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Author Topic: Gateway computer support Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 03-28-2003 01:39 AM                     Daryl said: quote: Paul, if you cut back on those weenies you wouldn't be puking! Daryl, I have only one answer: Pbpthbpthbthp!  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-28-2003 01:40 AM                        It'd probably be easier to talk too.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 03-28-2003 01:43 AM                     Daryl, correct me if I am wrong, but MacroSmash 98SE wants to occupy about 226 megs (including MSIE which is crucial for us) of HD space after installation. That still is a significant munch out of the HD as compared to Windblows 95, especially for some who are HD space conscious and have a ton of programs to load that will run just fine under WIN95. And Jeeze...when you download about 50 megs of patches and fixes for the 98 platform and MSIE with Office Pro and Gasflapper programs installed, there is hardly nothing left for HD space. When I download all the critical updates, patches, etc., there is only about 150 megs left if I am lucky. We are too cheap to install bigger drives, because the bios won't recognize huge drives without additional software, and as slow as those Compoops are, why bother? When our sales people use those machines for XL and Winword, kiss the remaining drive space goodby in a 3 month period. I am constantly deleting shit off those drives, including stuff that should not be on them in the first place....They never learn, it seems. Oh, well...Job security I guess. I am not hammering Compoop.....we have a Gateway that is suffering the same fate. True, Windows 95 eats elephant droppings....there is no question about that one....  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-28-2003 02:26 AM                        No you are right Paul. I forgot that Windows 95 typically won't use more that 76MB of hard drive space. Leaving you with a little more than a 100MB extra space than if you had used Windows 98 in its trimmed down ~180MB size. Either way, I'd still avoid using Windows 95 on a desktop that I was going to regularly use, to me the improved stability would be worth the 100-150MB sacrifice. Especially on an 800MB to 1GB hard drive that the Gateway machine probably has. Office on the other hand, weighing in at a little over 400MB after applying the necessary service packs, is a software suite that I would be picky about what exactly gets installed. Then again, I've only got 17GB free out of my main workstations 400GBs of hard drive space, so I guess I'm really a pack rat anyway. edit: Just saw that you added that you've got people who like to mess with the systems. You should check out Deep Freeze. I've used it on quite a few corporate and school board networks and have been very happy with it. Gone are the days where users tie up my entire day.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 03-28-2003 03:32 AM                        quote: BTW, BIOS Boot Sector Virii Detectors are the leading cause of failed OS installations. Even if you want to use the feature, make sure to temporarily disable them before you install the OS. Explaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-28-2003 04:21 AM                        The BIOS Boot Sector virii detectors block the hardware from being able to write to the boot sector until the user confirms that the write should be allowed. Some don't even ask the user for confirmation and just block the write altogether (this type is rare). This often causes the installation software to give up trying to write the boot sector because the software will 'time-out' trying to write the boot sector, usually before the notification even pops up. In most cases, the installation software will give up so quickly that you will never even be notified about its attempt to write to the boot sector. Then end result of the installation software not writing to the boot sector is a missing bootloader or bootstrap. Without one the operating system cannot load since the hardware won't know where to look for the OS (the bootloader/bootstrap contains info on where and how to load the OS). Most OSes' installation software will just abort the installation if it finds it can't write the bootstrap to the boot sector but there are some funky, non-mainstream (mainly older) OSes that will just continue along like nothing happened, leaving the user wondering why the system won't boot after the installation is done.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 03-28-2003 08:15 AM                        I understand that applies only to the primary installation of the OS? Or to later additions as well?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-28-2003 12:25 PM                        Regular service packs and other updates won't be affected. However, operating system upgrades where there is an entire version change, say Windows 98 to Windows 2000, would be affected.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 03-28-2003 06:38 PM                     Hi guys. I'm on-line on a friend's computer. Mine is down. I have a Win 98 disc. I need to kill windows 95 before installing 98. We tried yesterday, but 95 kept insisting NO! Today, my comp. will start-up. but goes to safe-mode, then goes black. I'll be around now and then until I get my system fixed. Bruce  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 03-30-2003 05:53 PM                     I'm back!!! Same computer, but reloaded with Windows 98. Now, I have to relearn everything I had figured out on the old system! Thanks to all of you that replied to my requests. I tried everything you suggested. I missed you all. Seems like I was gone a long time!  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-31-2003 12:19 AM                     I'm jumping in on this one late just to ask how Win98 is running on that circa 1995 Gateway. I have older versions of Windows laying around for "museum piece" machines. Sure, Win98 might afford more features and such for an old computer, but by and large you usually take a massive performance hit by updating. I would not even attempt to install WinME or WinXP on such an old machine (and that's even if the OS would even install successfully at all). Actually, I would be very tempted to go the opposite end and just install Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS on it and run some really old apps like the DOS version of Word Perfect 5.1. Certainly it would not look pretty, but you would get respectable speed and reliability on that old machine. Any new software (or "bloatware" to use a more accurate term) would probably bring the box to its knees. Some people ask me, "what can I do to keep my computer running like new?" I tell them, "don't upgrade anything."  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 03-31-2003 12:41 AM                     Bobby, I totally agree with you in the third paragraph of your above post. We have MSDOS 6.22 based computers running (Even one of them is an old 286) that never seem to crash. They are reliable enough to use as out book keeping computers. They also use specialized third party software. Our programming computers are likewise MSDOS-based with specialized third party software. The DOS based computers of our system are trouble-free. The most serious maintenance that has to be performed from time to time on these old boat anchors is "Defrag" and that's about it! We did have to use windows 3.1 and 3.11 because of SAW and Fast Edit. They need a minimum of 3.1... And yes, our on-air computers use Lantastic Version 8 on a coax network. (it does have its limitations, though... ) The only computers we have based on Windows 95 or above are in our sales and administrative departments. All of that stuff is on DSL. Those keep me busier than a cat on a tin roof.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-31-2003 01:02 AM                        Oh how I miss having to regularly deal with Lantasic networks -- Lantastic 6 really was fantastic. You haven't had fun, though, until you've used Novell Netware Lite... why doesn't this work, oh yeah, stupid %^$%&#& lite version!  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 03-31-2003 01:04 AM                     oooOOOOoooo! I guess I pushed Daryl's button... Actually, the only problems I have had with Lantastic 8 are occasional network collisions, and just plain slow if the network is busy transferring shit from one machine to another during the programming mode. Booting is slow when the entire network has to be booted. It takes a few minutes for each machine to find each other. If it doesn't find it, it'll just sit there and beep at you until it is over-ridden or it does find it.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 03-31-2003 01:34 AM                        Nah, Lantastic is a fun little network OS that few people actually understand. You do know, Paul, that you're supposed to run it on top of Dr. DOS!  |  IP: Logged

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