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17 05 2008

Reinstall Fun

Posted by Alan in Technology

SpannerOk, so reinstalling my whole PC hasn’t been an awful lot of fun. And thanks to iTunes for kicking me while I’m down, by deleting the music that was on my iPod that it could’ve just synced back into the library. That’s my freshly-bought Iron Man soundtrack up the spout. Think I’ll just buy the CD next time Steve.

However, doing a clean install of Windows and Ubuntu has been an interesting experience. It has to be said, that out of the two Ubuntu wins hands down. It was faster for a start. But more importantly it was also a heck of a lot smarter at detecting my hardware. On booting into my freshly installed Windows system I had no network card and no sound. Fortunately I had the Asus driver CD, so I was able to get them up and running, but the missing network connection was a heart-stop moment.

Ubuntu LogoContrast this with Ubuntu, which auto-detected all my hardware smoothly. Getting it online was a breeze. And as a plus, Hardy also now correctly uses my router as a DNS server. Previous Linux installations have always needed the direct IP addresses for the DNS servers supplied by my ISP. The only real glitch was in the NVidia driver, which wasn’t properly setup. But that was quickly fixed by installing the newer package from synaptic, and then running the command prompted by the Nvidia config utility.

However, the really fun thing was a result of XP service pack 3. Of course, with a newly-minted Windows install I got my anti-virus and firewall reinstalled and then hit Windows Update. The first thing it got me to install was SP3. I’d heard dodgy things, so wasn’t too happy, but what can you do?

However, a real fun factor of SP3, is that it breaks the ability to install MS software, and use Windows update. Installing separate things like iTunes was a breeze, but Windows Live Messenger, or all those critical IE fixes just wouldn’t install.

A quick websearch through up this forum post.

Essentially you can fix it by copy-and-pasting the following into a command prompt:

regsvr32 wups2.dll

Its easily fixed. But still, that’s a hell of a bug to leave in there. Crippling Windows Update also makes me wonder how exactly they’re planning on rolling out the fix…

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 22:15 and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Reinstall Fun”
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  1. David says:
    May 17, 2008 at 22:54

    I know the ‘heart stop moment’ as well. When I was reinstalling windows on a relative’s machine I found that after the frustratingly long process, that there were no network or graphics drivers. I really should have backed up the drivers first (like with the nice bit of freeware DriverMax. Saves and reinstalls them xD) but the possibility of Windows failing to recognise a standard intel ethernet card never crossed my mind. Thankfully, I eventually found a driver for the ethernet card and Windows Update did the rest. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relieved as when I saw the icon pop up saying Local Network unconnected telling me it finally recognised the hardware.

    Glad to hear you’ve sorted it all out.

    Incidentally, I’m going to see the Iron Man movie tommorrow, is the soundtrack as good as some of the previous Marvel releases?

  2. Alan says:
    May 18, 2008 at 10:59

    I really love the Iron Man soundtrack. I’ve heard the complaint that it doesn’t have a strong “theme” (a la Burton’s Batman, or Donner’s Superman), but much like X-men or Spider-Man, the theme is definitely there. I love the use of electric guitars in it, and I really love the music for when he’s suiting up (on the soundtrack, Mark II and Driving With The Top Down are probably my favourite tracks as a result).

    Keep your ears open for a nod to the 60s theme early in the film as well ;-)

    I was really surprised by the driver situation in XP. My experiences before yesterday had always been that XP had a pretty strong base of default drivers are part of the installation.

    In fairness to it, once I’d run a couple of Windows updates it did recognise my soundcard and sort that out, but if I hadn’t had the driver disc for my network card, it’d have been a lot tougher to get going.

    Well, ok, I’d have just booted into Ubuntu, and used it to ID the card and download the Windows driver from somewhere, so I shouldn’t oversell it ;-)

  3. Pie Man 70 says:
    May 19, 2008 at 13:04

    I’ve passed on sympathy about this before. Must see about getting my external drive repaired, but do I want to hand it to a repair shop with all my *ahem* arthouse films on it?

    As for your I tunes experience. I won’t say I told you that Steve Jobs infects all with his dark taint. as a thought for consideration, coudl youa rgue that you ahev a right to download the Iron man soundtrack illegally if ITunes won’t refund you, you have paid ofr it once already? Similarly for your damaged oblivion CD?

  4. Alan says:
    May 19, 2008 at 14:15

    Well, in terms of damaged CDs, I believe that usually companies will be fairly happy to replace them with working copies. But for the sake of getting my Oblivion fix, I just shelled out for a new one. I play the game enough that I don’t decry them another £20.

    There’s certainly a moral justification for saying “I know this is an illegal download, but I’ve already paid for the album, so this is a backup copy”. Of course, it’d still be an illegal copy in the eyes of the law, morals aside. And if you were to torrent it, then you’re in the murky waters of also uploading it as well.

    But I’d agree that there’s a moral justification there, definitely.

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