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Thread ID: 74544	2006-11-26 19:37:00	Windows Install Disease	pctek (84)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
502272	2006-11-26 19:37:00	I've found there seems to be a prevalence of this around, especially lately. Example 1: Friend rings me to ask why she was having trouble with her install of WinXP. She has no PC knowledge other than as a basic user. Turns out her friiends elderly Win98 PC had crashed, would not load at all anymore so she took her sons copy of XP and tried to install it. It wouldn't proceed past a certain part of the install. Minimum hardware specs? What are they? Drivers? What are drivers? WGA? Whats that? Example 2: Neighbours boy rings to ask if I had a "spare DLink setup CD". Why? He couldn't get his elderly laptop working online. Turns out he took his friends mothers laptop recovery CD (WinXP) and installed it on his laptop with a 4Gb HDD and 96Mb RAM. Minimum hardware specs? What are they? Drivers? What are drivers? WGA? Whats that? Why had he done that? Well, it failed when he tried it on his mothers desktop PC so.....and anyway his mate had done it to other laptops. But why? Well, XP is newer...therefore it would in some way improve the PCs? I'm actually amazed he got it working as far as that point without it bluescreening.... It seems to be a favourite thing to do with all the teenage boys round here...	pctek (84)
502273	2006-11-26 20:50:00	yep...plenty of that even on this forum. "newer must be better", the "its from MS so it must be good" and the "its (illegally) free so it must be good" diseases	tweak'e (69)
502274	2006-11-26 21:45:00	Yes, seems to be a lot of it around. Step-father rang me recently saying he was rather pleased with his updated computer. It used to be 128MB RAM running with Win ME (the CPU is P3/Celeron era). Because he couldnt get Adobe Reader 7 (he had 6 with a speedup tweak I added before) to install on his machine, he took it to a local (to him) computer guy. The guy couldnt find his ME licence (I wonder if the idiot ever heard of magicaljellybean), so sold him an extra stick of RAM (iirc 128MB) and Win XP. Step-father is chuffed now coz he has XP and Adobe Reader 7. Im not going to tell him he was ripped (principle, he knows I do computer repair; sending it to me was impractical, however I would have freely advised him on his next best step). Some people just will never learn :groan:	Myth (110)
502275	2006-11-26 21:45:00	That, plus some people just seem to see it as a 'cure all' without fully understanding the consequences. There's also the odd tech who sees a reinstall as the default option - in my opinion an extremely bad idea. From experience even if you try to explain it to the customer in question, often they simply don't get it. They say they understand, agree with it, and then after the process ask why something looks different, or why they can't access a certain program (even though they were told in no uncertain terms that it would be wiped and need to be installed again). Reinstalling does have its merits, but from a business perspective I think it's an option that should be considered an absolute last resort. Most problems can be solved without it.	Erayd (23)
502276	2006-11-27 00:41:00	If you are in business (or value your friends) and you are smart, you will have a piece of paper writ big with black letters saying that "a reinstallation will wipe all previous data from your hard drive, irretrievably etc yadayadayada"..........plus "I understand and accept that this will happen and I will lose all old programs installations & data etc, and authorising you to proceed. Get them to sign it before you start work. Of course that is way too sensible and rational for most computer repair techs (PF1 members excepted of course). Cheers Billy 8-{) :2cents:	Billy T (70)
502277	2006-11-27 00:58:00	If you are in business you will have a piece of paper writ big with "I understand and accept that this will happen and I will lose all old programs installations & data etc, and authorising you to proceed. Get them to sign it before you start work. Of course that is way too sensible and rational for most computer repair techs Well I have only ever done a complete erase and fresh install twice. (after retrieving their precious photos and docs etc) They had it explained in excruiating detail - mainly because I'm not thrilled about spending hours reinstalling all their 900 apps and games all over again. But 99% of the time I FIX it, not wipe it and start again. At the very least its a cheat anyway.	pctek (84)
502278	2006-11-27 01:00:00	...saying that "a reinstallation will wipe all previous data from your hard drive, irretrievably etc yadayadayada"..........plus "I understand and accept that this will happen and I will lose all old programs installations & data etc, and authorising you to proceed. Get them to sign it before you start work.I have something very like that, although it's deemed rather than signed acceptance, and indemnifies from any data or other consequential losses. I still avoid reinstalling wherever possible though - no matter how many times you explain it, the majority of them simply don't absorb the real implications, and it makes for much happier customers if the problem can be fixed without nuking all their apps and settings as well. Not to mention that reinstalling is almost never necessary.	Erayd (23)
502279	2006-11-27 03:00:00	im a ''teenage boy'' and i use xp because it came with my comp, ive gotten use to it so thats what i use to format new hdd's etc, why would i go out of my way just to buy a 98 copy of windows, and reformat my hdd? huh? yeah i thought so.	jesse_jax (9283)
502280	2006-11-27 03:14:00	im a ''teenage boy'' and i use xp because it came with my comp, ive gotten use to it so thats what i use to format new hdd's etc, why would i go out of my way just to buy a 98 copy of windows, and reformat my hdd? huh? yeah i thought so. and of course installing your copy of XP on these other pc's is illegal. i think you missed what the orginal post was on about. peole don't care that it illegal and a lot don't know that the old pc's will run worse with XP on them. win98 may run perfectly fine on the old pc so why bother buying another OS?	tweak'e (69)
502281	2006-11-27 03:33:00	im a ''teenage boy'' and i use xp because it came with my comp, ive gotten use to it so thats what i use to format new hdd's etc, why would i go out of my way just to buy a 98 copy of windows, and reformat my hdd? huh? yeah i thought so.I think there's a teenage literacy gap here! If I read this post literally, Jesse seems to think it was being suggested that when he reformats his HDD, or any new HDDs he installs in his computer, he has to forgo XP and revert to W98. Of course if the "my hdd" he is talking about is in fact "somebody else's hdd" then it is a legality gap, not a literacy gap. Huh? Yeah, I thought so. Cheers Billy 8-{)	Billy T (70)
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