[Tfug] Microsoftware wars on my computer

[Matt Jacob]

I'm not defending Microsoft or anything, but I wouldn't exactly say
that they're encouraging people to upgrade to Vista quite yet. They
make it very clear that it's beta quality software and that you're
responsible for anything that happens to your system as a result of
trying it out.

That being said, the good news is that your fix is relatively simple.
Just zero out the drive and you should be good to go.

Matt

On 6/16/06, sitkaa at email.arizona.edu <sitkaa at email.arizona.edu> wrote:
> It looks like I am gonna be paying alot more attention to this board for awhile.
>
>
>
>
> Two days ago I followed Microsoft's recommendation, and updated everything,
> installed their newest, latest and greatest whatsits. Among them was MS Vista.
>
> My recommendation for anyone thinking of upgrading is: DON'T!!! Vista works very
> poorly, conveniently deleting competitive non-M$ program files (oops, it is a
> beta, you know), and generally not working worth a flip. Whatever security
> reasons there are to upgrade, I cannot imagine them being worth the problems
> that program incurs.
>
> Vista alters the hard disk's Master Boot Record, making it very hard to remove.
> I had not the expertise to remove it myself, and couldn't figure out how to do
> a rollback to XP. Nor did I have the patience to spend days, weeks trying to
> figure it out. I went out and bought another (blank, unformatted) hard drive,
> set it as the primary, and have been reloading most of my old programs back on.
> It has been an incredible excuse to clean up the system, update the drivers,
> etc. That was all day yesterday. Thank you, Microsoft.
>
> At this point, I don't care what it takes. I am migrating to something, anything
> else.
>
>
>
>
> So I have two hard drives. The first is set up with XP and several years worth
> of associated files and whatnots.
>
> The second disk is gonna be blank, as soon as I figure out how to delete all the
> Microsoft files that Microsoft is not allowing me to delete (I don't have enough
> privaleges to remove them from my old hard drive - I hope reformatting it will
> satisfy care of the need for privelges). The second drive is also formatted
> with the newer Vista Master Boot Record, which apparently can be a nasty cur to
> work with. I would like to use this disk for linux programs.
>
> So I downloaded and wrote an ISO of Ubuntu (it looks like a good place for noobe
> to start), just to check it out, see if I can run the program. Well it turns
> out, I can't. When I reboot to this disk, my monitor comes up with an error
> that says, in effect, it can't read the video signal. I suppose it could be the
> video card or the monitor.
>
>
>
>
> Too sum:
>
> Is the Vista Master Boot Record gonna be problem in converting the second disk
> to Linux?
>
> Can I simply reformat the second disk with GRUB or LILO, or do I do that with
> Ubuntu, or does the Ubuntu program have the GRUB or LILO built in?
>
> How can I overcome the video signal problem?
>
>
>
>
> System = Dell Dimension 9100
> CPU = Dual core 2.8
> RAM = 1.5 gig PC4200
> Hardrive controller = SATA
> C: = SATA II 160 gig (the new one)
> F: = SATA 80 gig
> Monitor = Dell 1905FP
> Video Card = Radeon X300 SE 128MB Hypermemory
>
>
>
>
> Thanks, in advance for your help.
> Michael
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
> Subscription Options:
> http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org
>
>
>