line.  Such as enabling the hidden administrator account.   I've now seen several messages "this feature is not available in home premium version."  At least they had the decency to not offer to upgrade right then.... I might seriously have upgraded to Linux.  But, I can upgrade for $90US with a few web-clicks:  it changes my license to, say, pro or ultimate.  Which unlocks the already installed, but disabled features...

B) Win7 does not know what to do with old hard drives that had permissions set into "lock down" mode.  Such as what you'd see in a saved profile.  Idiot software.   It takes some serious diddling about with permissions (under security).  This is a very serious flaw, I think.  In older versions, it was dirt-simple to take ownership of the folder and all it's sub-children (files, etc).  A few clicks, and away you went.   Not win7.  I suspect it's because I'm running as a super-user, and not a full-on admin.

C) Today, I found out how to unlock the hidden full-on admin account.  (command line spell casting).   Switching to that account seems to reduced the problem with #2, above a fair amount.  It's still needlessly complex, though.  But possible.   I may hunt for some "ownership" 3rd party tools.  Better yet, I'll just copy those files and strip permissions during copy, using XXCOPY utility.... which reminds me, I need to get their latest.

D) I've still had some teething issues with my ancient crappy game.  I needed to disable the "cool" /sarcasm menu "features" in Win7, and some other video issues to make it completely stable.

E) I'm planning on adding another hard drive-- the prices on these things is dirt cheap:  $60US for a 500gig drive.  I'll copy with XXcopy my files from my 350 drive, install that internally, and install the new 500gig into the external housing the 350's in now.  Then, I'll bare-metal the 350, and use it for all future new program installs, keeping the clutter on my main system drive at a minimum.  For some odd reason, the builder saw fit to double-partition it (it's only 160gig) into a 120 gig and a 35 gig.  I still am not clear what the 35gig partition is for, what it's doing or why they did that-- zero information on the subject.  I may have to e-mail Tiger and ask....

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

^₁ ...is anyone really surprised?

^₂ I do my own manual backups.  Really.  I just don't create that much stuff, that needs backing up. E-mail.  I can easily handle the e-mail folders myself.  And I'm not worried about loosing a few e-mails between one backup and the next.  The occasional document I make, I habitually save on at least two different physical drives anywho.

As for windoze itself?  I am contemptuous of backing it up:  I'd much rather have a clean re-install.  I have a factory CD for that.

[Griffin NoName]

I never do full backups. Like you, I just copy out the files/directories I need. The only downside is remembering apps data if required.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I never do full backups. Like you, I just copy out the files/directories I need. The only downside is remembering apps data if required.

Aye, that is a rub-- if you're using some software that requires special incantations. 

.BAT files work well in those cases-- in it, you include any required weavels, daemons or sprites who's presence is required in the backup folder.



Notepad can still create these-- just remember to rename it from ".TXT" file.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

(I'll put this in a new post, to avoid confusing, rather than editing it into my last one.  Hope nobody minds.)

Windoze 7 updates so far.

As you may recall, I had two hard drives installed onto my new box, from previous versions of Windoze (specifically, XP pro).  Both are NTFS filesets, and of course, both have those lovely "permissions" all over them.

I'd been in the habit of backing up my critical files by simply copying the whole "Documents and Settings" folder onto a large drive.  Later on, if I needed space, I'd go in and trash out the junk from that-- I always thought it better to back up more than I possibly needed, and delete the junk, than to pick-and-choose and possibly miss an important, but deeply hidden (at the end of arcane and super obscure directory structures) files.   Sure it was quick-and-dirty, but it was effective:  that backed up my E-mail files (all of'em, even old profiles), my Firefox profile (bookmark/shortcuts included, and cookies) and any documents I may have created along the way.  It also backed up my desktop, in case I'd stashed a file or three there.

But, alas, Win7 has the 'good intentions, but crap implemented' UAC.   Or, more formally the User [non]Access Control.   As far as I can tell, this software is cleverly designed to prevent anyone, anytime, anywhere, regardless of access rights, from accessing the files on their computer.

Seriously--- I'm not exaggerating, here.   Google "Access denied" and "windows 7" for forum after forum of people complaining they can no longer access their old(er) files.  This is especially true, if those files were created in any previous version of Windows, up to and including Vista, but also going back to windows 95.   Obviously, it does not appear to have affected FAT or FAT32 volumes, but as any tech guru would tell you, those are somewhat unreliable volumes for anything over 2gig....^₁  The leading reason why FAT/FAT32 is abandoned is that it cannot easily recognize when a drive is going bad.  Whereas NTFS can, largely due to it's built-in verification codes and file re-checking abilities.

But, NTFS (which stands for NT File System-- invented for the late lamented microsquish's NT server OS) also has rights management built in.  As well as built-in long file names.  Error-checking.  Loads of other handy stuff only loved and appreciated by real computer geeks. 

I'm told Win7 has a newer version of NTFS, which went through several incarnations itself.  There's the original, then the one for Win2000 and another, upgraded one for XP. And now, the one in Win7.  I've no idea what the differences are, if any, nor do I really care....

..................................

Anywho, my problem:  those old backups of "Documents and Settings" were literally giving me fits.  I couldn't even copy files out of them, let alone delete extraneous junk.... they were literally, useless, under Win7's stupid STUPID stupid UAC...

...even under the full-on Administrator account, which I had to unlock using special arcane spells....

Finally, some exhaustive googling for "access denied" and "windows 7", I found a guy, who claims to be a 27 year computer veteran, traced the "access denied" issues to the UAC program.   Disabling it completely, followed by a re-boot seems to be the key.

Then, while UAC is disabled, you reset from the root, the security---> ownership, and be sure the "make all subfolders and files inherit" is checked (or whatever it actually says-- pay attention, make your changes propagate all the way down to the last file in the deepest forest/folder path.)

Once you have ownership, look carefully at the advanced security tab, and delete any weird users in there --- especially if they say "unknown user". These are leftover bits from the previous OS, and now are worse than useless-- they are what's preventing you from accessing.  Again, make sure the changes propagate all the way out to the Land Of Oz.  That may take awhile.

Lastly, give your account full rights and access, from the drive's root, to everything-- again, be sure it walks the Yellow Brick Road to the last flying monkey hidden deep within the poppy seed fields, past the six dread forests of doom.   Again?  It will take some time.  Try humming "follow the yellow brick road" while you wait. 

When done? Close everything down, and re-boot-- sometimes rights' management gets cached into memory...

Then, after checking you now have access to all those arcane files?  You could, if you like that sort of thing, re-enable the UAC....

...I'm mixed about it.  UAC is currently off. I've not had a single nag, on deleting files from old, unneeded backups. 

And? 

I found a whole-drive backup I'd done for something or other, that was 120gig in size-- nothing in there that wasn't saved elsewhere.  Delete....

...I also found another 100gig of duplicate backups on the same drive-- not really needed, as long as I had one.  These are really old anyhow, so Delete...

I now find I have tons of space on my roughly 3/4 of a terrabyte of storage drives.   I'm not planning on purchasing a new HD anytime soon.

I think I'll resurrect my old 30gig backpack USB drive, and backup the latest incarnation of my MP3 files onto it.  Just in case....





________________________

^₁ Yeah, I know that all external flash drives are typically FAT32. This is primarily the fault of digital camera manufacturers, who simply fell back to the de-facto "standard" of FAT/FAT32 file format.  It's unfortunate, because at the time [the earliest digital cameras] there was several open-source, unlicensed formats that are in every way superior to Microsoft's FAT/FAT32.  But, we're stuck with it.  Soon, when solid state devices exceed roughly 100gig, FAT32 will simply not work-- you'll have to partition them into smaller chunks.  Even now, anything over 2gig in FAT32 form is extremely inefficient:  the smallest file-chunk in FAT32, at 2gig, is roughly 2meg.  This means a file smaller than that, still takes up that amount of space. (I think this is the smallest chunk, I forget-- it has to due with the size of FAT32's allocation table limitations).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Funny, usually by having the same user/pwd combination you avoid most permissions problems from other drives but then again I haven't tried the feat on 7 (nor am I too inclined, mind you, I really hate the interface). Interestingly enough ubuntu has no problems reading those NTFS partitions and in the worse case scenario you just enter uid/pwd and you're in.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

The latest wrinkle.

After much cursing, obscure spell-casting and sacrificing to the gods of Microsquish, wIntel and others, I finally gave up the fight:  Windows 7 64bit is just not going to run certain old 32bit programs.

Period.

One of my favorite old-timey games is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1.   I tried everything out there, and then some, in an effort to make this stable in Win7₆₄. 

No Joy:  the game is *going* to crash after 30-40 minutes of play, regardless.  Sometimes, randomly, sooner.   The longer it goes before a crash, the higher the probability of crash-- especially after a map transition. Since the game was written for small memory models, map transitions are frequent.

So saving the game every 5-10 minutes is a must:  but, you cannot use quicksave, as that rewrites the same file over and over-- 1 of every 5 or so save attempts *also* causes a crash, resulting in a corrupted save file.  So you must always save with a new file, lest you corrupt your previous save.   3 or 4 menu clicks, in other words.

Last Friday, I'd had it:  I was done with trying to beat this and Win7 into submission.  Looking in my box-o-parts, I discovered some old[ish] SATA drives I'd put aside.  They were 120gig, smallish in this day and age, but perfect for what I planned.

My new motherboard has a lovely built-in Boot Menu:  Press F11 during initialization, and you get to choose which drive to start from.  Since I'd disabled the quick-start (a silly feature, IMHO-- the last thing I want is to disable diagnostics of memory-- one of the most difficult things to diagnose is flakey memory chips....), so my cold startup takes 30 seconds or so, more than long enough to press F11 if I like.  I've set the default starter drive to Win7, so that if I do nothing, Win7 comes up.

Now, to work:  I unplugged the Win7 drive, and my two external drives.  Then, I installed a little 10gig PATA drive as a sort of proof-of-concept.  It already had WinXP on it, but alas, that install was incompatible with my current motherboard.   So.... some near-frantic searching for my copy of WinXP (I found several things I'd thought I'd lost during the search, and WinXP turned up in a spot I'd carefully put it in-- so as to not lose it.... *sigh* ...  ain't it always like that? ).

Using my F11 menu, I told the system to boot to the CD drive.  Started XP setup, deleted the partition on the little 10gig, and away we went.   Roughly 2 hours later, I had a fully updated, and running XP on the little 10gig.  Sweet.   Then, using an old copy of Ghost (my Acronis is out of date, and does not recognize my current motherboard.  *sigh*  But a 10 year old copy of Ghost worked regardless.... go figure.) I cloned the 10gig onto one of the 120gig SATA drives.   Now I have a nice clean XP image, for this PC, if I need it.   

A bit of physical re-arranging of the internal drives' location, a last minute decision to install a glowing red cooling fan in front of the (now 2) drives, and I was back in business.

About an hour later, I was playing my beloved old game on WinXP.  Played for a couple of hours, straight-- zero crashes.   Sweet.

It was kind of heady:  for that XP, since I only plan to play games with it, I skipped all the usual programming installs, no Star Office, no E-mail, no Websurfing, none of that.  It was kinda relaxing, in a way-- no fiddling about with profiles, old files, etc. 

I decided to re-purpose one of the two external drives into a "program" drive (named, P: of course).  On that, I would install all my games.  In this way, either OS could see and utilize it, if I needed to.  It also keeps the main system drives uncluttered.

After messing with it all weekend, and playing hours of my game (still no crash) I've decided to port over FireFox onto the XP after all.  I find myself occasionally going out to the web, to search for clues to certain aspects of the game I've forgotten about, and surfing with IE makes me nervous.  So far, I've limited myself to trusted game sights and Microsuck's site, but... I could see me going elsewhere.    Fortunately, FireFox is dirt simple to port... in fact, I think I still have the original save from when I 'jumped ship' from the laptop... since that was XP also, a simple copy-and-paste would get me going.

Dual booting is so very painless on this box, that I'm definately going to play with some flavor of Linux on that remaining 120gig SATA drive I unearthed in my box-o-parts...

[Griffin NoName]

Bob, I'm a little confused by all this.

Are you saying that a straight install of Windows 7 means one cannot access any files that were not created under Windows 7 (ie.ones created under older windows versions). ?

This sounds like total madness. I don't see how MS could release such an OS.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Microsoft releasing software incompatible with previous versions or other software made by them?

Unheard of!