Tag Archive for 'WindowsXP'

Picky WindowsXP Home Installation

Published
by
Chris
on December 14, 2008
in Software
. 2 Comments

Here is one for ya! I’m trying to install WindowsXP Home Edition onto a PC for a client. They handed me the PC with the copy of WindowsXP Home SP3 install CD. The PC isn’t anything special, but it’s has 2 250GB SATA II hard drives running in a RAID-1 (mirrored) configuration, and 4 DVD drives (2 are Samsung, and 2 are Lite-on Light Scribe). Now, this is where the fun begins.

As per a normal installation, I insert the CD and run the installer. Silly me forgot about the raid drivers the first time, but then I was presented with a BSOD. A Stop Error to be exact.

0x0000007b (0xf78d2524,0xc0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)

Now, the interesting thing about this error, is that from my google research, it seems that either the installer doesn’t like the destination drive for the installation, or there is a problem with the CD. I checked out the disc, all fine there, so maybe a problem with the Raid setup.

Even after a second attempt with the Raid drivers on a floppy disc (a what?!?! people still use them?? Sadly, yep), I was still presented with the BSOD.

This now had me baffeled, and almost everything I tried had errors. In the end, I started trying different DVD drive. Both Samsung drives gave the errors. I then tried a Liteon drive, and wouldn’t you know it, Windows is now installing. Currently it formatting the Raid-1 drive (27% formatted), but so far it’s been fine and working as expected.

Cleaning the Windows

Published
by
Chris
on January 14, 2008
in Software
. 6 Comments

One thing that annoys me with Windows is how easily useless stuff builds up and never goes away until you stumble across it all. Sure you can trudge through it all and find uninstallers or manually remove it, but I usually find the best way is a simple reinstall of Windows. Oh, and by the way, I’m not talking about windows on your house, I’m talking about WindowsXP. :p

Over the past year I performed a number of hacks and mods, most of which can’t be removed. Two big ones I done were to add Media Center 2005 to XP Pro and add the sidebar from Vista.

So now, I’m currently going through Windows Setup (formatting at 25%), then comes the fun of installing drivers, updates and then finding all the programs that I use daily.

On the upside, this gives me a chance to look at what I use and see if there are any alternatives out there that may be better.

Some may wonder why I don’t just install Ubuntu (or other linux flavour), but the reason behind it is that I can do things much faster in Windows, I don’t really have time to tell Ubuntu who is boss trying to work it out, and I have a heap of Windows only programs that I use regularly and I don’t want to fart around with virtual machines, oh, and I stream to my Xbox360 and my wife doesn’t like Linux.

Reader Question: For you Windows users out there, how often do you do a fresh install of Windows and why? Any hints or tips I should take note of for next time?

Vista Sidebar for XP

Published
by
Chris
on June 11, 2007
in Software
. 0 Comments

Please note that some info in this post may be out of date. Please use this post for reference purposes and a point in the right direction.

Ever since I first used the Vista back in the early days of when it was still in Beta, I fell in love with the Sidebar that it had. Sure enough it’s not a feature rich as Desktop Sidebar, but I but I still like it.

For the last little while, I’ve been looking for a sidebar project that is able to use the gadgets for the Vista Sidebar, but I was starting to think that this didn’t exist. The closest that I’ve found is a sidebar project from thoosje.com, but it has it’s own library of gadgets, so I was still out of luck. Then I stumbled upon this post over at joejoe.org.

Vista Sidebar in XP

As you can see from this screenshot, I’ve got it working, and it works great. Adding gadgets isn’t the same as in Vista, you have to add them manually, but the how to is in the read me in the download.

If you’d like to try this out, head on over to the post at joejoe.org (linked above), and click on the big green image at the bottom of the first post. It says something like “Vista RTM Sidebar for Windows XP”. For anyone that is confused or doesn’t understand what’s going on, all you need to do is install VIAOXP/2003, make sure you have IE7, WMP11 and KB918997 installed, and follow the rest of the instructions.

Convert XP Pro to MCE

Published
by
Chris
on April 2, 2007
in Software
. 7 Comments

Since the 2007 Fall Update, I no longer have a need to run MCE on my PC. The main reason I done this was to get Transcode 360 to convert video files so they would play on my big TV.

Yesterday I helped a friend of mine, Daz, set up Windows Media Center Edition 2005 to work with his Xbox360. After a bit of stuffing around thanks to Microsoft doing such a outstanding job as they always do, we managed to get it all working after a few hours.

There were 2 main issues that we came across. The first was that when installing MCE, it would ask for the WindowsXP Service Pack 2 CD, but what it really wanted was Disc 1 from the install disc set. We finally worked that one out only to find that Update Rollup 2 wouldn’t install cause it wanted MCE 2005 which we had. A quick google search found a registry hack to fix that. After that it was pretty much all fine an dandy, except for a few network tweaks.

I must say that I’m pretty impressed with the Media Center feature on the Xbox360. So much that I’ve decided to have a go myself, so today, I went on a hunt to find a *cough* copy *cough* to experiment with.

Well, I didn’t think it was possible to convert WindowsXP Pro to Media Center Edition 2005. Not an upgrade, but more like installing a program. Basically what I found was a disc image which basically does a few hacks to WindowsXP Pro so that it thinks that it’s MCE, and then you install the MCE software and the updates, and if your lucky, you should have MCE on your PC.

I gave this a go and installed it on an old hard drive I had laying around that still had an install of WinXP. I went through all the steps and done everything exactly as the instructions say (it’s pretty strict), and after about an hour I had MCE on my PC. Pretty simply. I then proceeded to install Update Rollup 2 (required for the Xbox360) and there I started to run into a few issues. Pretty much the same error as Daz was getting, though the solution wasn’t the same. I had a browse through the UPDATE.INF file with the rollup and made sure that all the required registry settings were the same. I found a few for the .NET framwork that weren’t the same, so I fixed them up, and away we went, Update Rollup 2 was installing. I was pretty happy then.

I added the Xbox360 extender software and now my 360 has MCE working on it.

Since I done this on an old HDD, now I have to go and do it on my main hard drive. Though I will backup all my data just in case something does happen to go wrong. I read about a few people that have lost everything due to a bad burn of a disc and things like that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I am still using my legit Windows product key. This was one of the main factors of this task.

If any one is interested in this, let me know either by leaving a comment here (make sure you leave your email address), or via my contact page.

Please do not ask me for info about this. The site that had the links is no longer online. Here is a possible source that may do the same, but I haven’t tried this so I cannot confirm. If this source has worked for you, would you please mind leaving a comment below.